Bill Pastore, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Jason Hardy, September 20th, 2006: part of the Saving the legacy project

Page 20

we w r the ab olute top army top military in the world. "· t rid f th m." K r a come along ... You know the 101 st Airborne, the 4 th Division it wa an ccupati n division in Japan with General Dean and all. They sent them in. These kids hadn't even had any combat training. They wer garrison troops! You know, they were spit shined and walk around and look sharp but a far as combat, they hadn't had any combat experience. They were still using the 3.2 rocket launcher and that T-37 that the North Koreans were using, it was a Russian tank! And it was one of the best tanks in the Second World War. The 3.2 would just bounce of the sides of it. It wouldn't even penetrate it. So that's where the story came from, "These are monsters, we can't knock them out." Well you could, but you had to have guts enough to stand there and do it. You had to hit them in a certain place. They committed the 1st Marine Division. We had 3.5 rockets and they'd go clear through the T-37. So, but, we were decimated too. That's why they had to call the reserves in. They absolutely destroyed us, the military. Korea ended up. We were the best damn army that there ever was again. Vietnam come along and the same thing over again. And now, finally, they're learning. This bunch that went into Iraq, these people know what they're doing. We won't go into Iraq. JAS: Another time, perhaps. BILL: I'll keep my feelings of that to myself ... but we should never be there. We shouldn't be there. But that's- I'm not the president (nor did I vote for him, but 19