LIFE IN THE 10TH SPECIAL SERVICE COMPANY, KOREA

 

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker

            Having attained the exalted rank of Corporal in the U. S. Army in l947, I let myself be persuaded at the time of my discharge to sign up for the Army Reserve, inactive.  One of the arguments for this, we were told, was that in case we ever got called up for active duty again, we would retain our previous rank, and would not have to go back as an ignominious Private.  So the Korean "Police Action" started in 1950, and sure enough, some bureaucrat in Washington DC made the decision that the "inactives" were to be called back before he "active" Reserve.  This was not being fair at all, but just as unfair was the fact that sometime between 1947 and 1950 all ranks were cut to the next lower.  Hence, all sergeants became corporals; corporals became privates first class; Pfc’s became private I; and the unspeakably low rank of "recruit" was introduced.  Not a good start for my second tour of duty.

            As it happened, the South Dakota retreads that were recalled were an outstanding bunch.  Two had been classmates of mine at South Dakota State College.  There were probably more college graduates in that "Refresher" basic training company than those without degrees.  I believe there were at least two who had Master's degrees.  It was inevitable, I suppose, that the first sergeant for this training cadre was virtually illiterate.  All of us trainees were "wise guys" and it must have been hellish for them to try to browbeat us like a bunch of raw recruits.  But of course they tried.

            Refresher Basic behind us, we were put on troop-ships to go to Japan and renew our acquaintance with the 4^th Replacement Depot (Repple Depple).  After a few dull days of waiting around, about a dozen of us were called out of the barracks one morning for a special detail.  We stood out in the company area for a while, wondering when they were going to issue the brooms and mops for cleaning out the latrines, where were the brushes and paint buckets for painting the rocks, where the dull bayonets for cutting the grass?  We had an unsuspected surprise coming.

            In those days when you were inducted into the Service, you were to fill out a big yellow card, a sergeant directing you, called a Form 20.  It was supposed to contain your entire history, your medical record, your civilian occupation, your capabilities, everything the Army thought it would be useful for them to know.  From our former Army experience, we had learned long ago to lie.  I told the sergeant that I could ride a motorcycle, drive a car, a heavy-duty truck, play the piano, play the clarinet, sing, conduct, be an MC, type, about the only things in which I was not expert were cooking and baking.  Of course I was shaking in my boots that the some responsible person would find out that I had been a qualified parachutist only three years previously.  The military at that time had what they called the "Pipeline", and if you stayed in that you would be sent immediately to the front lines.  My Parachutist, Infantry MOS (military occupation specialty) would have put me in the Pipeline immediately.  Those front lines were getting closer all the time as this was during the big retreat from the Yalu River, when casualties were very heavy and there seemed to be no end to Chinese troops pouring across the river trying to drive us off the Korean Peninsula.  There were not many troops in those days who thought of the war as glorious, a chance to give one's life for South Korea.  No thinking person wants to die in a war as dubious as this "Police Action".

            But some officer must have examined the yellow Form 20s, and so instead of being issued mops and brooms, we dozen or so were marched to the Service Club and auditioned for a musical variety show the Eighth Army Special Services was to put together.  A youngish lieutenant interviewed me, and after a few questions asked me to sing.  Since singing was what I thought I did best, I launched into some song, no accompaniment, of course.  Then he asked if I could improvise a second part to a song that he would sing.  It was a simple piece, and I had had a good bit of experience at this sort of thing in the ASTRP quartet, and several informal troop singing sessions we had had on the trip over to Japan.  At the end of this, he said, “You’re hired", and just like that I was eased out of the Pipeline.  I was now to be a troop entertainer.

            Thank you, God.

            Before we were to go into rehearsal for the show, the 10th Special Service Company (do you suppose there were nine others?) was given a special assignment.  We were sent to unload hospital ships that were taking the casualties from Korea to Japan, and eventually to the U.S.  These casualties from the Yalu Retreat were mostly severe frostbite, including the loss of fingers and toes, sometimes worse.  There was Trench foot, but not too many wounds from battles.  This was how we spent New Years Day 1951, and a couple of weeks following.

            Upon our release from this duty, we were put into a cozy little camp right inside the city of Yokohama, and were trucked to the Octagon Theater every day to rehearse the show.  It was a variety show, no plot or story involved.  It took a long time to get the show ready, because one fellow, a master sergeant, was put in charge.  He had had a little experience with a Broadway show, we were told.  He did he best he knew how, but the results were corny and not-very-entertaining.  He was then replaced by a tall commanding woman who had been a Radio City Rockette.  So we tossed out all the weeks of rehearsal we had behind us and started a new show, "One for the Road".  This woman called herself Skippy Lynn.  She should have been a drill sergeant in the Marines, but she did manage to put together a show that was flashy, loud, and not all that bad.  Her motto seemed to be "If it isn't good, make it louder.  If it still isn't good, make it louder and faster."  Just as in Broadway, we opened out of town.

