Join us as we delve into the life of Jim Quinn, a veteran whose remarkable journey of courage and resilience spans major global events. From his childhood in Shadron, Nebraska during the Great Depression, to navigating the challenges of WWII, Jim shares captivating stories of survival and heroism. As he turns 95, Jim reflects on his time in the Air Force during the Korean War, offering a unique perspective on the sacrifices made by men and women like him.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France, for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in World War II. I returned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. Each of them is individual, and we need to record them and broadcast them and archive them. So hence America’s Veterans Stories. I’m so honored to have in studio with me James H. Quinn. Jim Quinn, it’s great to have you here. Thank you. And your daughter, Christine, is a friend of mine, and she’s the one that really arranged this.
SPEAKER 06 :
She’s a busy one.
SPEAKER 07 :
She is a busy one. And you’re busy. So we are recording this, well, let’s see, December 5th. And we’ll be broadcasting it in a couple of weeks. You’ve got a birthday coming up, Jim.
SPEAKER 06 :
I certainly do. But, of course, you’ve never talked to anybody that old. I’ll be 95 on the 7th.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the seventh, my gosh, that is Pearl Harbor Day. So tell us about you as a kid. Where’d you grow up?
SPEAKER 06 :
A little town called Shadron, Nebraska. I was mistaken. I thought that was a city until I was out of Shadron, but… At 13 years old, all I can remember about December 7th was I was on my bicycle someplace, and somebody mentioned the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and at that time that was all a complete unknown. Where’s Pearl Harbor? We… Had no idea Japanese we had no Japanese we hadn’t hardly anything in shattering as far as ethnic differences We survived or subsisted on the fact that shattering was economically dependent on agriculture A railroad and a little college that was there in one of the four state colleges in Nebraska at Chadron.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, Jim, I’m familiar with Chadron, Nebraska, because I grew up in western Kansas. I grew up in Goodland, Kansas. So we’re cut from the same cloth, I would say. So let’s see. You were born in 1928. So that means you lived through the Depression. What can you tell our listeners about that?
SPEAKER 06 :
I was talking to, well, actually Chris the other day, and yes, certainly did live through the Depression. And I don’t think we really realized how poor we were. We all survived because everybody was in the same boat. Nobody had anything. I know that my dad did a lot of things to keep home and everything intact, but… Little stories. For example, when we would come back from Denver to Shatter and have Dad in the car with us, we’d go by a farm that raised corn. And Dad would talk about the fact that he made 10 cents a bushel for picking corn. Unbelievable. 10 cents a bushel. Unbelievable. How many times can a person with a bended back go into that kind of an operation? The other big thing that is with me, will be with me, when I have no idea how old I was, maybe seven years old, I had a sister who was a couple of years younger than I was. And mom needed something for my sister Jean at the store. And she scrounged around and she came up with a silver dollar. and wrapped it up and gave it to me and asked me to go to the store, if you can remember, a store by the name of Piggly Wiggly. Oh, really? Okay. But anyway, off I went to the store, and someplace, I have no idea where, I lost that dollar. And the frantic that that caused is with me and has been with me over my lifetime. And I think of poor mom, poor dad, actually, too. Everything that they did to try to scrounge something like that. And here little Jimmy goes off, not realizing how important it was. And they lost that silver dollar.
SPEAKER 07 :
What was your mom’s reaction? Do you remember? Tears.
SPEAKER 06 :
Frantic seeking for it. We walked the travel the same distance that I would have gone trying to find it. But no help. I have great reflections as far as my mother’s concerned. She went through a great many sacrifices and examples. Four of us kids.
