This episode of America’s Veteran Stories dives into the personal narratives of Marine veteran Marty Letellier. Hear about his early life in Iowa, the influence of his adventurous great-great-grandfather, and his harrowing experiences in the Korean War. As parts of a ‘forgotten war,’ Marty’s story highlights the remarkable resilience and spirit of American soldiers who stood firm in the face of daunting challenges. Perfect for listeners who cherish military history and personal stories of sacrifice and honor.
00:00:12 Introduction of America’s Veteran Stories
00:00:48 Kim Munson’s Inspiration and Introduction of Marty Letellier
00:02:40 Marty’s Family Background and Great-Great-Grandfather’s Story
00:05:05 Marty’s Childhood and Post-World War II Family
world war ii korea vietnam the gulf war afghanistan and her other wars and conflicts america’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty we must never forget them Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And this show began because of a trip that I took to Normandy, France in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans to Normandy for the 73rd anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1944 and World War II. and returned stateside realizing that each story is important. It needs to be heard. It needs to be broadcast. It needs to be archived. And hence, America’s Veterans Stories. I am so excited to have on the line with me Marine veteran Marty Letellier. And he fought in the Korean War. And the Korean War is many times referred to as the Forgotten War. And but it should not be forgotten at all. But it was fought just a few years after World War Two. And Marty Letelier, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 03 :
OK, thank you.
SPEAKER 10 :
It’s great to have you. Let’s talk a little bit now. I had the great honor to interview you a few years ago. And so I’m very excited again to interview you because you participated in a very important battle in Korea. In fact, in Marine Corps. It is one of the most famous battles of the Marines. There’s, I think, the Battle of Belleau Wood. Of course, there’s Iwo Jima. But the Chosin Reservoir is something that all Marines really know as well. So, Marty, it’s great to have you here. But let’s start at the beginning. Tell us a bit about you. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I… I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa. It’s on the Missouri River. And the childhood is a good one, you know. From the Midwest, childhoods are very nice. I’m trying to think now. What would be interesting? Well, it seems like… My great-great-grandfather grew up in Quebec, Canada.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And right across the river from Quebec City. It’s a little village. And he had a very interesting… childhood, and particularly his later life. At about the age of 17 or 18, he went down to New York City, worked there shortly, and then finally he goes down to St. Louis. And that was about 1850. And he went to work with the American Fur Company. He was a trapper. And, hell, he was an Indian fighter, too, really. Wow. And he wrote an autobiography about his adventures up the river, up to Missouri. And he was stationed at Fort Union, which is right on the border of Montana and North Dakota. And very, very interesting autobiography.
SPEAKER 10 :
Can people still get it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah. It’s for sale up there at the Union, at Fort Union.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. And what’s the title?
SPEAKER 03 :
What’s the title, Mama? Do you know?
SPEAKER 10 :
I’ll get it.
SPEAKER 03 :
She’s going to get it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Sounds good.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he married a Blackfoot woman.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he had a daughter. And by that time, after a few years, he got real tired of that country and dealing with the Indians. And he was getting very tiresome. So he kidnapped the daughter because his wife didn’t want her. She was a real Indian. And she wanted her daughter to be raised as an Indian. And so he kidnapped the daughter, went back down the river, and at the junction of the Big Sioux and the Missouri River, he stopped and said, we have a good place to stay. So he and a couple of his friends, French-Canadian friends, kind of homesteaded there. And he set up a fur trading post. Very, very, very interesting. But he was, the name of it is Adventures on the Upper Missouri. That’s the name of the book.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Louis Darcey Letelier. That was him.
SPEAKER 12 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s his name. And, oh, it’s hair-raising tones of fangs in here. The grizzly bears chasing them into the river. Very, very interesting.
SPEAKER 10 :
It sounds fascinating. Where are we? Okay, well, I asked you about your childhood, and I remember a little bit of the story that you’d mentioned about your great-great-grandfather. So good childhood. What about, though, you were a child during World War II. What do you remember about that, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I had a brother. Well, two brothers. One brother was in the Army. And he was in the Pacific. He won a Bronze Star. And finally, after the war, he came home and he had malaria. And I remember going to the hospital with him and trying to get treated for it. But I think in the later years, that kind of got better.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I remember, you know, not too long ago, well, you know, he died about 10 years ago. Okay. But by then, it didn’t bother him too much. And the other brother was in Europe, and he pounded a typewriter over there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Towards the end of the war, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Well, all jobs are super important, for sure. Did your brother that was awarded the Bronze Star, did he ever talk about why he received that award?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, he never did say much about it, no.
