Jumpy Upon Return

Heroes Remember

Jumpy Upon Return

Transcript

Interviewer: What do you remember about your homecoming in September of 1951? Yeah, everybody was happy to see me. That's, and I was, well you know a bunch a country boys I did tell them one thing, " Don't you ever touch me from the back" and, and being good pals, one of them went like this on my shoulder and bango, he was on the floor and I know he didn't mean to do that you know. I did tell him, because I was jumpy for about one year after I came back. If somebody touched me from behind, I was swift, was right in there nose. And so he called me outside and I said, "Ok." and I said I'll even let you hit first and he said, "No, no ,no that's ok." But they were, they were pretty cautious after that and but you know slowly, slowly I got back into the last, mainstream of my life again and I enjoyed it.

Description

Upon Mr. Pfeifer’s return to Canada he told his friends not to touch him from behind as he was a little jumpy. One guy learned what he was talking about the hard way.

Rudolph Pfeifer

Mr. Pfeifer was born February 14th, 1931, the son of a German immigrant. His two half brothers both served in and returned safely from the Second World War. Being in the country and working the land, Mr. Pfeifer had little knowledge of the buildup of the Cold War in the late ‘40s. While in Winnipeg on June 25, 1950, having had to give an injured co-worker a ride to town, Mr. Pfeifer saw recruiters and, wanting to explore the world, joined up on the spur of the moment. Assigned to the 2nd Battalion PPCLI, Mr. Pfeifer was sent to Calgary for training before being shipped to Seoul, Korea. The highlight of Mr. Pfeifer's action came at the Battle of Kapyong (April 22 - 25, 1951) where the Canadians held off wave after wave of Chinese offensives, attempting to capture Hill 677 and move on to Seoul. He and the other participants in this action later received Presidential Citation's for their service. In the summer of 1951, Mr. Pfeifer was wounded when a 2" mortar mis-fired. He was given a medical discharge and returned to Canada.

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