SPEAKER 07 :
How many kids in the family?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, a total of three. My younger sister, two years younger, was Jean, and then along about 1940, Sister Helen came along, and she was the baby, of course, and someone that… Didn’t really know too well because I was ready to leave for the Air Force, the service, when she was, oh gosh, I don’t know how old she could have been. Six, maybe seven years old, yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and interesting that you would tell that story about you losing the dollar. My grandfather, so western plains of Kansas and poor, and they had actually killed a beef, and they had canned all of the meat, and they’d put it in the storm cellar. And they’d gone to town, and they came back, and somebody had stolen all of it. Oh, boy. And my grandfather said that they were very hungry that winter, but he said, I think I know who did it, and I think that they needed it more than we did. Yes. So he kind of had a piece with that, Jim.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, again, I think of the time that we went through, and I think of the sacrifices that were made by so many people. And yet I think it was probably one of the greatest things that happened to me and my generation because it was a learning experience that taught us as we grew and went into work our own way, some of the sacrifices that were needed I won’t get into it, but I have a great, I think, comparing a lot of the younger generation today to the generation then.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, the generation then, they could do stuff, which is pretty amazing. I’ve interviewed a number of different veterans, and that was something that was kind of great about the American generation, or the greatest generation is veterans. You could do stuff. You could figure out a way to fix it. And so let’s talk a little bit about, again, you as a child and when your parents had purchased a creamery. So there’s a lot of work that’s involved with that, yes?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Dad purchased that in 1936 and sold it in 1948 so that I pretty well grew up. With the business, as far as the business is concerned, and excuse me, as I indicated, I was 13 years old when the war broke out. And as I matured, there was absolutely no young men around to do any kind of work. Everyone was going, everybody was fighting a war, but actually, again, it was a growing up situation that I think was a great benefit because the duties that I had in growing up certainly did better prepare me for adulthood.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and kids learn to work.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. Not everybody had a floor example. I was not the greatest athlete in the world, but I played football and went out for football in college. But there was absolutely no way. I was not good enough to get a scholarship, and there was absolutely no way that I could devote time To all that was involved in the footballer, you had to have a job. If you were going to have any money at all, you had to have a job. So, safe way, here I come.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and the other thing is, and Christine had provided some information, that you actually drove a delivery route for the creamery. And it wasn’t just around town, was it?
SPEAKER 06 :
We had… At the creamery, we made ice cream and churn butter and buttermilk and things like that. But anyway, the routes that we had were involving two. One going up through the Black Hills, up to and including Mount Rushmore, and then going east as far as Valentine, Nebraska, which… Oh, I can’t remember exactly the mile. It’s over 100 miles down there, Valentine. And we had customers along the way who could stop and service those customers. And as I grew and grew into the grand old age of 16 where I could actually drive the truck, I pretty well took over from my grandfather was the first one with a truck. And I took over the duties in the ages, I say, of 16, 17, whatever. driving, we had a little ton and a half truck that carried ice cream, obviously, up to service, and it would take two days to go the route. When we went east, we would hit all of the little towns up and down Highway 20, but we also would take off starting at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation up there, Pine Ridge, the Sioux Indian Reservation. And we would stay on the reservation pretty much past Rosebud and coming out down towards… I can’t remember what the name of the little town was. And then on to Valentine, that’s where we would spend the night. And then the next day come back up Highway 20, servicing the various customers on the way.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’ve got to think that kids in each of those towns was excited to see you if you were showing up with ice cream. You’re right. Oh, that’s great. Hey, we are talking with Jim Quinn. He will turn 95 on December 7 of this year. He was born in 1928. We’re talking about his experiences, his military service, and we get to do this because we have a lot of great sponsors. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977. And it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We’ll be right back with Jim Quinn.