            Ultimately my part of the show was to sing two solo songs (with the band), sing two more songs with the quartet, and sing with the entire platoon chorus for a big closing number.  Our swing band had two trumpets, a trombone, four saxophones, piano, bass, drum set, and a really good guitarist.  The show had a lot of action; if you weren't doing something that required you to stand still, you were moving.  We leaped up and down big steps made from different size boxes, whirled around, clapped, yelled, played tambourines, castanets, maracas, and triangle, whatever you could carry.  We were in loud colored costumes, I had a pink jacket for one, a green for another, and a blue with lots of ribbons attached for the Latin American songs. We even had low civilian shoes.  So at least it was a change from olive drab, greenish fatigue uniforms and combat boots.

            Then between shows (at times we did three shows per day, seven days per week) we loaded up the three big 6X6 trucks with the piano, all the costumes, a huge red curtain that could be extended the length of the three trucks, a tarp for the "stage", the electric generator, the PA system, the instruments.  Nearly all this stuff went into the van-bodied truck, and the other two were used to transport the troops.  Since I was Assistant Driver of the van, I found myself doing a good bit of the heavy lifting, and was in charge of stowing all this stuff away so it wouldn't get damaged.

            When the driving got mushy feeling, the truck would stop, we'd get out and kick the tires, and usually we would find a flat on the inside of the dual wheels, so both tires would have to come off to fix the flat.  Another duty was to keep the trucks reasonably clean, inside and out.  The military roads were bad, of course, and many times the trucks would be so splashed with mud you couldn't see the camouflage paint.  "Wash the trucks!" was the order, and to do this we would drive them into the nearest shallow stream, take off all our clothes and splash water on the caked mud.  I never actually saw any Korean civilian women watching us cavort around in the altogether, but I never really got used to it.

            It is possible that Skippy Lynn did not really want to go to Korea with this show, or any show, because by the time we left off rehearsing in Japan, she had long since gone back to the States.

            An interesting thing that happened because of the delay in leaving Japan was the trip from Yokohama west to the Hakone national park district in which is located the world-renowned Mt. Fuji.  This was one of the finest possible locations for troops (from the Pipeline) for R and R. The hotels were posh, there were golf courses, there were Japanese baths and massages (Nope, I had a massage, but from a man.)  So this is where we "opened out of town", and all the R and R goodies were available to us at no charge.  We did two shows here; no reviews were written that I ever saw, but there were no drastic changes made in the show following our debut.  Shortly after this, we were loaded on an overnight ferry and landed in Pusan on a thoroughly disagreeable day.  I don't remember much about it except there was a lot of rain and mud.

            There were some interesting characters in our show.  One young guy passed the audition by playing "The Holy City" on his violin.  I heard him play it, and it was magnificent.  Once we got down to learning the music for the show it became plain that that piece was the only thing he could play.  Probably the poor guy got sent back into the Pipeline.

            Skippy Lynn was always threatening us with the Pipeline if we did not meet her standards.  I remember her shouting at me once in rehearsal, "Plucker, take off those goddamn glasses, you look like a schoolteacher!"  My not so diplomatic reply was, "But Miss Lynn, I am a schoolteacher."

            John M. Wasson, who later on as a civilian became prominent as a Shakespearean actor and scholar, acted as the MC and sang bass in the platoon chorus.  John was probably the heaviest drinker in the platoon, and always seemed to be able to get all the liquor he could hold.  Once he got more than he could hold and spent a couple weeks in a hospital recovering from alcohol poisoning.  He was acquainted with most of the houses of prostitution on Isazaki Street; you could easily walk to a half-dozen or so from our barracks.

            Our platoon commander, Lt. Elgert, had arranged for the platoon chorus to sing some sacred music for the Armed Forces Radio in Tokyo twice a month.  This must have been something of a hit, as John Wasson reported that at least two of the whore-houses on Isazaki-cho were regular listeners.  John was our announcer of course, and read some inspirational material between the songs on the program.  I marveled at how John could recover from a Saturday night on Isazaki-cho, make the train trip into Tokyo, and do a creditable job of singing and reading on the Sunday morning show.  He was/is a fine actor and introduced me to all sorts of emotional interpretations of Lewis Carroll's "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe!"

            Constantine Limberakis Jr. was the music arranger and conductor for the platoon chorus.  He took a little ribbing from the men about his long Greek name, but we respected him for his musical ability and his care for excellence.  He was the fellow who found a Columbia 78 recording of the Brahms "Ein deutches Requiem" at some Tokyo store and played it every time he could wangle the use of the platoon PA system with turntable.  This was the first time I had ever heard it, and was completely bowled over with the grandeur of this great composition.  Since then I have had the privilege of singing tenor in it several times, and conducting it three times.

            "Dad" Marsh was our fabulous guitar player.  I don't remember his first name; I know he had one, but he always referred to himself as "Dad".  Perhaps it was because he was a bit older than most of the rest of us, and was more balding.  He had been "around", as they say.  We pitched our tents one hot afternoon near some trees but Dad went off to a patch of green across the road to explore, came back shouting with glee, “That’s marijuana out there!  Growing wild!  Tons of it!”  He was amazed that the entire platoon didn't rise up as one man to harvest marijuana by the ton.  I seem to recall vague interest on the part of one or two of the guys, but that was before there was much interest in it, I guess.