SPEAKER 10 :
Isn’t that interesting? I know. Just really interesting. And now, I wish that I had gotten more stories of many of the people from my family. I didn’t really realize just what… what they were holding there. But let’s talk about you now, Marty. Okay. So we’ve gone through World War II, and the Korean War starts. Where were you? How did it end up that you joined the Marines?
SPEAKER 03 :
I was a student at Trinity High School in Sioux City. And I played football, and I had dreams of playing for Notre Dame someday. But the first year there, the first fall, I got hit right on my left thigh. And I had a softball. Huge thing. And we couldn’t get rid of it. I went to the YMCA. Nobody knew anything about stuff in those days. And the uniforms were bad. They didn’t fit right. Which is why I got hurt. But anyway, so finally I said, you know, this is baloney. I won’t be able to play. God knows when I will be able to play. So I kind of thought about my great-grandfather. And I said, well, you know what? He was an adventurer. And I kind of had, you know, when you’re young, you think, wow, let’s just see the world. So I was going to join the Navy. And my dad said, well, if you’re going to do this, then why don’t you join the Marines? Because at best, you know, you can’t go wrong. So I said, okay. I didn’t care. So I joined the Marine Corps then. I was 17 years old.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I started off in Omaha, Nebraska with a physical and took a train there to San Diego and boot camp in San Diego. And then it started, you know.
SPEAKER 10 :
What year was that, Marty?
SPEAKER 1 :
1948. 1948.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, 1948. World War II is over. The Korean War then starts in 1950. You’re in the Marines. Tell us just a little bit about boot camp, though.
SPEAKER 03 :
Boot camp?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s great fun. At the time, I didn’t think it was fun. They treat you pretty bad. That was their philosophy in those days, anyway. That treats you bad. It toughens you up.
SPEAKER 10 :
Do you feel that that happened? Did you feel like you were toughened up for battle, or what do you think?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, I’m sure it helped. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
But I think they’ve changed their philosophy a little bit in boot camp. It’s tough. And then it was really, oh, God, I tell you, they treated you like dirt. But now I think it’s better. But maybe that’s good, treat you like dirt, you know, toughen you up.
SPEAKER 10 :
I remember I had been talking to one of a World War II veteran, a Marine, and he said something along the line. His mother said to him, I did my best to teach you discipline, and now the Marines are going to finish it. And I thought that was always a great quote.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, they will, man.
SPEAKER 10 :
So, Marty, those couple of years, so you joined in 1948, the Korean War breaks out in 1950. What did you do during those two kind of peacetime years?
SPEAKER 03 :
I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. Oceanside is a little town there on the coast. And right outside the gate is… Camp Pendleton. And so I spent two years, about two years there. And, you know, there was wonderful weather. I kind of liked the weather.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I had a brother, my second brother, who had an administration in Europe. He got out, and I went to school at the University of Southern California. So on weekends, when we had liberty, I would go up and we’d fool around up there with my brother. And we’d walk to the lake. And… He lived in a boarding house just close to the campus. And the back of the boarding house had an area where you could store weights, bar bills. So we got some bar bills, and we went to work on that. We also went to, once in a while, we’d go to Muscle Beach in Santa Monica on the coast.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, it’s probably good you had those weights so that you could go to Muscle Beach there, huh?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, right. If you don’t have the weights, you feel a little out of it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, right. Yeah. Marty Letelier, we’re going to go to break. This is Kim Munson, America’s Veterans Stories show. We’re talking with Marty Letelier. He is a Korean veteran, Marine veteran. And before we go to break, though, I want to give a shout out to one of my great partners, and that is Kirsch Insurance Group. They are specialists in the Medicare arena, and they work with a lot of different companies so that they can actually help you find the best plan that works for your individual needs. And so be sure and reach out to them. Their website is ikirsch.com. That’s ikirsch.com. And we’re going to go to break. When we come back, we’ll continue the conversation with Marty Letelier.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N, dot com.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out the website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. On the line with me is Marty Letelier, and he is a Korean War veteran, a Marine veteran. And the Korean War is many times referred to as the Forgotten War. And it’s per the Eisenhower Library. It says that the Korean War began after five years of simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula. And it began on June 25th, 1950, when the North Korean People’s Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, which is the line dividing communist North Korea from non-communist Republic of Korea. So you’re in the Marines. Did you expect that this was going to happen, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
That I would end up there?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, did you think that we were going to be involved in a war in Korea?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, that’s too quick after the Second World War.
