I was born on a farm N.E. of Abilene, Kansas on Sept. 18,1932. Due mainly to the hard times of living in the Dust Bowl, my parents split up. My mother was having a tough time raising my brother, sister and myself. My Great uncle and aunt adopted me when I was about 3 % years old. They lived in a suburb of N.W. Denver, which became my home from there on. Shortly before graduating in late May of 1950, a couple of Marine Recruiters came to our high school and convinced me I should join the air reserve and see the world. It seemed like a great idea at the time and I also had two of my Mothers brothers that were Marine airmen in WWIL. My time in the reserve (6 mos), I was trained as a ground crewman and ordinance on F-4 -UA Corsair. It turned out to be great timing as the Korean War started in June. I got a couple of months of college at Colorado A and M before they activated our Air Group V.M.F. 236, Denver. After dropping out of school and selling my books, they cancelled the activation. I asked them how to get out of this chicken.... outfit and they said the only way was to join the regulars - which I promptly did! On 13 November, thirteen of us from Denver and surrounding states left on car 13 on a train bound for San Diego. Because of my prior reserve status they made me the acting PFC. That lasted as long as it took to get to bootcamp... big deal! This was about the time of the Chosin Reservoir battle. Upon graduation I received orders for advanced training at Pendleton. Alter the usual infantry training. I was assigned to first 90 MM Gun Btn, l was trained on the quad 50 Cal. Machine Gun Mount for support of the 40 MM Cannons I worked my way up from loader to gunner, to gun captain. Around the first week of July, myself and two other gun captains who bad passed a bunch of tests, were packed up ready to go to Pensacola for flight school. in the middle of the night before leaving, the duty NCO woke us up and told us we were to be on a ship headed for Korea the next morning. This was due to a 90 MM gun battalion coming from Camp Legeune had been in a train wreck and killed or injured several of their NCOs having the same M.O.S. numbers as ours, I ended up on the troop ship M.C. Meiggs carrying 2,000 Marines and four-thousand Arm. So much for flight school. About two-hundred miles out we could tell we were getting close because of the horrific smell that never goes away. There was many types of warships in the bay at Pusan where we unloaded. Also two hospital ships that made a person more than a little uneasy. The battle to secure the Pusan perimeter had just ended and we proceeded to off load guns and ammo on shore. This took about a week. We no more than finished when infiltrators blew up our ammo dump. After waiting awhile for another ship load of ammo, we proceeded north. As soon as the infantry would overtake an airstrip, we would dig in with 90 MMs and 50 calibers and attempt to hold it. We would continue to do this, allays continuing northward. We were constantly harassed by sniper and mortar fire, besides the Migs. The monsoons and knee deep mud changed to bitter cold and snow. Sometimes around the New year of 1952,we crossed over the 38th parallel, which according to Truman, there would be no more troops after the truce was signed. So legally, we were never there. By this time I was a Sgt. In charge of three gun positions. After getting blown quite a distance from my main gun position, I suffered total memory loss of the next few months. The first part of July, I returned to the States on the same ship I went over on. I have never gotten back that lost time. As I was considered to be a short-timer, I was assigned to a I55 Battalion at Pendleton. I spent the rest of my time mainly pulling Sgt. Of the Guard or just plain killing time until my discharge, November 3, 1953. Six months later, I married my lovely wife, Carol. We have spent over 53 years together and have three great kids. I am retired now after spending my life in the construction trade. A MARINE ALWAYS, TRACYFLOYD