Staying Fit
Walter Lee Dowdy Jr. suffered serious injures in Korea.
Jeffery Salter
I grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan. My parents had nine kids and we all finished high school.
I graduated in 1948. Me and two buddies were thinking about becoming doctors. We could not afford college without the military, so we enlisted in the Army. My two friends enlisted before me, because I was a little shy, a little scared. My daddy was in World War I. He didn’t talk about it much. My parents cried when I told them that I enlisted.
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I went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I was cooking for the officers, still waiting for my orders for officer training school. Before I knew it, I received orders and shipped off to Camp Gifu, Japan. I was from a little town in Michigan; I had never been on a ship before, or in a foreign country. My unit was segregated. We had all Black troops and white officers. Harry Truman had desegregated the military in 1948. This was 1950 and our unit was all Black troops. I didn’t know anything about it. To me, it was just status quo.
The Korean War started on June 25, and we were put on alert. I landed in Korea on July 2, and I was 19 years old. They issued us live ammunition and combat gear. When we got in combat, we had all Black troops and Black officers. The first sergeant — he was later killed in Korea — he told me, “We don’t need cooks in Korea. We need soldiers. So we’re going to give you a choice: a machine gun or a radio.” I took a radio, as a forward observer.
On July 26, 1950, I went out on patrol. My superior told me to string wire from our post to a mortar position. I was digging in the ground. I looked down a hill and saw guys digging foxholes. And then the bombs started falling. I stayed down until I heard no more bombing. I started to go down the hill and wham! Something hit me and I felt wet stuff running down my face. I called to my friend. I said, “I been hit.” And that’s all remember. I was one of the first American casualties of the Korean War.
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