Robert P. Dolan

Dolan began each morning with Reveille call, before returning to his barracks to “straighten” everything up. After breakfast in the mess hall, everyone received job assignments. He frequently volunteered for transport missions, seeking travel opportunities. These missions involved driving trucks rather than tanks, but were no less exciting. “To ask me all the places I went to,” Dolan said, “…I’d have to have a scorecard.” Sometimes he piloted; other times he served as gear-shifter.

One morning, Dolan (and several others) undertook a mission to resupply a machine-gun position in the mountains. Trudging through heavy snow, the truck’s suspension failed. Because support was not immediately available, and the truck carried food and medical supplies, the men remained on guard. Dolan soon became hungry. Lacking a functioning stove, he placed a beef stew can in the truck’s exhaust pipe. Unfortunately, Dolan did not add a ventilation hole, causing it to explode! “I did not starve,” he laughed, as the food landed on the clean snow, “but I learned my lesson.” The men slept overnight in a roadside tent. They woke up the next morning to find four feet of snow!

Another mission tasked Dolan with investigating the location of a shootout the previous night. He found a deceased enemy soldier, his body baking in the sunlight. Returning to base, Dolan passed Red Cross refreshment stands. Though the scene was “fantastic,” he recoiled at seeing “Jewish donuts,” their appearance reminding him of the bloated corpse. To this day, that memory deters him from eating them.

Another significant, though usually less exciting, task was guard duty. With a surname near the ‘top of the alphabet,’ Dolan frequently received guard orders. His shifts always seemed to occur at poor times. Unfortunately, he missed Bob Hope’s USO show, and many other events, because of them.

On duty, Dolan was often stationed overnight in a hilltop tower, with a field telephone connected to headquarters company, the guard post, the main gate, and the battalion commander. Freezing cold (lugging heavy winter clothes up the tight ladder was impossible) and extremely bored, he felt urged to ring the phone, wake the receivers, yell “boo!” and immediately hang up. Dolan resisted temptation, as such mischief would inevitably bring trouble.

Sometimes, Dolan patrolled on foot alongside a guard dog. His golden retriever companion, Topper, was “beyond smart.” He responded promptly to commands, but did not need orders at changes of shift, as he immediately knew to follow the new guard. Dolan wished to bring Topper home and lamented their parting.

While guarding an ammo dump one night with Topper, Dolan suddenly heard several “twings” of cutting barbed wire. The dog’s hair stood up “like a porcupine,” and he viciously growled, but remained by Dolan’s leg. (For restraint, dogs were to attack only if an assailant approached their master.) Regulation was to order, “Stop or I’ll shoot,” but in the moonless dark, Dolan took no risks, firing his M1 Garand’s full magazine towards the noise. Several dozen other guards rushed to his position as the target retreated. he had destroyed a 4×4 post, but there was no blood trail to credit a target hit. Thus, a frustrated Dolan had to replace the post personally.

In addition to base guarding, Dolan also served as an armed escort. He once accompanied a doctor into town to help a woman in labor. Dolan arrived just in time to witness the birth, comparing the scene of the baby tumbling across the dirt to a tootsie roll rolling across the floor. “It was beyond an eye-opener,” he summarized.

Besides these acts, Dolan once took a more offensive role against the North Koreans. He posted at a hilltop encampment in visual range of enemy positions, with tanks and machine guns supporting. However, the whole charade “was a joke” to confuse the enemy. The heavy guard presence meant nothing, and the radio communications that the station broadcasted were “bull.” Though the plan was clever, Dolan lamented “sweating to death” on the hill for little practical significance.

Dolan remembered a particular character present on that mission, a sergeant nicknamed “Killer.” Killer had been knifed across the face in the Korean War and was “back for retribution,” known to kill any North Korean he saw carrying a gun. When Killer called in a food airdrop for the encampment, however, it became evident that his logistical skills did not match his battlefield prowess; he gave the pilots the coordinates of the wrong hill! By the time they reached the drop, it had been completely looted.

Dolan also received some medical training, which proved helpful during one tank mission. His gunner silenced a harassing sniper with a white phosphorus round, but the barrel breech crushed his fingers. Dolan closed the man’s hand around a stick and wrapped it up before taking him to the hospital. Told by superiors that the man’s situation “turned out alright,” Dolan, as usual, wished for more information.

When not occupied, Dolan helped at the first aid station. He remembered one man who received a seemingly fatal bullet to the neck. Surprisingly, as Dolan bandaged the man, he began to joke, asking Dolan not to choke him. The patient’s good humor presaged his fate; he did survive the ordeal. Dolan’s medical service also triggered a negative memory, however. Later in life, his wife underwent surgery. Watching her in the hospital bed, he lamented his inability to assist, despite his training. “I felt so helpless, I just cried.”

