One Year Was Enough

PPCLI, and I was in Second Battalion - Special Forces. And I think we probably still hold the record of being in the line the longest of anybody ever and that was over a hundred and some days without coming out, and of course it didn't matter where, where'd you go you know. And then you always had R&R to look forward to so. They'd fly you to Tokyo, get good and haywire you know what, and have a drink or two, and go back. Interviewer: Probably didn't want to go back? Well, not always, no. I only ever went once but, oh.... pretty hard to describe. You're supposed to be human but there's not a thing human about you. Well it was just very, very recently that, I don't know, maybe a year ago, two years ago, I thought I was going, losing my marbles completely at home here, you know. They sent me to a, well maybe your people did, they made an appointment for me to see a psychologist here. So I had a talk with him and he spoke with me and Bernice there. Oh it didn't get any worse anyway, he said I wasn't crazy and I wasn't going to go crazy, so. But I wouldn't of, I wouldn't of given you 5 cents for that a long time ago. I know when I came home, I came home in 1952, and my mom was scared to death of me. So you know maybe, I was okay I thought, but I guess what you do, what you say, how you act, I guess it's different then before you ever got there you know. Interviewer: What you saw changed you probably. Oh absolutely, and it didn't take very long. You know you got, you got mean, to kill someone didn't mean nothing, absolutely nothing just shoot him and you know darn well he ain't going to hurt you when he's dead, you just know that, that's the only thing you do know. And it got so that it was very, very easy. By the time you got out, I think, really and truly, I think sometimes I think yet that they only let you serve a year and everybody did the same thing, although there are lots of guys that went back for seconds, but the war quit in ‘53, 1953, if you remember, and they went over as peacekeepers. Whether there are any there now or not I don't know, but I think the only reason they kept you in there for a year is, if they let you go for two or three years, you'd be a complete basket case. You know, you wouldn't be, I'm sure they wouldn't of let you loose in here.

Mr. Reitsma explains how one year in Korea was enough, believing that any more time would drive a man completely nuts. He also details how his service changed him, explaining how he was so different upon his return home that his own mother was frightened of him.

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.