PVT Martin E Conlon
US 51 213 731
Co. D 34th INF. REGT. APO. 24
c/o P.M. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.
Aug. 24, 53
Yong Dong Po
Dear Dot & Bill:
I was very happy to receive your letter today and it only took seven days to get here, which is pretty good. I got one the other day that only took five days, which is excellent time considering it came from Whitman.
Do you remember that Cohen fellow that I went to New York with while I was in Basic? We used to travel back and forth together on the bus. Well he shipped out of Camp Stoneman two weeks ahead of me and I lost track of him so I wrote a letter to his mother to find out where he was and you wouldn’t believe it, but he is in Seoul which is only seven miles from here. Can you imagine coming all the way over here and finding someone you never thought you would see again located so close to here. I’ve been trying to contact him on the phone, but the connections haven’t been too good. I’m going to try and get a pass to visit him tomorrow.
Dot mentioned the fact that I said there wasn’t too much exciting going on around here, but to most of us this P.W. swap is just everyday business now. I guess we don’t realize just how much the whole world is watching this. The prisoners don’t give us very much trouble, but when they do it is taken care of very fast. They have only used gas on one bunch so far, but some of the prisoners know what it feels like to be stuck with a bayonet. We had two cases today; one prisoner didn’t want to leave the train and he broke a window and started causing trouble, but an MP gave him a couple of bangs in the head and he soon went along quietly. The other case was when a prisoner dropped his Korean communist flag off the truck and tried to go after it. He was sure he was going to get off the truck and pick up the flag, but the guard was sure he wasn’t. Well, when he started down over the side of the truck, he got a nice jab from a bayonet right where he sits down. You never saw anyone go back into the truck faster than this fellow. Finally, one of the S. Korean soldiers picked up the flag and gave it back to him. As usual, all the prisoners were singing songs, shouting at us and destroying their clothing. There isn’t much we can do about it.
We don’t go up to Panmunjon with the prisoners anymore, another company does it now, but when we did go up, we got a chance to see where they bring the allied prisoners. There were many trucks, ambulances, helicopters and other vehicles to transport the prisoners from one place to another. It is truly quite a sight.
I am glad that you had such nice weather for your vacation and it sounds like you got quite a bit of work done around the house. It must look real nice by now. By the way, I guess Joe and Daddy had a little vacation this year too. They could all use one I guess. When I get out and buy my new car, I’ll take them all to New York to visit you.
Please excuse the writing, but I am in quite a hurry as we are an alert platoon again, which means we have to stay at the guard house all night.
I guess that about that’s about all the news for now and I will send you some pictures of the prisoners, first hand, if they come out O.K. Will write again soon.
Love
Eddie
PS We may go back to Japan next month, but I still have at least 13 more months to go over here as I didn’t have enough points to make any difference on my time.
Encl. They give us one of these every Sunday at church.
