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

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to war period. I hate war. I wouldn t be in the military. That d n t b th r m . If y u want to walk down the street waving a flag protesting the war, that don t both r m . nd if I'm just coming back from there, and you tell me I was stupid for being there that don't bother me. That's your privilege. That's your business. You do what you want to do. do what I want to do. That's all. So I don't hold anything against people. People do what they want to do. That's it. JAS: Can I ask you, in what ways was your service in World War II and Korea different? BILL: Not a lot. After the Second World War they decimated the military. I told you that. They could hardly keep an NCO in because of what was happening. For a while Lieutenants had to wear enlisted uniforms. They didn't even want them to wear their bars. NCOs have little tiny chevrons, so everybody was equal. They had divisions in Japan that were garrison troops. Now garrison troops are different from a combat troop. A hell of a lot different. Garrison troops parade; they walk around in their pretty uniforms, and stuff. Combat troops fix bayonets and they go after you. Well, they didn't have any combat troops ready. The nearest, closest troops they had was garrison troops, the lOPt Division in Japan, and they were MacArthur's pride and joy. "Oh, the lOPt Airborne, we are the best, we are the greatest." Well, these poor kids had never had a bullet fired at them in anger in their lives, and they threw them into that shit house, 'cause the North Koreans they were there to fight a war. They were there to take that whole peninsula. They pushed clear back to Pusan. We almost lost. We almost got kicked into the sea. They brought the First Marine Provisional Brigade in. A brigade is two regiments, reinforced. So that's two infantry regiments and an artillery. So that's what a 129