A poor farm boy from the pint-size town of Parsons, Kan., grew up with a love for the military and his country. His parents worked in munitions plants in Oklahoma and Kansas during World War II and his uncle, a member of the Army Air Corps, sent him an air corps uniform when he was 8-years-old.

"I wish I had been old enough back then to have gone to World War II. That war had an even greater influence on my life than Korea did," said Bob Fleming, chief of the Air Intelligence Agency's Detachment 2 implementation flight.

"You can't imagine the patriotism of the whole country behind the war effort. I remember as a kid collecting for the paper drives and collecting scrap metals. People were buying savings bonds and savings stamps," said Fleming.

"The Korean War was vastly different. People didn't quite understand it because it was never a global war, it was a peacekeeping effort that took a lot of lives."

Fleming was an airman second class when he arrived in-country at Pusan. "I had no idea what to expect other than what I saw on the news-reels and movies. I understood the conflict in Korea, but I didn't understand what the whole situation was. I was told at this point the fighting had diminished.

"We were put on trains to be taken from Pusan to Seoul. These were box cars with make-shift wooden seats and holes cut out of the side of the train for windows. We had to pull over every time a munitions train came by. And, yes, our train took sniper fire," said Fleming. "We would be crowded laying on the floor. I was very frightened and glad when it was all over."

When he got to Seoul, he experienced "bed check Charlie," a bombing operation the North Koreans ran over Seoul. "They would fly reconnaissance planes into camp to aggravate and disrupt the people sleeping and drop a hand grenade. It never did any damage, but we would still go on alert and run to our foxholes like we were under attack," he said.

Fleming remembers living in an old abandoned college which the Air Force set up as a compound. "We had primitive living conditions for three months. We lived in tents with folding cots, with no sheets, only a couple of blankets. We would sleep with our clothes on because it got bitterly cold at night."

"When I saw the devastation in Seoul when I got there late in the war, it brought clear what really transpired. Seeing the people living in the conditions they were in was an eye-opener," said Fleming. "The outskirts of Seoul had not been damaged by the fighting and the Koreans abandoned it.

"We set up our whole compound on campus and the South Koreans formed a perimeter of protection," said Fleming, then a radio mechanic assigned to a van equipped with transmitters, receivers and a power production unit on a trailer behind it to keep communications open. "We would drive to the front lines and act as a relay station between the Army and Air Force to Headquarters 5th Air Force in Seoul," said Fleming.

Fleming spent six months in Seoul before moving on to Taegu where his unit of about 30 enlisted members headed by a technical sergeant, set up a communication site. "We wanted to posture ourselves in case China or North Korea made another attack."

Fleming was disappointed that peace talks were never concluded. "Everyone was elated when peace talks began in July of 1953. We thought that after a few weeks everyone would get to go home. Even when I left South Korea, I thought peace was imminent."

"There was quite a bit of communication with the Korean community, even though there was a language barrier. We were taken into homes and fed in exchange for beer and our rations of food.

"We were in a village one evening and when we heard chickens clucking. It was a while since we'd had roasted chicken so we started looking for them. At night, the Koreans dug holes in the ground and covered the chickens up to their heads so they wouldn't stray or get stolen.

"The Korean people were extremely grateful toward the Americans. They knew that without the Americans, South Korea would not have withstood the attacks from North Korea and China. They were overjoyed to have us there," Fleming said.

May Spokesman On-Line