SPEAKER 10 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
I figured it was going to be nice, and I just joined the Marines and spent four years and… You know, see California and go swimming up in the ocean. Great fun. But it didn’t work out that way. That war started, and that sure messed things up out there.
SPEAKER 10 :
So once the war started, did training change? Did the things that you were working on, your duties, did that change?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no. Well, it started and we immediately were called up and sent to Korea.
SPEAKER 10 :
So when did you arrive in Korea?
SPEAKER 03 :
Nothing changed. Let’s see. I think it was August 2nd of 1950.
SPEAKER 10 :
So you were there really for all of it, weren’t you, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Oh, you bet, boy. The whole bit.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. So you arrive, and what happens then?
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Then I had a map. Let me think. There’s an area in South Korea that we called the Pusan Perimeter. This included… Pouson, the big town, Pouson. Now they changed the name to Pouson, I think. They’re always doing that, changing names.
SPEAKER 12 :
I know.
SPEAKER 03 :
But anyway, that went up about, oh, I don’t know, 23 miles, kind of a little rectangle down there. And… The North Koreans had the whole peninsula except for that little spot right around the town of Pusan. And that’s why they shipped it there so quick, because they’re just about ready to lose South Korea.
SPEAKER 10 :
So you’re saying that the North Koreans had everything on the Korean Peninsula except for this little square.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 10 :
And they send you guys in.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s why they got the Marines over there. The Army was there, and they were not having much luck. Well, they weren’t trained. They emptied out Japan, where there were… pounding typewriters and chasing those pretty japanese girls and they didn’t know anything about fighting uh so the only troops really that were ready at that time were the marines so they got us over there and threw us into the battle
SPEAKER 10 :
So how did you come on to Korea? You didn’t have to do an amphibious landing then, did you?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no. Because they had Busan. They still had Busan. And so the ship landed there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Got it, got it. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And then we went from, like, we’d take trucks. See, the first battle… We took trucks, went to the, let’s see, where would we be? The west. I think it would be west, around the west part of that little area that we still had. And so then they threw us into a battle there, and we kicked the hell out of them. And then they shipped us by truck again to another area on the Myriang River. And we did the same thing there. So we saved Korea from the North Koreans with this small bunch of Marines because it was just the 5th Marines.
SPEAKER 1 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we did a good job. Some of the Army officers just raved about us because they couldn’t control their troops. They couldn’t talk to them. They couldn’t make them do anything. First thing they do is turn around and run. You can’t blame them, really, because they didn’t have any training. They didn’t know. They were just kind of criminals, the way they treated the Army. They had to go over there and supposedly stop the invasion by the North Koreans. But how are they going to do it? They don’t have anything.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, Marty, a question then. I’ve heard, as I’ve talked to so many veterans, training. What do you think that training is? It’s physical? It’s mental? It’s preparation for battle? Is that what it is?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And it’s mainly, it’s not physical so much. There’s some, you know, but it’s mental. It’s street decor. Spirit of… the Corps. You go and study the history of the Marine Corps. And in many cohorts, you’ve got all these Marines, the NCOs, non-commissioned officers, still in the Corps. And they… they knew what they were doing. They’d been, they’d fought the Japanese for a couple, three years. And, uh, and they, you know, that didn’t bother them so much, the North Koreans, because they would, you know, they’d yell at the Marines, they went, Marines, you son of a bitches, you’re gonna, we’re gonna kill you, we’re gonna cut your which we’re called. But that didn’t bother them. And because we didn’t bother them, it didn’t bother us. The kids, you know, they got 18, I was 19 then. Wow. And, you know, we figured they knew what was going on. And they did, though. They knew how to fight. And, uh, It surprised the North Koreans. They didn’t know what the hell happened here.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Because they had such an easy time, you know, with these poor Army troops. They just didn’t know what they were doing. They had poor leadership, and it was terrible.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Okay. Well, Marty, we’re going to go to break. I’m talking with Marty Letelier. He is a Marine veteran of the Korean War. The Korean War was fought 1950 to 1953, and it began in June, and he was shipped over in August. He was there for all of it. And before we go to break, these shows come to you because I have such great partners. One of those is Castlegate Knife and Tool, family-owned business located right here in Sedalia, Colorado. And whether or not you are looking for a gift for a chef or a sportsman or a collector, Castlegate Knife and Tool is the place for you. And they’re adding in all kinds of specialty items as well. So be sure and check out their website. That is Castlegate.com. Castlegate.com. We’ll be right back with Marty Letelier.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
