Interviewed by Andrew Hu & Serena Tam
I grew up in South Carolina. My childhood was pretty good. With three brothers and three sisters, I was one of the middle people who had older siblings look out for me throughout my whole life. I had a big sister who you could call a big brother because she was the top dog in the family. She passed just a couple of weeks ago. She was my best friend.
I was born in 1960; at that time there was a lot of racial tension, which affected my schooling a lot. I went to an all-black Catholic school for elementary school, but middle school was when things started getting racially-divided, because we had riots, white versus black. I didn’t choose between the two sides though. I was one of the people who didn’t care about racism; I didn’t care about black and white. My dad hated white people, however. He didn’t hate them, but he hated the way he got treated by them. But I could get along with anybody; I had white friends and black friends. I slept over at my white friend’s house, I slept over at my black friends’ house. I got called “cracker” a lot, simply because I wasn’t like them - that I liked white people too.
I went to high school in South Carolina. Peer pressure makes you do silly things. When I got to ninth grade, I got in some trouble; I stole some money and my dad threatened to send me to reform school. My sister came in from New York and took me to keep me out of trouble. So I moved to New York, and with all my friends gone, I was a loner. I made it up to tenth grade, but I hated being alone. So I decided to join the military. I wanted to make my dad proud. He was a soldier too.
My cousin was in the Marines then, so I went and took the Marines test - but I failed it. So I came back home to South Carolina and used my Marines test results to apply to the army. I guess they have lower standards in their test, because I got enlisted. So that’s how my military career started.
One year in Texas.
I served in the Army for four years total. For my first year, they gave me an MOS of 19 delta, an armor division in Texas. It was tanks and APCs - Armored Personnel Carriers, which is what I drove. In the army, you’re still a teenager in your head, so you still did teenager stuff; when you got off of work you drank a lot of beer and smoked weed. You meet people from all over there, so that was pretty cool. But it was hard to retain friendships for long, because people are always being shipped somewhere else.
Texas is a big state, it’s got nothing but desert and rocks and stuff. The water that you drink is so hot that you had to drag ice up there. I can’t drink anything hot so I had a problem with that. Out in the woods, you’d be out there for days and days and you’d be so happy to come back in.
Two years in Korea.
I got an order to go to Korea for my second year. I had never been to a whole new country before; I had to start over with more people that I didn’t know, but once I got into the tune, I quickly made a lot of friends. We were in a little Korean village, and they gave us a seminar about what to do and what not to do. They warned us about venereal disease and showed us discourage us from mingling too much. I’m pretty timid, but I just try to make the best of things. My friends liked to go partying with a bunch of girls, but I had a girlfriend. She was Korean. They warn you about getting a wife and how she’d marry you and then leave you the moment you got back to the states just to leave you, but I didn’t think about any of that. Dating a Korean was an experience. They have traditions like taking your shoes off, bathing you - I never had anyone bathe me so it was kind of awkward. That relationship didn’t go far though because her mother wanted her to go out like the other girls and make money with her body. She didn’t want to disobey her mother, so I lost her that way.
In Korea, I stayed neat and proper, so they picked me out to be the driver for the Sergeant Major. This job had many perks because it usually meant that I could go anywhere with the Sergeant’s car after driving him home, and it also meant that. I didn’t have to get up in the morning and run five miles and all that. It depended on the sergeant though.
One year in Germany.
After two years in Korea, I got sent to Germany for my final year. The two countries couldn’t have been more different. In Korea, everybody’s for themselves, but everything in Germany was so clean and beautiful. I went to a couple churches for a couple of weddings. I wasn’t invited, but I just wanted to see what was going on in there. We couldn’t be in the towns though, or they would complain about us tearing up the streets with our tanks. So we were in the woods and the fields all the time. If we wanted to go into the city, we would call a cab to a city, and it would be a Mercedes-Benz. The drivers in Germany drive like racecar drivers - there’s no speed limit.
I remember seeing beautiful glass windows. I thought there were mannequins in the window but it was actually real people. They were hookers in the window but they were standing like mannequins. That’s where you’ll find most GIs. While my friends were having fun, I was bored. Boring to my friends at least. I didn’t roll like that, I never could do that.
Everybody who went tried to learn the language. I learned a little bit of Korean. I learned a little of German. And now when I run into Koreans in the Korean store, and I speak to them, they get surprised, and that’s cool to me. I have a Korean friend who owns a fish store, and I shop there a lot. Every time I go there I speak to them and I get what I want so they give me some extra fruit, so that’s pretty cool.
I guess my experiences were not all about war and stuff, but I just did my time in the Army and learned what I could learn from all types of people. As a matter of fact, I would always talk my way into being the big guy’s friend. Most of my life I didn’t have to fight anyone. I would talk to them, make them understand, make them laugh, and they would fight for me.
Post-military life.
Even when I got out, I was going to reenlist and join the reserves. But I helped out with a guy who knew carpentry and taught me everything he knew, and I made a lot of money using those skills so I didn’t have to go back. I was offered $35,000 to reenlist, and back then, that amount of money would make anybody jump. But losing six years of my life to being disciplined and being told what to do all the time - it wasn’t worth it for me.
When I got out and went back to South Carolina, my family was around me, so the transition back to civilian life wasn’t too bad. I eventually met my wife back in ‘82. I was 22. She was from Pennsylvania, so that’s how I ended up here. We moved to Pennsylvania to help take care of her mother, and I really enjoy living in the city. There are a lot of cultures here, especially Korean and Chinese cultures. That’s a definite plus for me because I love Korean food.
I just adopted three kids. They were my nieces and nephew but they were going to put them in a foster home and separate them, and I couldn’t let that happen. So I got three kids now, two girls and a boy. They are 1.5 years old, 5 years old, and 10 years old. My baby girl, the youngest one, gives me so much joy because I get to watch her grow up. I’d never taken care of a baby from such a young age before. She just learned how to talk, and now she tells me I love you all the time through the phone.
I’m in the hospital because I have a kidney problem. But after I get out of here, I can go home to my kids. Take them shopping. They love shopping. And I love my wife; I got a great wife. She’d do anything for me.
I go to a bus stop, a train, I don’t know why but people pick me out to talk to. I don’t want to talk, but they pick me out to talk to.