WINTER HAVEN - Few people younger than about 55 know what the
draft is - a military draft, not sports or the wind under a loose
fitting door.
James Bradford of Winter
Haven, a veteran of the Korean War, would be happy to explain it. The
draft ended at the end of the Vietnam War, but young men in that war and
earlier ones were subject to being called into the military.
Bradford
graduated from Morgantown (W.Va.) High School in 1947. He had a job in
auto servicing and repair, but in late 1950, he received a letter from
his draft board notifying him he was being inducted into the Army.
"They thought my presence was needed," Bradford, now 83, said with a laugh,
He went into basic training in January 1951 and was in Korea in May 1951.
Bradford
entered the 24th Division as a private and a forward observer for the
heavy weapons platoon in his company. In less than a year, he was
platoon sergeant because of deaths, injuries and rotations home.
As
forward observer on the front lines, he called in fire from the
60-millimeter mortars in his platoon and air strikes. When calling in
air strikes, the platoon would lay out on the ground colored panels of
cloth so pilots would know to fire forward of the panels where the enemy
was.
At the time Bradford
entered Korea, the U.N. forces were fighting the Chinese army's spring
offensive. They stopped it twice and then began pushing north of the
38th parallel. That was the original line that had divided North Korea
and South Korea before the North Korean army crossed it in June 1950 and
almost pushed the South Korean army and its allies off the peninsula.
After American reinforcements
and U.N. forces arrived, they pushed the North Koreans almost back to
their border with China. Then the Chinese army crossed the border and
began pushing the allies to the south again.
After
the spring offensive, there were few full-scale division-size attacks
taking over numerous miles of territory. Instead, the war became battles
for taking individual hills, losing hills, then retaking them mostly
along the 38th parallel.
Armistice
negotiations were rumored as early as June 1951, but it wasn't until
July 27, 1953, that there really was an armistice and an end to the
fighting. Instead it was an off-again, on-again offensive on both sides
with many losses for one hill or another.
"It
was moving back and forth, back and forth. That was standard operating
procedure: Try to gain ground so they can get a better chair at the
negotiating table," Bradford said with disgust in his voice.
Thanksgiving
1951 was no turkey with the trimmings, he said. It was cold C rations,
canned meats and fruit issued individually to each soldier. Thanksgiving
dinner for Bradford and his unit was a small can of spaghetti and
meatballs or lima beans and ham.
"We
were on top of a mountain that day. Sometimes they would try to send up
civilian bearers with hot food, but the Chinese would fire at them and
the hot meals never got to the top," he said. "But C rations weren't all
that bad. I liked the fruit. It was like the canned fruit you find in
the grocery store.
But there certainly were no grocery stores or native markets where the 24th Division was.
"In
fact, we were never in any cities or on flat land. All I saw the whole
time I was there were mountains, Chinese and bad weather. I'm from West
Virginia, but I have never been so cold in my life (in Korea)," he said.
In February 1952, the
battle-weary 24th Division was rotated to Japan for several months. By
the time it was headed back to Korea months later, Bradford's rotation
orders to go back to the United States had arrived.
While
in Japan, he and others in his unit were made military policemen to
help keep order among the thousands of soldiers. They were supposed to
arrest AWOL and drunken soldiers, but these MPs had seen war and what it
could do.
"We'd really
take them into protective custody, sort of, and many times get them back
to their barracks. They had problems," he said of the veteran,
battle-hardened soldiers who would occasionally get drunk or get into
other trouble.
"And who's better to take care of problems than those who understand why," he said.
Returning
home to Morgantown, he settled into a job and married. Becky Bradford
said she had heard about Bradford from a girlfriend who used to date
him, but he had never met her until his return.
After
their marriage, they had one child in West Virginia, then followed
Becky's parents to Florida in the mid-1950s where their second daughter
was born.
Bradford worked
for First Federal Savings and Loan in Winter Haven for 20 years and then
retired. He then went to work for the Polk County Tax Collector's
Office for 15 more years before retiring a second time.
Both daughters graduated from Winter Haven High School and Polk State College.
The war, and its horrors and hardships were far away almost from the moment he reached home, he sad.
"Oh,
we were all but forgotten," said Bradford, who is the immediate past
president of the Department of Korean War Veterans Association for
Florida. "Some of us even forgot ourselves. There were no parades when
we came home. And people were tired of war after World War II. We just
came back and fit back into the workforce."
He said he was proud to do his duty but, like almost all veterans, doesn't want to be called a hero.
We did what we had to and I served my country when it called me to duty.
The biggest attention and appreciation Americans still get is from the
South Korean people, mainly the older generation," he said. "I would
take clothing to a cleaners here in Winter Haven owned by a Korean
family. When I brought in my uniform they would never charge me for the
uniform even when I tried to insist."
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