SPEAKER 03 :
A house protects from the rain, but a home shelters from the storms of life. Additionally, home ownership has helped Americans create wealth for themselves and their families. The Colorado Metro real estate market is ever changing and is presenting new opportunities for home buyers that we have not seen in quite some time. If you are thinking of buying a new home or selling your home, RE-MAX REALTOR® Karen Levine can help you successfully navigate the complexities of real estate transactions. Call Karen Levine today at 303-877-7516. That’s 303-877-7516. You want Karen Levine on your side of the table.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 1 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. I’m so honored to have in studio with me James H. Quinn, Jim Quinn. And he was born December 7, 1928. His 13th birthday was when the Japanese attacked America at Pearl Harbor International. in oahu hawaii and certainly that is a memorable birthday but jim let’s continue on we talked about your delivery route when your family had the creamery but one of the notes that your daughter had given me is that you growing up that you’d had a horse you were always interested in horses so tell me a little bit about that oh you have to catch my breath on this one because uh
SPEAKER 06 :
Shadron is a small town, and you didn’t have all the zoning and all that sort of thing. And Dad, I don’t know where he got her, but he got her a half Shetland. And her name was Pet. And she truly was a pet because we grew up together. That was part of my family anyway. And… I rode her everywhere. And I rode her bareback. We didn’t have saddles in those days. I rode her bareback, but I rode her everywhere and just had a lot of fun. And come dress-up time, I remember at parades in Chadron that we had a cart that we… Hooked pet, too. And anyway, what can you say? We tried to get her pregnant. Never could. And I don’t know where in the world it happened, but… All of a sudden, and here at home in China, we wake up one morning, and Pet is out there with a colt. She had been pregnant. She had a colt, and… He was kind of a knothead. We named him Mike. But he was not that great. went on and we bred her again to another and we had the best doggone little horse that or excuse me excuse me back up the first was called we named her Cuddles and the great horse was Mike and he was really a great little horse
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, what a great story. Well, let’s talk about, certainly, let’s see, you were 13 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. So through high school, you’re really in high school during World War II. What do you remember about World War II, Jim?
SPEAKER 06 :
The only thing I can really remember is the fact that the college never had a very good basketball team because everybody was gone. And anyway, stories about rationing. That was probably the big thing that, for example, like today, you didn’t pull into a service station and get gas. You had stamps there and little red stamps that you could buy gasoline with. And that brings up a story here again of my dad that I thought was a great story. He was up on the route, and he was coming from Newcastle, Wyoming, and he was short on gasoline, hoping to get down to where he could get some. But he ran out of gas, and here he’s sitting out there in the middle of literally no place with a truck, no gas. Who comes along? Nobody comes along. And he took the flares that he had on the truck and emptied the kerosene in the gas tank. And he also happened to have a little bottle of whiskey with him. that he took the whiskey and poured it into the carburetor to get the truck started again. And although it banged and boomed with that kerosene in there, he actually made it into town. Oh, anyway, so the stories of, in our business, for example, the cream, but the sugar was rationed. And as a consequence, the product that we made was not… as good a product as you would hope because you were trying to stretch everything. Butter was another deal. The government, who was always there, I think Reagan made the observation that government was here to help you, that we would make butter, but you couldn’t. color it it had to be butter was fine but if you’re going to do any substituting tool that had to be the same color as butter and so there was a little coloring that you would use to color Margarine so that it wouldn’t make the appearance that we have butter.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s interesting. And I think that quote that you’re thinking of about from Ronald Reagan was the, I think the most dangerous words in the English language are. I’m married to you. I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. Exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
And those words have come back to haunt us so many times, as it has many people. I know that this is not a political program, so we won’t go there, but… I sure hope we don’t get much more help as far as government is concerned.
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree with you, Jim Quinn. We have all the help that we need right now. Exactly. So you are a kid through World War II. Right on the heels of World War II is Korea. So tell us about Korea. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Korea was – here again, it was the government helping you. Truman was the president at the time, and Korea came along, and there was not a war going on because we were assured – by Truman that this was a police action and people were dying and being wounded and being shot at just like it was a war but here again it was a police action and you might want to delete The fact that I had no idea about the width of the world and where all of these things came from, because in 1950, I was firing. I was a fireman on the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. There were two people in the engine, and the engine was… uh moved with steam and the firemen maintained the pressure on the steam so that the engine was moving but anyway uh had no idea of what where how and when but somebody came down to the by the engine and said hey the gooks just crossed the 38th parallel And I said, what’s a gook and where’s the 38th parallel? I had no idea. And, of course, talking about the Koreans when they crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea. But that was the introduction to the Air Force because at that time there was a great deal of motivation among young people because of something called the draft the government was looking after and for you and if you were patriotic looking for a direction Yeah, you had your choice. You could join, join the Navy, join the Marines. And there was a new service at that time formed in 1947. But in 1950, the United States Air Force and they had a lot of neat things like airplanes and planes. So anyway, after the experience of learning what had happened, I went home, talked to the folks, and my dad was trying to talk me, well, go to the Navy and all that sort of thing. No, I wanted to fly, and so I went up to Rapid City and enlisted in the Air Force at Ellsworth Air Force Base. And how old?
