Korea was the first war where African Americans and whites battled the enemy side-by-side in large numbers.
Previous to the Korean War a general mixing of races had been the exception and not the rule.
“Most of the time that I was in Korea, was with, that I was in a foxhole, was with
a colored partner. That didn't make any difference to me. I didn't have any, anything against anybody.
Stuva made a few friends in combat and lost a few the same way. One of them was mortally wounded during a nighttime patrol.
“He stepped on a mine and it blew both of his legs basically off.
That was about eight o'clock at night when it was just before dark. And then he laid there all night.
I stayed with him, and so it was eight or nine o'clock in the next morning
when the helicopter come in to take him out. And, uh, but he had lived all that time until just the time
the helicopter was coming and he died. That's when you realize that ‘war is hell’ and why.
My thoughts were always just this, ‘If the people that caused these wars, if they had to stay, and
be on line and do the fighting there wouldn't be any war. But then that's not the way it is.”
(gunfire)
Robbie Robinson from Waterloo was drafted into the Army after graduating from high school in 1952.
By the spring of 1953, Robinson received orders for Korea.
“You had a number. And you probably know your number now.
My number US55309446 and that was my name. So every morning I look on my lists
on the board, I said, ‘Oh man’, there’s my damn name damn’ I said, ‘Oh ***, I better write my mom's I’m going over to Korea.’”
Peace talks were still going on when Robinson’s ship departed for Korea.
“The guys in the bottom ship, you know what you do, you shooting dice
and doing whatever. And every day everybody got quiet to listen ‘cause they was hoping
that they would negotiate peace, that we would, by the time we got to Korea, we wouldn't have to.
It didn't happen. Everybody got go down, it was comical but it was not comical, everybody got religion,
some of ‘em.”
After arriving in Korea, Robinson was sent to a Replacement Depot.
He remembers falling into formation every morning and seeing trucks returning from the front filled with soldiers.
“Whoever was head of the compound and the truckers would bring in these
people off the line going home, wounded or going home. And he would ask
the trucker, ‘How many of you got on there?’ He would say, ‘Oh, we've got eight.’ ‘How many?’
So that trucker was from a 2nd Division, or maybe 40th Division or just, you know, whatever.
So, okay you, you, you take one step forward, get on that truck. You in the 2nd Division.
And so you're talking about some bitching. I'm not an infantry man.’ ‘Oh, yes you are.’
‘I'm gonna write my Senator.’” I'm going to’ all that bull***. All that doesn’t mean ****. He said, ‘it did mean nothing.’”
When it came to who stood beside you in combat, Robinson echoed the views of other soldiers
who had come before him – it made no difference what color you were as long as you backed up the other soldiers in your unit.
“They used to razz me because I'm an Iowa, black boy in Iowa.
‘What you do in Iowa, you farm?’ ’Aw, go to hell.’ You know what I'm saying?
What they was telling me I'm brand new, ‘All you do is whatever that Sergeant tells you to do.’”
Nightly patrols had gone from conquest and capture to just observation.
“It wasn't like maybe a year or two before I got there, all these banzais and all this kind of stuff.
It had quieted down quite a bit. We had a lot of artillery firing back and forth at each other
and you could see him way over the hill and they could see us,
but listening patrol at night, that was the one I would worry about because it's dark. We could
hear them, but we couldn't tell exactly where the fire was coming from when they would shoot.
And boy when they would shoot, everybody hit the ground. We had a radio man. We would tell,
call back up to the front line or line and ‘no contact’ and ‘we're coming back in.’
‘When we come back, cross the line, do not shoot us,’ you know what I'm saying?
‘We're the, we're, the friendly troops.’ And then we come back
and then next night maybe, uh, somebody else be chosen. I'm young and dumb. Wasn’t scared a bit.”
(Iowa PBS Education)