Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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When I graduated from high school in 1950, Marysville was a pretty small place. Our high school graduating class had only about 25 boys in it. All of us were looking forward to our graduation. I would soon start college, and I was excited about that.
Then, on June 25, only days after graduating, I turned on the radio and heard that South Korea had just been invaded by Communist North Korea. Oh man, here we go again. We were at war. They didn’t call it a war; they called it a “police action,” but make no mistake, it was a war.
I was able to finish my first quarter at OSU, and then, along with another Marysville boy, John Schwarzkopf, I enlisted in the Air Force. We boarded a troop train and headed for Texas. Boy was that train crowded. In fact, John and I had to share a Pullman berth. I was a tall skinny kid, and John was pretty big, a tackle on the MHS football team. It’s a wonder I didn’t get squashed.
We both ended up in the same squadron. In fact, we lived in the same barracks. When our basic training ended, however, we headed to different bases, and I figured that was the last Marysville boy I will see for quite some time.
I don’t recall where John went, but I went to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi Mississippi, to attend an electronics school. A day or two after arriving there, I stopped at the Base Exchange to buy some shaving cream. Just as I entered the store, I ran into Jim Patrick. He graduated from MHS a year before I did. It was quite a surprise to find another Marysville boy on the base. That afternoon he took me on a walking tour of downtown Biloxi.
The next day, as I was leaving the mess hall, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I ran into another Marysville friend, Jerry Kingsmore. He was two years ahead of me at MHS, and we had been good friends for years, ever since our Boy Scout days. I couldn’t believe that there were three Marysville boys on that base.
Then came the biggest surprise of all. A USO show came to perform on the base. There was a really good band, plus vocalists and a couple of comedians. A stage was erected in the outfield of the baseball diamond. The audience sat in the grass, and I got there early to get a seat in the front.
As I sat there waiting for the show to begin, two of my MHS classmates, Mike Fox and Smed Hendricks, walked in and sat right behind me. Can you believe that? There were five of us Marysville boys on that base. I might expect five boys from a larger place, like Columbus or Dayton, but five boys from little old Marysville was a big surprise. Over the next few weeks, the five of us did a lot of things together.
Eventually we all went to different places, but one of us, Mike Fox, still had a Marysville connection. You see, he was a radar technician, and he was assigned to the radar unit near Bellefontaine, maybe 25 miles from Marysville. I thought Mike was a pretty lucky guy. He was filling his military obligation, but he could still go to the Avalon Theater every now and then.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com