SPEAKER 07 :
What? About 18 years old, probably.
SPEAKER 06 :
No. At that time, I was 21 years old. OK, because for what I was after, I enlisted to go to the aviation cadet program. You had to be 21 years old. Okay. And you had to have two years of college. Those were the prerequisites. And you had to be single, too. That was a record. But anyway, went to, from that point, to Goodfellow Air Force Base.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. And so, Jim, what happened after that? Once you got to Goodfellow Air Force Base, what happened there?
SPEAKER 06 :
I got down to Goodfellow and thought that I was really important stuff coming off the plains of Nebraska. And I got down there with a group of young guys that it turns out I was privileged to be among. There were 600 of us that were selected at that time to go into pilot training. And at that time, there were four Air Force bases there. Randolph, Kelly, Goodfellow. I can’t remember the fourth, but the 600 was divided among the four bases so that at Goodfellow we had 150 cadets that were assigned to flying or learning how to fly.
SPEAKER 07 :
So you wanted to be a pilot, yes? That’s correct, yeah. Okay. Okay. And so what happened? You know what? I think let’s do this. Let’s go to break. We’re going to continue the conversation with Jim Quinn. Before we do that, though, I did want to mention the Center for American Values. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. And it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients. And they do that through… over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. We’ll be right back with Jim Quinn.
SPEAKER 04 :
In these tumultuous times, it is necessary that we each have a freedom library to know and understand our history. Bury Him! A Memoir of the Vietnam War by Captain Doug Chamberlain is a must for your personal library. In this honest and gripping memoir, Captain Chamberlain recounts the chilling events that took place during his command of a company of young Marines at the height of the Vietnam War. Chamberlain painfully recalls the unspeakable order he and his Marines were forced to obey and the cover-up which followed. Purchase the book at marinedougchamberlain.com. That’s marinedougchamberlain.com so that you gain perspective on this time in our history.
SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are in 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 Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening. And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. I am so honored to be talking with James H. Quinn, Jim Quinn. And he is the father of a good friend of mine. That is Christine Quinn Burt. It’s just great to have you in here in studio, Jim. And your birthday is December 7th. You were born in 1928. And we’re recording on the 5th of December. We’re going to be broadcasting it here in about 10, 11, 12 days. And so you’ll already then have turned 95. So it’s great to have you here, Jim.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you so much. And the thing I feel so inadequate about is when you talk about veterans, you talk about things like you taking four veterans to Normandy. These are the guys that are real veterans as far as I was concerned. I was there. I was there. I’ll get into it later, but I really feel honored to even be talking to veterans because I know that you’re on the air and I know that there are guys that really did some heavy lifting.
SPEAKER 07 :
So, Jim Quinn, to that point, and I understand exactly what you’re saying, and I have learned that combat, nobody understands combat unless they’ve gone through that. So I understand that. But the other thing that I learned, and this was when I was in Normandy with the guys, and, of course, two of the guys were first wave Omaha, bloody Omaha. One paratrooper jumped in behind enemy lines. and the other was in the Army Air Corps with the bombers on D-Day. But as I thought about it, just, for example, Guy Whitten, who jumped in behind enemy lines, just the logistics of making sure that each of the soldiers had their packs and everything that needed in that, it’s not, it isn’t just, and we don’t want to take anything away from combat, but it takes everybody away. to have made everything successful. So I appreciate your humility. I get it. I’ve heard it. But each and every veteran is so valued for what they have done, and they’ve been willing. Each of them, you were willing when you took that oath. You didn’t know. Ultimately, you might be in combat as well. So I don’t want to take anything away from your military service. I appreciate you. I appreciate my freedom. So thank you. Good. Thank you. I get it. So let’s continue on. Pilot training and so flying. Have you ever been in an airplane before?