            Our swing band had it ups and downs.  One piece that they played rather badly and was not really worthy of hard rehearsal was called "B-19".  It was obscure at the time, and has achieved well-deserved oblivion today.  We did a show once in Korea when the band attempted to play this.  The show ended with a fine performance of Albert Hay Malotte's "The Lord's Prayer".  Afterward, one of the chorus members said in surprise, "Gee, did you notice that when we sang the "Lord's Prayer" some of the troops were crying?"  "Yeah", said another voice, "They cried when we played B-19 too."

            Just before we left Japan, the band had been rehearsing "Stella by Starlight".  This is a great song, and this arrangement had several quite distinctive chords to introduce the melody.  Later in the day at the Service Club they were having a "name that tune" contest, and just as I entered the room I heard the opening chord.  Of course I shouted out "Stella by Starlight" and won that round of the contest.  The other troops who were present could not begin to figure out how I could name the tune hearing only the first chord.

            President Truman had gotten around to fully integrating the Armed Forces by the 1950s, and so for the first time in my lily-white life, I had the opportunity to become friends with some black guys in our platoon.  David Dozier, pianist from Chicago was one of my close friends.  He was hoping to become a concert pianist, but I lost track of him as a civilian and don't know how well he fared.  I do know that at least one person from Chicago that I talked to many years later had at least heard of him as a pianist.  He tried to teach me some piano on the tour, but of course the platoon piano was not available much of the time and practice was worse than sporadic.  His advice to me, "Correct those mistakes, don't practice them because they will be come perfect".  David was working on the Liszt D flat major Etude and the Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto; with never enough practice time either.

            My actual "war" experiences certainly did not amount to much.  Maybe two weeks after we had arrived in Korea we had an air alert.  There was a message that there was an aircraft in the vicinity, Lt. Elgert, waving his sidearm, yelled at us all to take cover in a nearby ditch.  Perhaps he thought he could down the enemy plane with his pistol, but it turned out to be one of the ubiquitous Piper Cubs the Army used as observation planes.  So our good lieutenant never got to fire his 45

            Another time, having been delayed by a flat tire, my truck got separated a short, but significant distance from the rest of the platoon vehicles.  Trying to catch up, our driver made a wrong turn.  We were soon pursued by a speeding jeep whose driver told us we were headed straight for a Chinese detachment.  He probably saved the three of us in the truck from being taken prisoner.

            Beginning a show in Korea, the three trucks were lined up, the huge red curtain stretched across, with the tarp laid in front for the "stage", the few sets in place, wearing our loud-colored costumes, we were required to wait while a Lt. Colonel instructed our audience of troops where to go and what to do in case of a Chinese attack.  His entire battalion was out in front waiting for the show, but the Colonel told us later that he thought there were more Chinese than Americans who took in the entertainment.  They were said to be on a hillside where they could see our huge red curtain (target) very clearly.  Perhaps they liked the show, as they did not open fire.  We packed up and left as soon as we could.

            My worst night of no sleep was a time when we were with the 3rd Infantry Division.  Our tents were pitched in front of the Division Artillery, and they chose that night to deliver a light barrage over our heads.  The 3rd Division tried to treat us well, but the weather was against them too, and we had the disagreeable experience eating at their field kitchen with the incessant rain pouring down into our mess-kits.

            We did shows for others of the UN forces in Korea too.  Once for the Filipino troops (good beer followed the show), once for the Mexicans (also really good beer), a couple for the British (of course good beer) and even for a small Turkish detachment (no beer).  Good thing our show had no real plot, as I suspect only the British understood any of what we said – or did.

            When my tour of duty was over, I was replaced by a fine dancer who could sing reasonably well.  I don't know about his qualifications as a truck driver, piano lifter, or tire kicker.  Another fellow and I left the platoon and drove the 4X4 weapons carrier from where we were, a bit north of the 38th parallel, to Taegu where we were to be processed one more time.  From there we were to go to Fukuoka and take a troop ship from there to Seattle.  Taegu was an un-nerving experience for me.

            First of all, Taegu had been fought over at least twice during the course of the war, and was in ruinous shape.  I was glad we were to be there for only three days before leaving for Pusan.  I wandered "downtown" one afternoon from the barracks that was temporary home, sat down on a big piece of broken concrete and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of little Korean kids, begging.  One little short guy got to the front somehow and insisted (by signs) that he wanted to polish my boots.  I figured the polish job would not last the trip through the mud and dust back to the barracks, but OK, polish.  He did a thorough job while I sat there, pretty much looking over the heads of the crowd of begging kids while I wished I had something for each of them.  One of the shocks of my life was when I finally looked down and saw clearly the little fellow who had done my boots.  He had no feet.  Had they been frozen beyond saving in the cold Korean winter?  I gave him all the money I had with me, grieving that I could do no more. 

            In 1996 my daughter Holly had signed on to teach English in Korea and was sent to a private school in Taegu.  She did not miraculously meet this little guy some forty-plus years later.