Tell me, Don Hildebrando, were you drafted, or did you enlist? How old were you back then?

I joined the army on September 12, 1951. I was sixteen years old, and I had left home three days after volunteering for the army. In Colombia, the Political War between Liberals and Conservatives was happening, and that is why they sent me to the Junín Battalion Number 7 in Popayán. After that, they sent me to the jungles of Cauca, to a town called Belalcázar.

You hear stories that they used to round up young men in the streets or peasants fleeing the violence and take them off to war. How true is that?

There are stories about that from when the first battalion was formed. That they would grab people off the street and take them to the barracks and so on, but I don't know about that because I left after the first battalion they sent over there had already arrived. People do say what you're saying, but I don't know if it’s true or not. As far as I know, everyone was a volunteer soldier.

Both Korea and Colombia were going through a critical moment. Colombia with the era of La Violencia and Korea with its conflict against the North Koreans. Any similarities or differences between the two?

At that time, we were going through what they call La Violencia Política (The Political Violence), which was a war between Liberals and Conservatives. If you were a Liberal, they killed you for being a Liberal, and if you were a Conservative, they killed you for being a Conservative. So, they were horrific crimes. In the towns, they would bury four or five people every day. By the time we returned from Korea, things had already calmed down until it finally ended with the government of Rojas Pinilla.

However, in Korea, you didn't see the brutalities that were done here. Maybe an ambush where they caught people and shot them during combat, but not like here, where they crucified people, tore out their tongues and genitals and stuffed them into their mouths, and while they were still alive, cut off their heads. Just today, I was in the park in Envigado talking about that, and a man who used to work for the Antioquia Railway—a very sharp man—who controlled the train arrivals, was telling us that a train car once arrived in Medellín with thirty-seven headless bodies that had been killed over in Cisneros.

Were you trained before leaving for the war?

Three days after returning from Cauca was when they asked for volunteers for Korea, and I stepped forward. Those of us who volunteered were sent to Bogotá, to the Infantry School. There were two types of training there: close order drill and open order drill. Close order drill meant doing exercises, jogging, and things inside the barracks; open order drill meant going out into the field and doing combat simulations. We were stationed in Usaquén, where the infantry school was, and we would go out to places like La Calera and Chía.

What was the day you left for Korea like?

When we left Bogotá, there was a farewell ceremony. After that, they sent us by plane to Cartagena, and there we boarded the ship General Blatchford [General Balú]*. I belonged to the seventh replacement group, as there had been six others before us, not counting the first Battalion.

What was your journey like inside that ship?

We crossed the Panama Canal on the ship Balú, coasted along all of Central America, and arrived in San Francisco, California. We didn't get off the ship; they just dropped off some packages there, and we continued to the islands of Hawaii. From Hawaii to Japan, and from Japan to Pusan. In every port, we were welcomed with the national anthem—in Panama, in Honolulu, in Japan, everywhere.

Every day we would wake up at dawn; they would line us up on the deck and give us instruction either about the war or about weapons. Then, from eight to ten in the morning, it was a cleanup of the entire ship. I don't know how the ship got dirty in the middle of the sea, but as soon as we finished, the captain would walk by with a little piece of cotton, and that verriondo [stubborn son of a gun] knew exactly where we hadn't wiped, and that meant another hour of cleaning. And absolutely everyone cleaned, officers and all. The only ones who got out of it were the battalion commander and the second-in-command, but from captain on down, everyone did cleaning duty. Besides that, there were libraries, they showed us war movies, and the mess halls were very spacious with very good food. And there we would sit and tell jokes and this and that. We also held parties, and every day they put out a newspaper sharing the progress of the war.

Who was your commander?

First, there was General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded the troops in Korea. We belonged to the 7th Division… first we were the 24th Division, and later the 7th. First we were the 21st Regiment, and later, the 31st Regiment. They gave the orders to the Battalion. We didn't fight alongside Americans, Koreans, or Ethiopians; instead, the Battalion had its own assigned area. Colonel Alberto Ruiz Novoa was my commander, because first it was Commander Jaime Polanía Puyo, who was in charge of the first Battalion that went to Korea. They left in May of '51 from Buenaventura, and he had 1,060 men under his command.

After him, there was another commander, but he isn't mentioned anywhere because when the armistice was signed, that colonel crossed the barbed wire in Panmunjom and started taking pictures with other military personnel. The Chinese detained him there, and it caused a massive problem. They even addressed all of that at the negotiating table, and they released the guy because he played crazy—he wasn't crazy, but to get out of trouble, he played crazy. He was an embarrassment to the Colombia Battalion, and that’s why he isn't mentioned in any history book.

Did you know anything about the conflict over there?

