John Glockler

They were enlisting people to go to Europe with the 27th Brigade and my family roots were Europe, so I thought I’d join and go there. But I ended up in Korea before I could shake my head too many times. I worked in an ammunition dump all the time I was there. I was, the Army Service Corps looks after ammunition from the rail head to the frontline in a war area.

A lot of our ammunition, we delivered right to the guns. Like artillery would come in and say, we’d want 10 truckloads of ammunition and we’d deliver it to them. Unless it was one load and they might come down with a truck of their own and pick it up and keep full. And the same with the mortars, we delivered the ammunition right to the mortars which were within 300 or 400 yards of the frontline. In the small arms, the units came in with their own vehicles and picked up what they wanted, as they needed it, just a supply and demand, demand what you want and we supplied it.

I don’t know, I thought it was sort of exciting to get out of the ammo point and make a trip up there and see what it was all about. And see how the guys were making out and how they lived in their little hoochies [improvised tents] and slit trenches and all the rest, you know. But it never, I suppose as a young person, you’re not as affected by it, you don’t, your feelings are not the same. The same with, we’d have a big battle and there’d be casualties and they’d come back and you never thought of it that much. You weren’t as affected in those days.

The [fatal] casualties were looked after by the medics and normally they were wrapped in their own ponchos with their dog tag on the outside and shipped back. And periodically, you’d see some coming through the supply line. And I don’t know, it’s just part of war, I guess. Our guards picked a Korean up in front of our ammo point one night and they later ended up shooting him, not our guards but the ROK [Republic of Korea] Army came up because they could talk to them and he wouldn’t answer any questions or do anything and they ended up shooting him. And that’s how close, there were infiltrators, I gather. But our ammo point was well guarded and we had no real trouble, nobody, that’s the only one that ever infiltrated that we picked up.

Well, I was quite pleased that it was over and that people were going to be able to get on with their lives. Because Korea, at one time, had a lot of trees and everything and it was stripped bare. There were no trees growing anyplace. And that’s one thing I noticed when I went back in 1999, there was trees again and pretty beautiful country. Because all of the trees were, the war went the full length of the peninsula twice and war can be pretty damaging with all the shells and napalm and burning and that’s exactly what happened to Korea.

I joined the Korean Vets Association here in Edmonton and I went back to Korea on a re-visit in 1999. I went to a lot of the old battle sites and Kapyong and went to Pusan, to the cemetery and we did a lot of, I was there two weeks with the DVA [Department of Veterans Affairs] and we did a lot of ceremonials. Well, as I say, when I saw the graves and knew I had been supporting some of those battles and knew that those young fellows had got killed at the time and had never really, I never cried about it or anything at that time but when I went back and saw them and saw the graves, it affected me.