Bernie Shankman fights in the Korean War
In 1950, the Korean War began between North Korea and South Korea. Though the war took place in Korea, most of the fighting was done by supporting countries: North Korea was supported by countries such as China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United States and other members of the United Nations. Eventually, a demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established on the 38th parallel to cease fighting.
Source: https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war
BS: Korea was very cold and snowy, not a whole lot of rain, but the winters were bad, winter was bad. Yep.
TM: Was it bad year-round or mainly during the winter?
BS: During the winter. In the summer it wasn’t too bad, wasn’t too bad. Got there in March and the weather was pretty good as far as weather goes, but the terrain was bad. There was very few trees left in Korea; they had bombed most of the forestry and everything to open it up so we could see the enemy, but the weather wasn’t bad, not during the summer, but the winters were terrible.
TM: Where were you stationed in Korea?
BS: We were stationed in several places. There was a little town called Yeongdeungpo and another one called Uijeongbu, and we were passed the DMZ up into North Korea- I don’t remember the names of the places up there- but then we retreated back across the DMZ where they finally stopped the fighting and started the negotiating. They never called it a war; they called it a police accent, but it was a war. It was a real war. It- it… ok.
TM: Are there any more stories you would like to share about your experience in the Korean war?
BS: Well, there was a few things that happened. We took one hill and we found some of our men that had been shot, and the Chinese had buried them alive. And there was one time when we were out on a night patrol and they captured one of our men and they actually castrated him. It was terrible. The Chinese were terrible. They had no mercy on anybody. And they wore these tenna shoes; you could hardly hear them walking when they approached. But they were very bad, very bad. Yea. That’s hard to say what really happened to some of the people. They disappeared and [they’re] finally finding some of them in North Korea and shipping them back after all these years. So they were captured in North Korea. That’s about it.