CHOIR SINGS
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. On the line with me is Marine veteran, Korean War veteran, and that is Marty Letelier. And we were talking about when the Marines arrived in Korea, things changed. The North Koreans realized that we were serious and you were having success. We just talked about the battle at the Marien River. What happens after that, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
A couple more battles. Then come, let me think. I think it was in August. Okay. They pull us out. MacArthur has this brilliant idea that we’re going to go on the offense and go have a landing further up the coast in Korea and go to Seoul, which is right there, and take that, retake it, and maybe then we can kick North Koreans out of Korea. So…
SPEAKER 10 :
This is not the Inchon Landing, is it?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Is it? Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
The Inchon Landing, right. And that really caught them. Caught them with their pants down. They didn’t know what the hell to do. We weren’t supposed to be there. We weren’t supposed to land there. And nobody wanted to, except from Christchurch. He had some good ideas. There are other times that I wonder about the guy, but he had good ideas. And then he said, he figured out what hit him back there in the rear end, and they won’t know what the hell hit him. They’ll go to Korea, I mean to Seoul, and… Kick him out of there and the thing would be over. So that’s what happened. We had a hell of a battle going down in the Puzon perimeter down there. And that’s when McCarter said, let’s go up and have a tiniest landing. at Inchon. So right in the middle of a battle where we were winning, they were pulled out and we boarded ship and went up and made the landing at Inchon.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s pretty aggressive. And I say that not necessarily in a great way to open up another battle when you’re involved in this one. Did he do it because he wanted to surprise them, or what do you think, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah. I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
He wanted the Marines to survive this time. The seven Marines had landed there. I was with the 5th. So the 7th Rangers landed in the 1st Marine. These were the regiments. So now we had a full division.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Inchon. Before it was just, well, one regiment, but this.
SPEAKER 12 :
Wow, okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
So… So, and I’m looking at this, the Battle of Inchon was in September of 1950. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
That sounds right. Okay. Yeah. And I remember we had bacon and eggs for breakfast. We had to go in on landing craft, but the only time we could go in was later on in the day. The tides were just crazy there.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the tides were bad. We had to wait until about 5 o’clock to go in. So come 5 o’clock, we boarded the landing craft. It went down the nest, you know. And your rifle’s around your neck, and God, it’s just… Wow. I hated it. Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
And then to get to the landing craft also if the water’s rough. I mean, it’s not easy to do that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, and that damn, they’re going up and down, the landing craft.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right next to the boat, the big boat, Iran. And so you’ve got to time it. You’ve got to really jump.
SPEAKER 1 :
Jiminy.
SPEAKER 03 :
The last, the last. I don’t know how many feet are involved, quite a few. And, you know, you’ve got this rifle around your neck, and it’s just miserable. And finally, anyway, it worked out okay, but not much fun. But anyway, so we did a rendezvous. You go around in circles and tell you all the landing craft, are down and going and running. And then you peel off and you head for shore. And we went to hit the shore. And it’s not like in the Second World War where it was a sandy beach. This was a, they had a wall. It was a stone wall. I suppose this was because of the tides. But anyway, there was a stone wall and we rammed into that and we had homemade ladders and we threw those up against the wall and then we climbed the ladder and finally we were on the beach.
SPEAKER 10 :
Was that pretty fortified by the North Koreans, or did MacArthur choose that because there was that wall and that you wouldn’t be expected? What do you think?
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly right. Okay. The North Koreans said nobody’s dumb enough.
SPEAKER 10 :
Except the Americans.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, right. So we landed, and that’s where the first Marine to get the Medal of Honor was there. This was, what the heck was his name? It was a Spanish.
SPEAKER 10 :
Martinez.
SPEAKER 03 :
Was that it?
