Page 123 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine

korean war

Not surprisingly, outbreaks of dissension were crying when they read their mail on the plane”
frequent, and control of prisoners became and was afraid he would to the same thing.
more and more difficult. In May 1952 and after
numerous riots, the camp commandant was The former mess sergeant doesn’t care if he is
lured to one of the compounds on the pretense remembered for feeding an army. Buzz wants
of a need to ease camp tensions. Instead, he others to reflect on his “love of God, family,
was set upon and captured. The 38th Infantry a free country and that we should always
had to sit and watch as the general was put remember those who went before us.”
on a mock trial on criminal charges. He
was finally released after negotiations. Both
General Dodd and his replacement, General
Colson, were reduced in rank to colonel. The
39th Regiment, along with the 187th Airborne,
were able to retake the compound in June 1952.

Buzz stayed on at Koje-do for “three to four
months and made coffee for the guys on guard
duty during the night at the prison camp, and
they really appreciated it.” He also helped
feed the American troops stationed there. He
returned to the front lines for a short time. The
unit was assigned South Korean troops, and he
remembers that they “loved sweets and would
drink only sugar water a lot as their meal.”
Buzz left Korea in August 1952 and was
discharged from the Army in September 1953.

He worked in Ft. Worth for a while and later
at the New Mexico (now Navajo) Refinery in
Artesia, New Mexico. Here he met his future
wife, Virginia Thorpe, who had been married
before and had a 6½-year-old daughter.
They married in July 1954 and had two more
daughters and a son. The family moved to
Big Spring, Texas in 1965 where Buzz worked
for a welding supply store. Later, he sold
figurines in the West Texas area for an Alabama
company called All God’s Children.

Buzz “found out about the Texas South Plains
Honor Flight at the Lubbock VA Clinic a couple
of years ago and was finally able to go on the
2017 flight.” He would have gone earlier but
was caring for his wife who had dementia. He
was honored to help lay a wreath at the Korean
War Memorial and was especially moved by
the “mail call” on the flight to Washington.
He waited until he got to his room that night
to read the mail because he “saw other guys

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