Getting ‘Selected’ for Korea

The Korean War started in ‘50 and I joined in ‘50. I was regular force, I was never active force, never special force I should say, not active force. I joined the regular force. I was in Montreal in ’52 and the Korean War had been going then for just about two years and there was three of us single fellows who were all technicians and one day the boss came down to us and said, “I want two of you guys out of the three to go to Korea.” As simple as that. We weren’t asked, we were told we were going to Korea. We were regular force, you couldn’t say no, I’m not going I’m going home. There was no choice. There was three of us down there talking and one guy, Stan Walburg, was out from the Prairies and I was from down east there and the other fellow was from Ontario and he was getting married. He had just been engaged to a nurse to get married. So the WO1 rank came down, had three straws - one short one and two long ones and he said, “We’re gonna draw straws.” I looked at Stan and I said, “Hey Stan, how do you like it. He’s gonna draw straws. Some of us are going and some of us aren’t.” Stan said, “Well, I’ll tell you what Bob. I think you and I should go and let the other fellow get hung permanently. We are only going to get hung for a year so we’ll be back but he’s had the bird.” He was getting married so the two of us went. We just volunteered, there was no argument.