I served with Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines from 2 January 1952 to 13 January 1953. I am
trying to locate anyone who may have worked on, or knows anyone who may have worked on, the helicopter landing
pad built on the side of a mountain (Hill 884?) in the Taebaec mountains of eastern Korea sometime between
September 1951 and March 1952 in the Inje area along the Minnesota Line.
I am involved in a research project in conjunction with my volunteer work at the National Museum of the
Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, and I've run into a stone wall.
Contact: Albert F. Ullman, SSGT USMC (Long time out of uniform!),
ajullman17@aol.com.
Bob Ringma, author of M*L*B*U, Full Monty in Korea and a Canadian participant in the Korean War, is
pleased to announce the launch of a new blog. Sixty-one years after the start of that war (not conflict), its
veterans are beginning to thin out. It’s time to hear some of their stories, which this blog encourages.
Personal recollections bring subjects to life. Ringma remembers, in his book and now in a new blog, joining
the Canadian Army Special Force in 1950 for service in Korea. His experience was unusual in that he was to
take a Mobile Laundry and Bath Unit into action.
He and his men endured teasing about the type of soldiering they were doing. They were called the “Chinese
Dragoons.” A couple of his soldiers, looking for a more exciting assignment, left the MLBU to join the
infantry. They had no idea that their bath unit would be credited with capturing the first prisoners of war of
the Canadian Brigade.
“Ringma tells the story of his time in Korea with clarity and candor. Military abbreviations and slang are
explained for the sake of civilian readers, but ex-military reviewers will not be disappointed by the color of
his tales,” says William R. Richardson, General, US Army, retired, a Korean veteran himself.
This blog is more than a collection of war stories. It is also full of insight, personal growth and
changing perspectives. Ringma freely admits to having a negative attitude towards the Korean people on his
arrival in Pusan in 1951. This view changed markedly in the following months. He developed the greatest
respect for the people of South Korea, and salutes their tremendous progress over the last six decades. Sadly,
he cannot say the same for the leadership and conditions in North Korea.
You can read Bob Ringma’s Korean War blog at
http://koreanwarmlbu.wordpress.com/. Email ringma@cogeco.ca.