Page 76 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2021- Online Magazine

drunk and eating Kimchi (pungent fermented
vegetables) at a local village. He always smelled bad.
One night, I had had enough. I wired his sleeping
bag shut and rolled him into a slit trench in front of
our tent. It snowed that night, and he was covered
up with snow the next morning. He got the point. He
never went to that village again!”

There were also numerous scary times during Bill’s
stint in Korea. “We had shooting often, at least once
a week. Since an armistice was in effect, some of
these were called “international incidents”. Some
guys were even killed or wounded. I stepped out of
my tent one day, and a bullet went right between my
legs and through the wooden door to the tent.”

After spending 16 months in Korea as part of the
Army of Occupation, Whorton finally got to go
home. “I left Korea in September 1955 and shipped
back to Tacoma, where I was released from active
duty on September 30, 1955, to the Army Reserves. I
wanted to go to Oklahoma where my family was but
couldn’t get a flight and didn’t want to go by train.
The next day, a ticket agent said there was a pilot
who was taking a plane to Tulsa, Oklahoma, so I got
a free ride. The captain flew us over Yellowstone,
then decided we should eat lunch in Denver,
Colorado. I watched the last game of the 1955 World
Series at that restaurant in the pilot’s day room.”
(Bill discharged from the Reserves on April 15, 1964 should meet my mom.” Bill and Isla Caudle married
as a Second Lieutenant, Artillery.) on March 7, 1976. They spent many years travelling
together. In fact, they have been to 45 countries
After his service, Bill returned to Texas Tech for
one semester. He went back to work at Lubbock and were even able to return to Korea in 1994 on a
National Bank. After “doing practically every job at Veteran’s Revisit Program.
the bank”, he retired, after 30 years, as vice-president Bill and his Marine Corps grandson, Stacy (Steve’s
and loan officer. He worked as a financial planner for son), went on the 2014 Texas South Plains Honor
several years and even returned to Lubbock National Flight to Washington, D.C. Bill’s favorite stop
for another seven years. was the Korean War Memorial which was a “very
emotional experience.” The Korea veteran and
He married his high school sweetheart, Joanne
Rhodes, in the summer of 1953. Bill had been in successful financier would like to be remembered
Korea “for one month when he found out Joanne as a “loving, God-fearing, unselfish, generous and
was pregnant with their first child, Steve. His son honest man.” He fondly recalled that one of his
was almost nine months old the first time Bill saw great-grandsons once said, “I didn’t know Daddy
him after returning to the states. Two more children Bill was so funny. He has the sense of humor of a
would follow, Suzanne and Mike. They divorced much younger guy.” Bill smiled and said, “I think
after 19 years of marriage. that’s a good thing to be remembered for.”
Bill was taking a night class at Lubbock Christian
University when a young classmate said, “You

76 Lubbock Senior Link