Page 69 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2022 - Online Magazine

mArine corpS
koreA WAr erA

also had a DOD (Department of Ted Assiter was grateful to get to go on the
Defense) person aboard; it wasn’t 2017 Texas South Plains Honor Flight. The
our business to know why. We Honor Flight not only transports veterans
also provided orderlies for the to Washington D.C. to see the beautiful
Admiral and Captain. Admiral memorials,
Thurston Clark relieved Admiral but it also
Rice in April 1956. transports
them back
We sailed to Okinawa, Bangkok, in time to
Manila and to Subic Bay in the the days of
Philippines where a typhoon came up, and we their early adulthood.
tried to outrun it. We went up and down one Memories were rekindled,
big wave after another. It ripped the 40mm guns and in his mind’s eye,
right off their mounts. We sailed on to other West Texas Ted Assiter,
ports, such as Kure (Japan), Keelung (Taiwan), forever a Marine, revisited
Sasebo and Hong Kong. We picked up the Ninth Far Eastern ports aboard
Marines from Okinawa and took them with us. the USS Princeton. Thank
The deck was full of Marines. There was no room you for your service, Ted!
for the planes. I saw my former drill instructor Semper fi!
on the flight deck – he had been demoted.”

The long cruise came to an end for Ted and the
Princeton on August 17, 1956. The ship rested at
North Island, San Diego for three weeks while
the crew enjoyed a well-deserved leave. Then she Kincaid Roofing
steamed up the West Coast to the Puget Sound
Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington for
a four-month overhaul and repair period. In
January, Ted was asked to “re-up” (re-enlist) in Proudly Salutes
the Marines. His reply? “I said ‘no way’ to re-
enlisting!” By then, Ted had “seen enough of the
world.” our Veterans
Ted returned to Floyd County to farm. “I got on
that tractor, but that only lasted about a year. My
mother had re-married while I was in the service
to a man named Cecil Webb from Woodrow. I
married a girl named Mary Jo Smith in 1957, but
we were only married for five years. I married
Lovetta Faye Chiles in 1962. We had two boys
and a girl. I worked for American National and
Payless Shoes in Lubbock, Amarillo, and Odessa.
I also sold plots at Peaceful Gardens, which was
founded by my father and brother. Faye passed
away in 1998 after 36 years of marriage. I began
working in prison ministry, where I met my
current wife, Norma “Corky” Fullingim. We
married in 2008 and worked at several prisons
around Texas over the years. We’re too old for
that now.”

Lubbock Senior Link 69