SPEAKER 10 :
I think so. I want to say, John, because I interviewed his cousin. Okay. I’ll take a look at that while you continue on, so tell us what happened.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. So he was there, and he was a first or second lieutenant, and he was teaching. charged up there with these troops. And there was an enemy, North Korean, or maybe it was still South Korean. But anyway, they had a machine gun nest there. And so he ran up and pulled out a hand grenade And just as he was throwing it, they shot him in the chest.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I found it. This one is Baldomero Lopez.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s it. Yep. And that, of course, made him drop the hand grenade. And so his troops were right around him there. So he just rolled over and… Made on top of that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. And he saved all their lives.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Wow. And he was… It still makes me up to talk about it.
SPEAKER 10 :
He was just 25 years old. Amazing. Truly amazing.
SPEAKER 03 :
That was what he was, 25?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, it says he was born in 1925. Of course, he died in 1950. Yeah. Wow. But anyway…
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he was some guy. Yeah. You know, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
And, Marty, did you witness this?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you bet.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Wow. I was a different country. They were all bunched together.
SPEAKER 10 :
Sure. Okay. Okay. So tell us, here, I’m losing track of time. I’m getting so interested in this. I need to make sure that I, because we want to get to the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. We’ve got a couple of minutes left. What else do you want to tell us about Inchon?
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s from there we went up to retake Seoul. North Koreans, when they started the war, Took Sewell right away. And I was very good. The battle was good. It was okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
Was that battle, was it like door-to-door kind of a battle, or what was that like?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah, the street. Yeah, you’re in Sewell, and I got a book that said, with all kinds of pictures. I mean, here, the book, too. Of course, we’re a correspondent. And then he took a little magazine. Anyway, he took a bunch of pictures and all that stuff.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, okay. Taken Seoul, then taken that, and you’ve really fought your way up. Now, do we now have all of the territory? Is there still North Koreans in that area as well?
SPEAKER 03 :
There may be some, but they’re done. They’re surrendering it. They’re hiding in the hills. For all intents and purposes, they’re done.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. So for that little piece of real estate, which was the Pusan perimeter, you pushed the North Koreans back. And let’s stop there. We’re going to go to break. I’m talking with Marty Letelier. He is a Korean War veteran, a Marine veteran. And before we do that, though, these stories come to you because I have great partners. And one of my great partners is Hooters Restaurants. They have five locations, and that is Loveland, Aurora, Westminster, Lone Tree, and Colorado Springs. They have all kinds of specials. Football kids eat free on Saturdays. Be sure and check that out on my website, which is Kim Munson, M-O-N. And we’re going to go to break. When we come back, we’ll continue the conversation with Marty Letelier.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
From the mountains to the prairie
SPEAKER 10 :
to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. I have on the line with me Marty Letelier. He is a Marine War veteran. And Marty, when we stopped from the last segment, the Marines have taken Seoul. What happened to that?
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re going to go by boat around the peninsula to the other side of Korea. And
SPEAKER 1 :
Bob Hope was there. He beat us to it. He beat us to it.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he was there with his, you know, all of his cohorts. But anyway, then we go up toward the reservoir there. Because the reservoir is the inside the country up, you know, I don’t know how far from the coast, not too far, 23 miles. So then we head up the reservoir and we stop short of the reservoir and the first Marine there and digs in there. And then we, fifth and seventh Marines, go up another 23 miles to Hagaroo, which is at the bottom of the reservoir, the bottom part of it. And then we did the fun stretch.
SPEAKER 10 :
What was the purpose of sending you guys?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, they thought we were going to go all the way to the Yalu River and The war was over.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, got it. And you’d be home by Christmas. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
We thought we would. But anyway, we go to Haglery. And then it’s getting colder and colder in the center here now. Before that, it was pretty nice in the fall weather, you know. Apples were on the trees, and it was pretty nice, really.
SPEAKER 10 :
But this is November now, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
But now it’s getting cold. So we… Oh, my God.
SPEAKER 10 :
And the dates on that was November to December 13, 1950 is when the battle was fought. And, yes, it was getting very cold.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, right. And then, you know, the soldier’s worst enemy, other than the enemy you’re fighting. Okay. And that, I think I got within eight of Korea, and I got… Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
It’s terrible.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s terrible. And you’re always sick. It’s just terrible. So we had that. And so I trucked toward Udine, another little village. And we’re in an old beach. And I’m in agony. North Koreans, Chinese, now the Chinese hit it. We had used red tracers. You know what I’m talking about?
