Korean War veteran Stan Starcevich says it is a mistake for soldiers on active service to demobilise immediately hostilities cease. Having served two tours of duty in Korea with the 3rd RAR during which he was promoted to Corporal, Mr Starcevich said he then spent two years with the Airborne Platoon at the School of Land Air Warfare in Williamtown, Newcastle, before discharge in 1956. This allowed him to accumulate happy memories to counter the traumas of war before he was then assisted to retrain as a panel beater.
Mr Starcevich will be one of thousands of returned servicemen and women who observe Armistice Day on Monday, November 11, along with their families and supporters. He shared some of his memories in an interview with editor Geoff Vivian.
First of all, was it a worthwhile war? Did you feel it was worth at the sacrifice?
“Yeah, definitely. I’ve had two trips back there so far.
“They have come on so far compared with the North — the North has sort of got nothing except the big army and big rockets. The South, they’re just booming, their overpasses, the high-rise buildings. And the train we went on, it was doing about 300 kilometres an hour. The girl that was in charge of the tour, she said that they’d come in that short time from being absolutely broke to being one of the best economies in the world and instead of taking aid they we’re giving aid to other countries. They were one of the biggest ship builders in the world and it was just amazing to see how far they’d come. Definitely worthwhile.”
That’s the good side of it. What was the bad side of it?
“The bad side of it was that it started in the first place. The North was being backed by Russia, because Russia wanted to expand and get warm water ports and so on down there. I suppose the worst part about it was that we didn’t finish the job. It was left half done.”
There is small community of Korean War veterans in Esperance. What do you remember or to talk about when you get together?
“We don’t talk about it much. Just funny things that happened. They were life threatening at the time, but if you’re okay on the other end of it is sort of funny.
“The first action I went on we came up along this ridge and it was the first time I’d come under fire from a heavy Korean machine gun.
“And the Sar Major was standing up on the Ridge and he’s singing out: ‘move forward and observe’ and one of the wags he’s saying ‘that’s alright Sar Major. You Observe and tell us what’s going on’. Everybody cracked up laughing, even me.
“When the American general was presenting the battalion with the American citation for the battle of Kapyong the whole battalion was on parade with the best gear they could find. And then he’s up there with all his best winter gear on and they’re freezing. And he’s saying ‘I’ve come a long way to see you men’ and one of the blokes sang out: ‘how bloody far do you think we came you silly bastard?’
“The whole batallion cracked up, the officers marching up and down saying: ‘silence in the ranks’ and ‘step forward that man’. But even the officers were flat out trying to keep a grin off their faces.
“I wasn’t there, I was sent down to mind the Minister for Defence at the time. It was one of the officers told me later on so it must have happened.”
Happy memories, but was it a happy experience?
“Not really, but it was definitely adventure. At times it wasn’t funny at all, people dying. In a war you just feel lucky it’s not you.”
And after the war you accepted an offer to join the Airborne Platoon at the School of Land Air Warfare, back in Australia.
“I had to drop back to Private. Two years with Airborne, that was good, but
that’s what everybody should do when they come back from a war. They shouldn’t be discharged right away like they did with the Vietnam boys.”
What did you do in the Paras?
“We just did demonstrations, jumps and stuff for the Army where we did exercises with the Nashos and that. We went out to South Australia for one, and the wind was over 25 knots. We weren’t supposed to jump if the wind was over 15 knots. We said ‘oh we’ve come this far I suppose we’d better jump’ so we did. Blokes were being dragged with their ‘chutes. It was like a Gibber desert with just rocks and saltbush and stuff. They wore the arse out of their pants and everything.
“I did 76 jumps altogether, night time, into the water and stuff like that. It was great. That sort of took everything off the war so you forget about the war stuff. We did all sorts of courses like small boats and commando raids and stuff like that in the airborne. Good stuff. Good old days.”
Mr Starcevich will join other ex-servicemen and women along with their families in the Veterans Day observance at 10.30am on Monday, November 11 at the Esperance cenotaph in Dempster Street.
