Semper Fidelis
Bill served in the Marine Corps from 1952 to 1954. He was discharged from the USMC Reserve in 1960
I was drafted...if I had enlisted in anything it would’ve been in the Army, I’ m sure. But, it happened to be the Marine Corps that I got slotted into.
They didn’t know what to do with us because they didn’t know our backgrounds -I mean we
could’ve been the son of a President, how’d they know?
And so they treated us a little differently than those who enlisted on their own. Because they didn’t dare harass--I mean we got a lot of punishment, but not as bad as some of the people who were enlisted did.
His Middlebury education was useful to many others
In my platoon, I was the only person who had ever graduated from college, and only one of three who had ever even gone...
There were a number of students who couldn’t hardly read or write, in fact one guy--I used to write letters for him, so he could let his folks know that he was hanging in there...
A week shy of Korea
After Parris Island, I went to Camp Lejuene, North Carolina, and I was lucky in one respect because I had 53 days left to serve when my whole battalion was sent to Korea. Anybody under 60 days was not sent, because they’d just get there to be sent back. So I had 53 days left, so that saved me that.