Operation Upshot/Knothole
US Atomic Veterans
Marshall Raftery
From: mraftery@webtv.net (Marshall Raftery)
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001
To: pdxavets@aracnet.com
Subject: 3rd Div. Marines
I was one of the 3rd Div. Marines. I was a Pfc, company runner, machine gunner, morter, etc. and not given a film badge and only a broom to take off hot sand after walking through the inferno ten seconds after the blast.
We had been promised hot showers and were handed a
broom when we reached the trucks. We had been promised film badges for
every man and only enough came for a few officers. We had been promised
a gieger counter for every 30 men, only enough arrived for every 300
men. We were promised new clothes, rifles, helmets, boots, packs and we
wore the same gear to Hawaii, Japan and Korea.
Instead of hot showers ,
film badges, gieger counters and new gear my company was given $5.00
each and liberty in Vegas. Our government really cares about the young
men in the service.
My wife and I adopted 3 wonderful children and
lived happily ever after. I was from Dearborn, Michigan. My company was made up of American reservation Indians, American Samoans, Puerto Ricans, American Arabs and
Turkish kids (from Dearborn, MI.) who went through
boot camp from with me. West Verginia coal miners, one Stanford
football player and one American Irish. All the rich mens sons were
guarding the skies over their daddys oil wells.
My bride and I took the train to
Oceanside when I had to report in after boot. I was a brown bagger until
the 3rd was shipped to Hawaii for about four months, (liberty in Oahu),
then Japan, (on Mt. Fuji for 4 months,) with liberty in Tokyo every week
end.
3000 Marines were put aboard my ship and given live ammo and our
ship and many other ships headed out of the harbor and we were told we
were on our way to Korea. About two miles out of the harbor our ship
and all the others began to back up. The captain came on the loud
speaker and said he didn't know why but he had been given new orders and
everyone in dress uniforms could have liberty until 7 the next morning.
We were setting in a Japanese night club watching a girly floor
show, drinking Nippon beer and every mixed drink ever invented when the
show was stopped and a Marine officer came on the stage and announced
that the cease fire had been signed and that our ship would go the ninety
miles to Korea and pick up South Korean officers, (for training in the
states) and we would all be returned to Treasure Island , California for
discharge.
The next morning 3000 very drunk Marines got or were carried
aboard ship. Dick Cantino , a famous accordion player, USO entertainer
started a 3000 man Conga line winding all over the ship and the merchant
marines passed out free cans of beer and many, many, bottles of Canadian
Club Whiskey. This went on all day and then a storm hit and 3000
young Marines threw up all over and continuasly until the deck was a
foot deep in vomit, flowing first one way and then then the next. When we
reached Treasure Island we looked like we had lost the war and been in
prison camps.
Marshall Raftery
Brutus, MI.
mraftery@webtv.net
Keith Whittle
December 28, 2001
Operation Upshot/Knothole