Focus on Your Job

Well the focus was on our job really, let’s face it. We didn’t have much time to look around. There was no looking around. Once we joined, once we arrived in Korea we knew we were committed and the focus was get there, get to your battalion and once you get there, get to your job and get adjusted as quickly as possible. That was part of it. We didn’t have time really to communicate with the local population. I am talking about our case. Some people previous to us, our battalion for instance, arrived in Pusan and from Pusan worked their way up to beyond the 38th parallel. That was very different and they did this on foot, in vehicles and whatnot which was very, very different in their case. They could see a lot more of it, in fact, part of their mission at the time was to wipe out what was left behind after the Americans had done their landing in Incheon and so on. But our group did not have to live through that except that the focus was to get there and do your job and get integrated as soon as possible. And by the time we arrived there in January, brigade was in reserve, battalion was in reserve, that was a good time to arrive. The war had become static.