Dolan spoke much about his base and displayed several pictures. Though one latrine building served the entire complex, there were few waiting lines, except during the summer, when many men took cold showers in their clothes. One mess hall also served the base. Though the waits there were long, the cooks were “fantastic,” as were the logistics personnel behind the scenes.

The mess hall offered rabbit, chicken, and hamburgers with rice and cucumber. Dolan mentioned Christmas dinner, where he had “never seen so many turkeys cooked.” The one thing he craved was the “good old American hot dog.” (There were occasional Saturday afternoon hot dog meals, but Dolan missed many because of guard duty.) He often took food home to eat behind the barracks. (Eating inside the barracks was prohibited, to not attract large mice or other critters.) Though generally praising the cuisine, Dolan noted that “you had to be careful” with some foods, as the poor facilities in Korea meant that hepatitis was a risk.

The numerous attempts of civilians to obtain food from the Americans outlined the impoverished state of South Korea. Several times, Dolan accompanied missions to retrieve food, milk, and mail. Armed guards supported the trips, as people often tried to stop the trucks and raid them. There was also need to post military police at the front gate and mess hall to deter theft.

In addition, people sometimes attempted to coax the military into bringing supplies to them. Civilians once invited Dolan to a dance in town, hoping he would bring food. “I don’t blame them,” he said. In fact, the mess hall paid many of its Korean employees in leftover food, which was worth more than money to them.

Morale among personnel remained generally high. Dolan socialized over dominoes, backgammon, and cards, and he enjoyed evening movies at the NCO club. Serving alongside men of many ethnicities, he did not notice any racism. There was some friction between enlisted and commissioned men, however. Frustratingly, officers often did not disclose the context or motive of their missions until after the fact. Dolan also noted some officers who “played God – you did exactly what they said, or else.” Envy even spread to some enlisted men, who clearly “polished their [the officers’] shoes.” His bitterness towards such favoritism remained a theme throughout his career.

Dolan occasionally received packages from home. At his first Christmas overseas, he obtained a large shipment of knitted clothes, cookies, candy canes, and cake from his mother. Dolan shared his treats with the men, attracting nearly two companies of soldiers to his barracks! He also snuck a half-gallon of milk from the quartermaster, joking that he could not be charged, as the theft took place over seven years ago. The whole event made Dolan very popular: “I could have probably used it to do a lot of bribing,” he said (though he never did).

Asked about his most memorable experience overseas, Dolan initially mentioned the loud, distinct clicking noise produced by removing the safety from an M1 rifle, familiar on eerie night-time patrols. To this day, whenever his wife or daughters click the latch on their house door at night, he jumps wide-awake.

Considering the question further, Dolan referenced his relationship with a nearby elementary school. He often delivered bubblegum to the children and took them for rides in his truck, developing a mutual fondness with them. Dolan also assisted them during bad times; he was once called to help some students who were robbed “down to their underwear,” by unknown assailants. When Dolan’s deployment ended, his heart warmed as the kids waved farewell to his passing truck.

Dolan’s departure from Korea occurred quickly. “You can’t believe how fast we loaded that ship,” he nodded. Again, sailing on the USNS Barrett, Dolan reunited with many people he met on the voyage to Korea, whose deployments coincided with his.

Dolan returned stateside with about a year of service left. As he was officially a driver, yet also had experience with demolition and small arms repair, he transferred to the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York. The climate presented “an experience” itself. With storms regularly dumping two to six feet of snow, he learned to operate massive 4×4 foot snow blowers.

The depot additionally served as an ICBM repair site, with heavily escorted missile trucks occasionally arriving. “Those trucks had more guards than a cookie would have ants in a picnic field,” Dolan remarked. Although they lived in the same barracks, the missile repairmen were prohibited from discussing their activities with him.

Whenever something needed to be destroyed, the men called for “Sparks,” Dolan’s nickname. Most memorably, he once destroyed a missile guidance system. Using shaped charges and C-4, Dolan detonated it in a field. The pieces, completely unrecognizable, were gathered and exploded again to completely eliminate evidence. “It was unbelievable,” he chuckled. “Maybe there was a good reason for it, but after the first bang, there was nothing left.” Dolan experienced some hearing loss from his demolition work, but nothing excessive to prevent him from “having [his] fun.”

Unknown to residents of the nearby town of Geneva, the depot also hosted a missile battery, the first line of defense against Soviet attacks over Canada. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the installation’s anti-aircraft missiles were uncovered as a precaution. The rockets were visible from outside the base, shocking the public who had been oblivious to its importance. “That town of Geneva changed,” Dolan said. “It was never the same.”