SPEAKER 10 :
I do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
But maybe tell us what they are.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s part of the cartridge. Maybe every third or fourth one. And if you fire it, you can see where it’s going. And the Chinese used green ones, and we used red. Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
Did I jump in on this?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
They were, that started, boy, I tell you, I always, I say to this day, an article in a medical journal on her dysentery. Because I, like, tracers started going, things were rattling, going off.
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh. Yeah. Boy, that’ll do it, huh?
SPEAKER 03 :
You bet it’ll do it, boy. Stayed there about, oh, not just a few days. And Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner there. And we were trucked over the other side of the reservoir to U-Damn-E there. When they would hit us, it started, and they would, the first battle there, it was dark. It was just as thin as a foxhole because it’s frozen.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. The temperatures got as cold as negative 36.
SPEAKER 03 :
And later on, we got to 40, Roy. Oh, my gosh, 40 below. We had good reds and big parkas. I can’t complain about that. The shoes were lousy. I got frostbite all these years. I’m getting good money every month with frostbite.
SPEAKER 10 :
And you’re 91?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I’ll be 91 in March.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
But that’s you damn knee. And they would… The Chinese war, they come by the hundreds. And that’s how they always, to that time, win against the troops, the Army troops, because it scared them. I’m scared, too. But we had all these NCOs who had been through Iwo Jima and all those things, Okinawa. They said, because, you know, the Chinese would yell, hey, you dirty son of a bitch, we’re going to cut you to pieces. We’re going to kill you. And they would just yell back at them, come and get us. Come on. And… Then we’d just shoot them by the hundreds. It was slaughter. Then the Chinese, that’s really the first time the Chinese got acquainted with the Marines. They couldn’t figure out, God, what are we going to do? These are Marines.
SPEAKER 10 :
But you guys were really pretty much… Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
So how did you get out of there?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well… We had a… We’ve got… It’s a division… And we’ve got a lot of equipment. So we’ve got trucks and tanks and stuff like that. So we just bulldozed our way through on the road to Hagaroo. So that’s where we headed for, Hagaroo. That’s where the commanding general had his headquarters. So that was the start of the withdrawal. It’s a miserable existence, I’ll tell you. Everybody’s dying. Well, all the Marines are dying. In the morning, you take the bodies of your friends, your Marines, who died at night. And you throw them in a pile, and that’s it. So we just kept going. So we got back to Hagaroo. And then our feet were in bad shape, you know.
SPEAKER 12 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
They had frostbite. It’s that simple.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so we’d line up. When we got back to Agarwood, and the corpsmen would look at our feet, and if they were bad enough, it could be because they had bulldozed a kind of a landing strip there. And that plane’s good land. And so if you’re bad enough, they put you on the plane and ship you off to Japan.
SPEAKER 10 :
So what happened for you after that, Marty?
SPEAKER 03 :
I stuck with them all the way until we got to the coast. And when we got to the coast, we had landing craft, and that picked us up and took us out to the bigger ships. And we were going to go back south. And I remember as the landing had reached, As we got to the big ship that was going to take us back to the South, one of the sailors said, where’s the rest of your company? Because, you know, we lost so many men. And… Somebody piped up one of the Marines and said, this is it. There ain’t no more. This is all that’s left. Because we had about 50, 60 guys. There should have been 213. Wow. And poor sailors, they looked at their mouths, but they treated us real well.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, Marty Letelier, we’re basically out of time. How would you like to wrap this up for our listeners?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I don’t know. It’s going to happen again, I’m sure. Because during this time, you’re going to be a part of the Russians. Oh. I don’t know, the world’s crazy. Why in the hell are you killing each other? It doesn’t make any sense.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, that is for sure. And, Marty, I am so appreciative of my freedom and for men like you who have gone through really hell to make sure that we have our freedom. And I seriously mean it when I say that we stand on the shoulders of giants. So, Marty Letelier, thank you so much for doing this interview. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, you’re welcome.
SPEAKER 10 :
And again, my friends, we do stand on the shoulders of giants and God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 01 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
This episode of America’s Veteran Stories dives into the personal narratives of Marine veteran Marty Letellier. Hear about his early life in Iowa, the influence of his adventurous great-great-grandfather, and his harrowing experiences in the Korean War. As parts of a ‘forgotten war,’ Marty’s story highlights the remarkable resilience and spirit of American soldiers who stood firm in the face of daunting challenges. Perfect for listeners who cherish military history and personal stories of sacrifice and honor.
