An Officer Too Scared To Fight

Heroes Remember

An Officer Too Scared To Fight

Transcript

Interviewer: What about the Officers? Some of them were excellent guys, others were, shouldn't have never been there, I don't think. We had a fellow, hard to remember but he was scared worse then we were, then I was, you know. And he always hung around, he was never far from where I was, and we were supposed to go and pick up, like you got free cigarettes, you got free Hershey bars, shaving lotion, toothpaste, all that stuff was just, it was handed to you, it was given to you. And we, this guy and I, we had to go down the bottom of the hill and, and pick a box of this stuff up, or two boxes, whatever it turned out to be. And of course it wasn't in, the other guys couldn't get through, so they sent us back to the lines where we came from and "Charlie" must have seen us in the valley because he layed down a barrage, you know anything to get two guys at us, all it took, you know. And this poor guy, he came from a place called Owen Sound, Ontario, and he said "Don't leave me, don't leave me" and he was hollering and screaming and I said, "Well get going," you know, I said, "can't stay here because we'll get, both get blown up." So we got, finally did get out of there and got out of, out of the view of the Chinese, and got back into the line, and I go "This poor bugger," he, he was done, you know. He got in a, in a, he got into a, what we call the hooches, they were dugouts and tarps thrown over so the rain wouldn't get you. And he went in there and he wouldn't come out. So our platoon Sergeant he says, "I'll get him out of there." He pulled the pin on a 36, stuck the detonator in his pocket and threw the grenade in this hooch. Well when that, that thing, you know it blows apart, when that firing pin came out, that, that, that poor kid he just, he just lost it completely. The next day they sent him home, well he came home alive anyway. That's not a very good way to, that's not a very good way to get out of there. Interviewer: It's hard for me to imagine what you were going through at that time. Well I don't think anybody could imagine it, there's no way. Just, you know that's why they say, all, most of our people were Second War Vets and I guess they knew what to expect. And some of them you know, just because they were Second War Vets didn't mean they weren't as frightened or scared, because some of them were, you could tell. And one Sergeant told me, he says, "If you ain't scared, you shouldn't be here." He says "You got no business being here if you're not scared, because a frightened man is harder to get to then somebody that's probably got all these marbles with them," I don't know.

Description

Mr. Reitsma explains how some of the officers were more scared than enlisted men, recalling an instance when one became so scared he got sent home.

Stuart Reitsma

Mr. Stuart Reitsma was born into a military family in Lacombe, Alberta, in 1928. His father served in the Second World War , and two of his brothers also served in Korea. Before joining the service in 1950, Mr. Reitsma worked with the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railway (CNR). While participating in a CNR strike in Vancouver a fight broke out. Mr. Reitsma and a friend enlisted the next day, deciding if they were going to fight, they'd sooner do it in the Army. Soon after completing training, Mr. Reitsma was shipped overseas to Korea. During his year there Mr. Reitsma survived continued heavy action at the front line, a fact he attributes to the excellent training he had received. Returning to Canada after his tour ended, Mr. Reitsma received his discharge in August of 1952. He returned to work with CNR before accepting a position with Alberta Government Telephone which he held for 26 years before retirement.

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