Page 60 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021- Online Magazine

unload their carbines. When I Shortly after that mission, Al
told the men to cease fire, I saw
no more movement. We wiped
them out.”
During his year in combat, Al
was involved in many more
skirmishes. “There was a high
range of mountains north of us.
Once, they took five of us up in
a helicopter to Iron Mountain to
relieve a French unit. We were
left on that mountain for five
days with no water or food. We
finally heard a helicopter, and
I turned on my radio to give
them coordinates. They said it
was too risky to land and we
had to climb a rope ladder (up
to the helicopter). I was the last
man up. It was a pretty risky
operation. I was surprised that no
enemy fired on us.”
60 Lubbock Senior Link
“In another incident, I was in
became very ill. “When we were a group of troops who were
on Iron Mountain, I remembered moving north from a rest area.
going past a rice paddy on the We were coming over a ridge,
way up there, so I snuck down and the lieutenant wanted me to
and drank my fill of water. Days check out a suspicious looking
later, I was diagnosed with group of bushes. He thought
(Korean) Hemorrhagic Fever. The there might be a machine gun
doctor gave me five days to live. nest hidden there. I squatted
They hit me with needles every down to see if I could see light
three or four hours. I was still through the bushes. When I
alive after five days. Two more heard a whistle, I froze. I knew
days went by, and I was feeling it was an incoming shell. The
good, so I was sent back to the sound got louder and louder.
rest area.” It landed three feet from me
but didn’t go off; it was a dud. I
Hollingsworth related another crawled away fast saying, ‘Thank
memory: “We were on a recon you, Lord!’ I never knew if it was
patrol on a ridge when the a rifle grenade or a mortar round.
lieutenant said, ‘Go check out
that shack.’ I slowly approached “Six months after the Peace
the shack and stuck my head Treaty was signed, I was still
in, but I hit a trip wire and patrolling the DMZ (38th
heard a loud bang. I ran back Parallel), but it was finally time
to the patrol, [and only to go home. I was loaded on a
then] noticed that my deuce and a half (troop truck)
right boot was full of and taken to a train that took me
blood. My leg was full to a dock where I boarded the
of shrapnel, and my U.S.S. General W. H. Gordon (AP-
right ear was ringing. 117). I was shipped back to Camp
I was sent back to an Stoneman where I caught a plane
aid station, then to a to Ft. Bliss. My brother picked me
MASH unit. The doctor up and took me to Denver City.
patched me up, and my After my leave, I was assigned to
lieutenant said he would Ft. Hood, then to Ft. Scofield in
fill out the papers for my Hawaii for martial arts training,
Purple Heart. That very and then back to Ft. Hood as a
night he was killed and martial arts instructor for two
didn’t have a chance to years. My last assignment was at
fill out the papers. That, Ft. Polk in Leesville, Louisiana,
and the fact that all my where I oversaw a crew that
records were burned set up the first atomic cannon
up in the1973 fire at the (Operation Sagebrush). The 280
National Records Center mm gun had a 41’ long barrel. It
in St. Louis, Missouri, became the only gun to test fire
is the reason I never an atomic artillery round at a
received a Purple Heart. Nevada Test Site.”
I still have shrapnel in
my leg. Al married Bertha Guynes in
August 1956, and together they