NORTH WEBSTER - During his service in Korea during the war, Ken Copeland said he had it pretty easy.
He was not on the battlefield, and he never fired his gun while he was stationed in Korea. Wherever he went, he always had to have a buddy with him, and carried a small rifle he never used.
"We never had any problems that way. We never ran into any snipers," Copeland, 78, North Webster, said during an interview.On June 25, 1950, Kim II Sung ordered North Korea to invade South Korea. While an armistice was declared July 27, 1953, the Korean War never really ended.
"For my part, for what I served there, I think it was a big waste," said Copeland. "As far as VA benefits are concerned, it's not classified as a war, it's a police action. For me, I never understood why they classified it as such."
Copeland enlisted as a private, getting his physical in Indianapolis on Dec. 9, 1950. He served in Korea from March 1951 to Dec. 1, 1953.
"I served enough time to be transported out," he said. He was transported from Korea to Japan and then to California. His discharge was effective Dec. 10, 1953.
"When I got discharged, that was it," Copeland said. "I said I didn't want any more of it. They tried to talk me to go back, to serve in Vietnam, but I'd had enough of it."
He said he enlisted for Korea because he and six others knew they would likely get drafted. They traveled to Indianapolis, and Copeland was activated along with the 424th Field Artillery Battalion.
He was stationed initially at Fort Pope in Louisiana. In early 1952, he went to Fort Lewis in Washington before being shipped off to Japan. In Japan, the unit traded everything in and got all new equipment. They had to cross to Pusan, Korea.
"Those roads were ridiculous," Copeland said. "... We said there was no way they could go over the mountains, but they did."
Copeland's main job was classified as a MOS 1641, or a field wireman. He had to run phone wires from base out to each of the firing batteries, two lines each.
"Our main job was to keep the lines intact so they could talk on what they called the field phones," Copeland said.
They had to check the wiring every day. Everything ran off generators and batteries, he said.
"Engineers were our worst nightmares. They would blast out the sides of mountains and knock out our phone lines," Copeland said.
Sometimes they would hear other soldiers shooting in battle, but Copeland said he never saw any of it. He was about two miles south of the demilitarized zone, known as the DMZ.
"It was actually kind of on the boring side," he said.
When they were given time off, known as 3 Days, Copeland said they had strict orders not to mingle with the Koreans.
"They were really hard on you about not being with the Korean women or anything like that because of diseases. Some of the men married some of the Korean women and brought them back to the states," he said.