SPEAKER 06 :
No. Well, I guess maybe once in a little piper club. But flying was one thing that always intrigued me. And I wanted to be a pilot and I wanted to fly. And the story of the Air Force at the time that we went in, again, as I indicated, we were 600 strong among four bases. And the Air Force at that time… It was so inadequate. It was new, huh? We had from Goodfellow, graduating class, I think, consisted of like six or eight guys. That was it. Six or eight guys. Out of 150? Yeah. Out of 150—well, no, no, excuse me, not out of—this was the original. This was the class—the Air Force numbered their classes by the phonetic alphabet. This would have been probably class 51 Fox, maybe something like it. Our class number was 51H, which meant— that we graduated in 51, or our graduation date was 51 of 1951. And our full class, our full complement was 150. But the Air Force did some weeding on the thing, and I don’t think that the Air Force realized at the time that they probably lost the best pilot that they had their hands on. But I was among those that washed, and by that it means they didn’t like the way I flew their airplanes. So I bid the Air Force goodbye. As the instructor, the one that gave me a ride, and they called it the… washing machine because if you got that far you weren’t too far along the road but when we got through his last words to me were you can fly that thing quit you’re okay you can finally but one of these days you’re gonna kill yourself and I think we ought to send you home this one so they did but Just going back a bit, when you go into a program like this, I don’t think that anybody understands… We certainly didn’t. The pressure that we were under, full pressure day and night. You were told when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, when to march. We marched everywhere. When to talk. In other words, it was complete regulation on the thing. And there were so many things happening. There were so many funny things that happened that you’d come to memory. But basically, we were under pressure. We were all under pressure. And when it came to a separation, it came to a great loss. And it’s something you remember all of your life. And yet, I remember, for example, when you’re in that type of an environment, you’ll buddy up with somebody. I buddied up with a young guy from Iowa. He was from a little town in Iowa. I was from a little town in Nebraska. And we had our girlfriends that someday we were going to marry. We couldn’t marry until we were through with the program. In other words, we had to be through with this year program before we could marry. And the guy that I buddied with, we were, in a short period of time, closer than brothers. And Dean was a natural. I don’t think, well, I do know he had a little problem with trying to identify a beacon at a distance. And here again, this is a conversation you have to get into flying, but he had a little problem. understanding seeing the beacon that he was involved in but Dean went on he went through the program and I envied him with gritted teeth because he seemed to be so such a natural and so easy for him you mean flying in flying and our class graduated in as I say December 51 Dean went on to 51 school. It’s the F-51, the Mustang, as they call it during the war. And they had put another seat into the 51, made it a trainer. And he graduated from 51 school there. came out of the 51, went down in Dallas at Las Vegas, and transitioned into the F-86. At that time, the newest… Not the newest, because the FAA was the newest, but one of the best fighters, in my estimation, that the Air Force had. He went to Korea in April, and to everyone’s. Of 52? Of 52. And was killed on July 4th of that year. Hmm. So he never married? He did marry. He married his lifelong girlfriend. And anyway, Marilee was her name, and he and Dean came by. At that time, I was at Lowry, and they came back by Lowry on their wedding night. And Dean’s folks came out, Ed and Artis came out, and shared time with JD and I. And then in later years, we got to know his sister quite well, Ruthanne. So anyway, it was one of those wartime adventures that you go through that lasted a lifetime of memories.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. And again, his name is Dean Fredrickson. Dean Fredericks. Dean Fredericks. Okay. Dean Fredericks. We want to get that right. Yeah. We need to keep these names alive, Jim. We need to keep these stories alive. We need to say these names. And this is a man who he is. I mean, just think about the sacrifice of the family for all of us.