We knew nothing. They mentioned Korea to us, but we didn't even know where that was. "And where is that? Is that a country?" In Bogotá, there was a young man named Ozuna who had been in the first battalion, and they had him there doing propaganda: saying that it wasn't bad, that Korea was very nice, that the war there wasn't how it was painted. Like they were trying to encourage people to go. So they did a lot of propaganda; they talked to us a lot about Japanese women and the islands of Hawaii being a paradise—and of course, one being so young! The Koreans said the same thing when the Colombians arrived in Pusan: "Colombia? Where is that country?" Because back then, there was no technology or telecommunications like there is now (laughs).

What was the first thing you saw and felt when you arrived in Pusan?

Arriving in Pusan and seeing that city completely destroyed and in the most terrifying poverty—it was horrible. Evening came, and there was an impressive flashing in the sky. I thought it was a storm, and they told me no, that that was the combat line and that was where we were heading. At that moment, I got goosebumps, and fear crept in, knowing that we could no longer turn back.

What was your impression of Korea when you first arrived?

Seeing a country completely different from your own, with very different customs, including the clothing and the Korean language… what was I going to understand! (laughs) I only know how to say annyonghaseyo [1] (laughs). When I arrived, all the buildings were completely destroyed, and hundreds of skeletal children were lying on cardboard, crying from hunger—the most terrifying thing in the world. The food is also very different… I am convinced that in Korea they eat a lot of herb soups and things like that because during the war they had to go into the woods to gather plants and roots because they had nothing else. Now, Korea has a history of about 5,000 years, so that probably comes from way back too, but surely the Korean War also influenced the food today. What meat were they going to eat! I don't know if there was ever cannibalism or something like that because of the hunger.

When you arrived in Korea, what was its political situation?

When I arrived, the government of Syngman Rhee was in Seoul. By then, Seoul had already been taken twice. The first time was when the North Koreans attacked on June 25th and reached the Naktong River. Then the Americans crossed the 38th parallel and pushed them all the way to the Yalu River (which is the border with China). Before they went in there, President Truman ordered MacArthur to stop because he didn't want to start a Third World War, and that was when he was dismissed. After him, they appointed another General Commander. But at that moment, Kim Il Sung asked China for help, and China counter-attacked, pushing MacArthur out of that part and taking Seoul again. After that, more United Nations troops arrived back up to the 38th parallel, and that’s where the combat line stayed.

What was your military training like in Korea?

When you arrived in Pusan—now they call it Busan, but before it was Pusan—you had to face even harder training. With the training here [in Colombia], you would finish at 8 or 10 at night, we would shower, go to bed, and two or three hours later they would blow the bugle and I’d have to get up again. About three months like that, with very, very heavy training. But in Korea, one of the training exercises was a one-day forced march. You would leave at six in the morning, and we would start along those roads between Pusan and Gyeongju, where we wouldn't run, but we would march like in a marathon. Every day we had to do that, and sometimes soldiers would faint; they would load them onto a truck, and as soon as they woke up, they were sent right back to the line. And they gave you your food on the march; there was no room to sit down for a moment to eat, but right there, running and eating.

Another training exercise was crossing over rivers on ropes; another was climbing up walls and jumping off into a puddle full of mud, and whoever fell into the mud had to climb back up. We would climb mountains and go down them with very heavy gear because we had the iron helmet and the backpack, which weighed almost 40 kilos [88 lbs]. But they had to make that training really tough so we would build endurance for combat. In Colombia, we used blank ammunition for training, but over there, it was real bullets. Digging trenches and passing through mined areas. Over there in Korea, they call mines "caza bobos" [booby traps], because the training they gave you for mines was so tough that anyone who let themselves get caught by one was a fool (bobo). You would enter a village, and they would teach you how to enter a little house, because maybe the door had something strange rigged to it and it would explode, or there was a dining table with hot food, but it was all poisoned.

What were your weapons?

Since we belonged to the United Nations army, under the command of the United States, they provided the weapons, and they were leftovers from World War II. The M1, the M1 carbine, the .30 and .50 caliber machine guns, the mortar, the 57 and 55 cannon, the bazooka, and the flamethrower, which they used up until the Vietnam War and no more after that. We used the flamethrower to flush the enemy out of the trenches, and they would come out all burned. We all had to know how to handle every single weapon that existed, because if the machine gunner was killed in combat, for example, it was your turn to go and operate it.

Did they use gases like in the First and Second World War?

I never had to put on a mask for anything. But they did use Napalm. They dropped that from airplanes, and it was a sticky liquid that caught fire when it hit the ground. That thing set entire forests and cities on fire. That is also banned now.

Speaking now about adapting to the country, what did you eat? Who provided the food?

