Page 63 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2023 - Online Magazine

arMy
Korean War

Sergeant directly over us. I was section chief for a good job. Sometimes, we had incoming friendly fire
crew of nine on the Howitzer. I was responsible for coming from our long guns behind us, and shrapnel
the crew, the gun, shells, and equipment.” would hit our tents, so they had to readjust their
guns.”
The 158th fired their first shots at the enemy in
Korea just days before Christmas in 1951. The 105 In Spring 1952, Tommy’s service time in Korea
mm Howitzer had a range of seven miles. “I almost ended. “We were released based on our serial
broke my hand once trying to fire the gun with the number. I was one of the youngest ‘old ones’ (still
lanyard, unloading it too quickly. We would fire only 19 years old although ranked as a Sergeant
once ahead of patrols to zero in on targets. Once First Class) because of my time in the service. They
given coordinates by a forward field observer, we asked me if I wanted to stay in the Army. I could
would shoot off anywhere from 20 to 30 rounds at a have stayed and gone to officer’s training or gotten
time over the hill ahead of us against the enemy. We a battlefield commission, but I was ready to go
never really knew how effective we were (against home. I left Korea on another ship and sailed back
the enemy positions), but our area commander to Sasebo, Japan, and finally landed in Seattle. There
came by once in a while, and he said we had done a were a lot of people there at the dock to greet us

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