SPEAKER 06 :
And his memory is alive because you go to the student union in Iowa State. And chiseled on the wall, you’ll see his name. Boy, that is so important. That is so important. And Dean won a DFC, Distinguished Flying Cross, in Korea. And he also won a Bronze Star for action. As a matter of fact, Dean wrote me about this, and I regret to this day not having that letter. Someplace over the years it was lost, but he told me about his first days in combat. And anyway, what can you say? What can you talk about?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it’s so important to keep these stories alive. And so we’re going to continue. I guess I just want to ask. So Dean married his girlfriend. That’s correct. You got out of all this training. Did you marry your girlfriend?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, I would hope so. She’s sitting right here. Well, we’re not sure. We’ve only been 72 years. 72 years. Yeah, but we signed on for another 72.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. That’s great. And so, again, I’m talking with Jim Quinn, and we’re talking about his experience during the Korean War. And we have these conversations. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road, and great specials Monday through Friday for lunch. And for happy hour, great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. So we’re going to continue the conversation with Jim Quinn. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’ll be right back. Lauren Levy can help you understand the process and craft solutions that are unique to your circumstances. To explore how a reverse mortgage might help you, call Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881. That’s 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 05 :
From the mountains to the prairies,
SPEAKER 07 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. I have to say, Jim Quinn, I’m so thankful to your daughter, Christine, for arranging this interview. And I’m talking with James H. Quinn, Jim. He was born December 7, 1928. His 13th birthday was when America was attacked by the Japanese military. Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. Jim Quinn, you had wanted to be a pilot. Christine also said that you had, and I know this is frustrating, that any little thing could make it difficult to be a pilot. And you had an inner ear imbalance that was also a challenge, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I really, no, physically. And here again, in 1950, when I went… You had to be, as I indicated, of the qualifications, but you had to be physically fit. There was not a overweight person in the whole group down there, but I, as I may have mentioned, uh thought boy i was really important stuff getting down there until i mingled with the young men my counterpart my peers these guys were fantastic uh many had already completed college when they went in and uh the people that i met and the people that i mingled were Heads and shoulders above my being, if you will. Great, great, fantastic people. One of them I’ll mention, for example, was a guy by the name of Jim Davis. And in… Our rooms, we didn’t have rooms. They were partitions, really, in the barracks at the time. We did not make our beds. We unmade our beds. When we were ready to go for the day, we had everything stacked from sheets to pillows to blanks, the whole bed in one section on the bed, and the rest of the bed was nothing but bed springs. Jim was the only person that I have known that could lay down on hard bed springs and go to sleep and take a nap. He lived in the unit next to me for some time. But anyway, Jim and I formed a lasting relationship in that… Jim went through the program, and when he graduated, he went into multi. It was graduated at that time that when you graduated, you went to either 51 school, you went to 25 school, or you went to F-A-E-O-T 33 school. And what they were was jets, going into jets, going into fighters with the 51, which was a marvelous airplane, and then going to a jet school. And jets at that time were just… The Air Force was in a transition period from prop jobs to jets. The first jet that was… identified by the Air Force was called the F-80 and it was a fixed, I mean it had a straight wing and the thing where on all your later models had what am I trying to say, split wings. And anyway, they had 33 school, they took the F-80, put another seat in it, and called it the T-33. And incidentally, the T-33 was the airplane that Dean was killed in. For some reason, although he was an 86 pilot, he was transporting, or not transporting, but he was flying this 33 from one base to another, had to be someplace, and he had been elected to fly it over there. That’s the story of the Air Force. But anyway, Jim went on in bold eyes and served his service in Europe. And he had some funny stories to tell about French Foreign Legion guys that he took on jumps over Africa. But Jim Inotta…
SPEAKER 07 :
to have a career with united airlines and retired as a captain flying captain with united okay well how about you so uh great friendships um with dean fredericks and jim davis uh how about you what happens after all of this when i washed
SPEAKER 06 :
The Air Force or the service, the draft, if you will, you had to have a year’s service. I only had five or six months service so that I was subject to a draft. But the Air Force told us at the time that we could reenlist at our base of our choice. which I did, and from Chadron I came to Denver and re-enlisted at Lowry. And they had absolutely no idea what to do with me at Lowry. And I wound up in the officer personnel section of Lowry doing a job that could well have been done by a civilian employee. But anyway, here again, it was a great experience, though, because those were the years that Eisenhower was president at the time. He had his summer White House at Lowry. He was officed on the second floor of the building, headquarters building, that we were in. So the world literally passed by our doors. We were on the first floor. They were on the second floor. And I’ll never forget, John Foster Dulles was a thin man. But he always had a belt that was way too big for him. And when he tightened it up, the belt hung. He was a standout of the crowd because he was the one with the hanging belt loop.