When we were in the rear guard, we ate American food: turkey, chicken, and different meats. For breakfast, they would make us pancakes with jam, cocoa, bread, and fruit, and afterward, they gave us cigarettes and chewing gum. I believe that inside that gum they would slip what you mentioned—something to keep you calm so you wouldn't feel fear. Also in the rear guard, when you wanted to have a few beers with a comrade, there was a little shop run by a soldier who would sell you a box of canned beer. But first, we had to ask for permission to drink that box with so-and-so. They also provided our toiletries; they already knew everyone's sizes and would hand out a fresh, clean change of pants and underwear.

Coming from the "City of Eternal Spring," how did you handle the seasons in Korea?

We arrived in mid-October of '52. There were 217 soldiers in that replacement group, and by then, autumn was already ending. Imagine us way up in those Korean mountains, where the average temperature below zero was thirty degrees. And these blizzards from Siberia would sweep down through those mountains, dropping the temperature to forty degrees below zero. That was brutal for us because we weren't used to it—some of us couldn't even stand the cold in Santa Elena! Back then in Korea, the temperature would reach thirty degrees below zero, but nowadays it only gets to about 13 or 14 degrees below zero.We had a winter uniform. First, during normal weather, we wore a thick khaki drill uniform. Then in the winter, it was a special suit with special boots, thick wool gloves, and a leather pair over them to be able to grip the rifle. In the summer, we bathed a lot in those Korean creeks because there was almost always a creek near the camps.

What news did you get from your family?

A letter took about twenty days to arrive from Colombia because it went to the US, from the US to Japan, and from Japan to Korea. We also wrote letters through the liaison office in Tokyo. You would write it and hand it to the commander or whoever was in charge of that; they would sort them, send them to Japan to the liaison office where there was a representative from Colombia, and they would follow the same route back to Colombia. Reading letters from your family out there in Korea made you cry because you feel an immense nostalgia, even more so when you are stuck in a war where you could be killed at any moment, thinking about your family's anguish... Very hard, very hard. And you tried to downplay the war situation when you wrote your replies back home. Either way, that correspondence went through Tokyo, and they would open and read them there to make sure no spy was sending out information. That was highly controlled.

Did you visit Japan? Any anecdotes?

In Yokohama, several of us comrades met up in a large library, and at the entrance, there were some Japanese soldiers who invited us inside. While I was walking through it, a Japanese man approached me speaking Spanish and said, "Look, the young lady over there wants to invite you to her house, if you'll accept the invitation. But you have to wait an hour for her because she leaves work at 4:00 PM." And I said sure (laughs). When the time came, she would talk to me and I would talk to her, she would laugh and I would laugh at the fact that we couldn't understand a single word (laughs). We got into one of those little carts pulled by a Japanese man and rode through the streets of Yokohama to a part called Naka-ku. I was just about to walk inside when the girl told me to take off my shoes, because I didn't know you had to take them off. And I thought, "Oh, thank goodness I showered," because soldiers usually have an impressive case of stinky feet (pecueca) (laughs).When we went in, I didn't see chairs, tables, or anything—just cushions to sit on the floor. The girl showed me how to sit there and then called her Papa-san and Mama-san. They talked and talked and laughed, and I laughed along at whatever they were saying. Then they brought out the food and gave me chopsticks, and since I didn't know how to use them, they gave me a wooden spoon. A little while after eating, two other sisters arrived and asked me who I wanted to sleeping [sleep] with. Since I was well-mannered, I said with the one who had invited me (laughs), and just like in The Arabian Nights, what happened, happened.Then, a little over a month later, a letter reached me in Korea saying that her period hadn't come, that she hadn't been with anyone but me, and this and that. Later on, when I went to Japan on leave, I met the little boy, who turned out a little bit slant-eyed, but just a bit. When I returned to Colombia, I left her my home address. However, I had so many issues with my father that when he went to the post office to collect all the mail, he wouldn't tell me anything and would just rip them up, so I never heard from her again. During a ceremony, I had the chance to meet the director of El Colombiano newspaper, María Mercedes Martínez, and I told her this story. She told me she had some connections and someone who could look into it, but it was very difficult because I only knew her as Michiko, but didn't know "Michiko what." Besides, Yokohama changed completely, and all those little alleys and villages have disappeared now. She tried, but found nothing. That is the problem with all wars—soldiers leave a lot of kids behind.

Japanese or Korean women?

(laughs) Now you've really put me on the spot! (laughs) I love them both so much; they are both very beautiful.

You had a story with a Japanese woman. Any stories with a Korean woman?

During the war, no. We would go out to Seoul and do our "little things" over there, but we paid for it. And many times, when we were in the rear guard, we would see the Papa-sans and Mama-sans giving their daughters to the soldiers to get money or food. It was like a forced prostitution just to be able to eat.

