23. My Last Days in Korea, December 1951 - Page 1
Noll wins the Lottery
The army gave points for your time in Korea. You got 4 points for combat or
high-risk areas. You got 2 points for time in the rear areas. The problem was
that the Company had gone to Korea together and almost all had 64 points. You
were supposed to go home after 36 points, but they couldn't allow so many
people to go home all at once. So they held a lottery of sorts to decide who
would go home first and so forth. I was chosen the first to go from my relay
station. I was excited and prepared to go home. My first trip was to Company
Headquarters. From there I would get transportation bound for home.
Assigned Guard Duty I arrived at the company headquarters and that very night they put me on guard duty. I had turned in my rifle, the one that was charged out to me. That is standard procedure. So they had to give me some weapon to stand guard duty. They gave me some kind of 45-caliber weapon that I had never seen before. It had a stock that was just a wire frame. This weapon was given to me about 10 minutes before I was to stand duty. We all lined up in formation to be inspected by the Officer in Charge. Now for the last 16 months I'd had my Class A uniform washed in streams by native Korean ladies where they beat it with sticks to clean it.