SPEAKER 07 :
And is that Dulles who the airport’s named after?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 07 :
Is that the Dulles who the airport’s named after?
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, I don’t know that for a fact, but Dulles at that time was Secretary of State. I bet it probably. Another experience that we had out there that was memorable and unforgettable was that although I had seen Ike several times in this transition as far as going to and from the office, Jeannie had never seen him. And so… I found out that Ike’s normal routine would be very busy during the week, but Saturday he would come out to Larry and he would spend a few hours in his office, but then he would take off to go play golf or fishing or whatever. So I had Jeannie come out so she could see Ike when he went from his office to his car. And in the conversation before his exit to the car, we were talking to his driver, and his driver was telling us about ice schedule, and he was telling about how he always arranged for him, the driver, to have a fishing pole or whatever so that he, too, would have arrangements for a little R&R. But never forget, Jeannie was out there and Chris at that time was a babe in arms. And I came out and crossed Ritty in front of us, walked out to the car, got into the car, And his driver evidently mentioned the fact that we were there to see him. And it was an unforgettable picture because Ike turned around with that big Ike grin and waved at Gina and Chris.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, that is amazing. What a story. Well, Jim, let’s talk a little bit after that. I mean, you ended up with such an interesting careers after this. So tell us a little bit about the rest of your life.
SPEAKER 06 :
My first job out of the Air Force. And it was one of those hard to get jobs because I came into office with a promise of ending that doggone conflict over there in Korea. And the services ripped, released a whole bunch of GIs. And 17th Street in Denver was kind of like a parade of GIs walking down one side of the street looking for a job and coming up to the other side looking for a job. And the first job that I landed was with Sinclair Oil. I was very happy with an oil company because it was my feeling that people would spend their last dollar to buy gasoline to drive to the poorhouse. But anyway, I spent about five years with Sinclair Oil. I wound up as a sales rep for the commercial end of the business. From there, I went into securities business and learned things about securities business that… were helpful in the end. The big thing I learned was that nobody really knows much about anything. You take whatever anybody says about securities with a great deal of soul. Do your own research and do your own thing. But I spent a career then and then my final 26 years of active sales duty was with a company that was the division of the apprentice hall printing company and it was with a division that nobody ever heard of but we sold supervisory development materials to industry and it’s interesting okay well jim quinn we are out of time we basically have about 30 seconds what’s your final thought you’d like to leave with our listeners Again, I’m privileged to be here. And to any vet that is still around, stick with it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Jim Quinn, thank you so much. And again, Jim is going to be having his 95th birthday here within the next few days. It’s been such an honor to get to do this interview. I’m so thankful to your daughter, Christine, for making this happen. Jim, thank you so much. And maybe I’m the first to wish you a very happy birthday. Thank you. So, my friends, as we listen to these stories, we realize that we indeed we are blessed to live in liberty. And we get to do this because of our veterans and our military. And we do stand on the shoulders of giants. So, my friends, God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
