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MN: On a more lighter note, right before Christmas of that year, 1951, one of your fellow Marines told everybody to write home for some canned fruit.

RW: Oh, yeah.

MN: What did he do with that?

RW: Well, they're far more mature than we were. They were talkin' about something called raisin jack, and I had no idea what they meant by raisin jack. I remember there were no raisins, but we told everybody to write home for some canned fruits, so I did. I got a couple of canned fruits. Other guys got some. And what they did was they took a regular five gallon water can, and dumped out the water and opened 'em up, put all this canned fruit in there. I guess he got some yeast from the cook at the mess tent, and threw the yeast in there. They knew how to do it and had it fermenting in our tent. The next day, one of the guys came by and said, hey, they're gonna have an inspection of equipment, the Sergeant and the Lieutenant's comin'. Keep your eye out when they come." They watch for him, then they say, here they come, so they closed up the can because it was smelly, and the Lieutenant and the Sergeant came through and checked our weapons and everything. Then they left. The minute they left one of the guys yelled, "Get your canteen. Get your canteen." So we ran over to the five gallon can and the sides had bowed out, like, it was almost like a half a round ball. They opened the tip of the lid and this little stream of liquid came shooting out. It was like punch, but it was homebrew, and they wanted it, they wanted it for Christmas, but it was gone in a couple of days, that's what that canned fruit was for, was to make this thing called raisin jack. And like I said, there were no raisins in it. It was funny.

MN: So this, your first Christmas in Korea, 1951, what was that like?

RW: Well, I have to tell you, it was the saddest Christmas I've ever had in my life. It was sad to, everybody talking about Christmas, home and family, and I kept thinking about Jo Ann, I'm not gonna see her again, kept thinking about Madrid, he's not gonna be able to have Christmas at home with his family, Vernon Todd is gone and his family is suffering, losing their only child. I just thought about all the suffering that was going on, our losses. The only bright spot was my brother Hank was now home, so he was safe at home. Christmastime you always hear "Silent Night" and we heard that a lot, when I hear that song it kind of tears me up inside to hear that song at Christmastime. Just reminds me of that Christmas, what a lonely Christmas that was.

MN: Did they have USO shows for the Marines at that time?

RW: Well, they had Bob Hope and some others, but they didn't come up where we were at. They were pretty far back, I imagine, to either Division or even what they call Corps headquarters, which is further back than Division headquarters, I didn't even know they were there until my sister sent a newspaper article saying the Bob Hope show was back there. But there's a show that came to our battalion headquarters. It was a real amateur show. They just did some dancing and some singing, but I thought it was real Mickey Mouse, but then again, I gave them a lot of credit for taking the time to come over there, as amateur as the show was. Maybe it was a good show. Maybe I just wasn't being appreciative of what had happened to me during that time so I didn't think too much of the show, but nevertheless they were there, coming up to battalion headquarters. Got to give 'em that credit.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.