"The sergeant said to me, 'Welcome, you are the first replacement since the war ended.'" (Video Interview, 7:12)

Richard Alvin Simpson

Richard Simpson [2006] War: Korean War, 1950-1953 Branch: Army Unit: 196th Field Artillery Battalion, 8th Army Service Location: Korea Rank: Corporal

Though he did not arrive in Korea until shortly after the July 1953 truce was signed, Richard Simpson does offer a vivid account of those first two years of uneasy peace. In his first days in country, he was introduced to 100 soldiers, all of them gone within two months. He points out that had the hostilities erupted again, there were few men with real combat experience left to wage the war. Living and working near the DMZ, he found the tension palpable. Booby traps and land mines abounded, random shots were fired. He saw much destruction and stark evidence of starvation. Opposed to the war while he was a college student, he changed his mind once he saw how much worse conditions might have been under North Korean rule.