What was the day like when they agreed to the armistice between South and North Korea?

They spent about two years on that. Panmunjom was the last village where they finalized it, because before that it was somewhere else, but I can't remember the name. When the treaty was signed, it was total cheering and dancing; the enemy would come out and hug the friend, and so on. However, that didn't mean the war was over, because there were still stories here and there—not full combat, but encounters where one or two people would get killed. And once that ended, there was a lot of patrolling to make sure the enemy wouldn't sneak in.

What did you feel upon returning from Korea and seeing that you helped bring about all the development they have today?

Pride for having helped, and pride in how they treat you in Korea. Because over there, they go out of their way for you, for the veteran. And since Colombia was the only South and Central American country that helped Korea—because from the Americas, there was only the United States, which sent Puerto Ricans as well—the Koreans are very grateful for that.

Why do you think information about the war hasn't been taught to the younger generations?

That has been due to neglect by the Colombian government and the Ministry of Education, because it is an important part of Colombia's history. The Korean War was the only true international war Colombia ever had, because the conflict with Peru in 1932 was just a border clash. That is one of the things I say in my lectures at schools and universities; it makes you sad to hear so many people who don't even know that Colombia sent troops to a foreign war. It's very sad. In an event that the Premium Plaza mall hosts called "Colombia Patria Mía" [Colombia My Homeland], they set up a space for Korean War veterans, and we briefly explain the war to people there.

It seems Colombia is not the only country that has overlooked the Korean War. A lot is written about the Vietnam War and World War II, but nothing about the Korean War.

The Korean War has a title: "The Forgotten War." In all the books, they talk about the "forgotten war," and that is the Korean War. I don't know why it was forgotten worldwide, considering it was highly important in the sense that it saved the majority of Asian countries from being overtaken by communism. So it shouldn't be the forgotten war, even less so when there were about five million casualties. But if you talk to people about the Vietnam War, most know what the Vietnam War or the world wars were, but the Korean War is the one mentioned the least.

Do you have any lasting trauma or after-effects from the war?

I used to have after-effects from the war, what they call war psychosis [PTSD]. I spent a year sick. I would work and do my things normally, but at night I would get these terrifying nightmares; I would crawl off the mattress, entrench myself under the bed, and scream: "The Chinese are coming! Place the machine guns! Sons of bitches, they killed my friend!" And the next day, I would have to go to the pharmacy to buy something for my nerves. In December, when they would set off fireworks, I would get shaky and it would trigger me. But not anymore; now all I have left is to tell the story.

Has the government provided any aid to the veterans? I have read that many of them have fallen into destitution and madness.

In 1989, a law was passed stating that those who had completed their military service here in Colombia and then went to Korea would be granted the rank of sergeant second class, with all the perks, promotions, and so on. That went through the Senate and the House of Representatives; they approved it, and when it got to the president for his signature, he said, "I am not signing this because sending those people over there was just a whim of Laureano Gómez." So, that was lost.

Then came Law 683 of 2001, which granted two minimum wages, but look at the conditions: it was for those who had been in the conflict with Peru and those from Korea who were living in destitution. How can the government think that a person who was in the 1932 war is going to be destitute! If they are still alive, it's a miracle in itself. And to those who were destitute, they gave two minimum wages. A lot of people received that because they would buy a fake Sisbén [social economic status score], and without actually needing that money, without suffering any hardships, they took the opportunity away from those who truly needed it.

It is said that during the presidency of Rojas Pinilla, the United States government gave three.two million dollars—which was a lot of money back then—to be distributed equally among the combatants. In other words, each of us was entitled to a fortune, and that money ended up going to the Military Club in Bogotá and to Tolemaida. But that was vox populi [common knowledge], and where there's smoke, there's fire. Korea, on the other hand, is helping with education and this and that for as many generations as there are. They take grandchildren and children to Korea and provide them with an education. But since all of that is managed in Bogotá, it stays there, and the provinces don't get anything.

How many of you are left?

Out of the 5,100 of us who went to Korea… I have always said that there are fewer than 300 of us left, but talking around with the military attaché, they said there are 600 still alive. But by now, most of the veterans are very sick and very old. Hardly any minors went; I was one of the few, so just imagine.

To finish up, how would you describe the Koreans before and after the war?

In the way they treat the countries that helped them. After the war, they help many nations through that organization KOICA. The Korean military has also traveled to many countries, to Africa and places like that, teaching people how to work and leading medical and artistic missions. During the Korean War, there was a lot of mistrust between North and South Koreans. We couldn't perceive it because they are the same race and look very similar—you see a Korean in Seoul and you see one in Pyongyang and they look the same—so what we felt was that there was a lot of wariness back then, not against the troops from other countries, but among themselves. They were very distrustful.