Sean Antrim Favian Auguilera Michael Gardener Randy Lloyd

Robert Hill

World War two broke out in 1939. In this war people were called into service from all over the place to some way help in the war. Thousands of people had volunteered and one of those people was a man named Robert Hill who joined in 1940. A person who recently got out of high school and was anxious to help America by being able to join the armed forces, a person at the youth of his life ready to make sacrifices at the age of seventeen.

When he joined the army he was stationed at Ft. Shafter, which was just three miles from Pearl Harbor. The day of Pearl Harbor he and the squad he was in, were out on the hill resuming training as they saw airplanes fly over. They all recognized them as

Japanese airplanes and could do little to warn the base of what was about to happen because they themselves knew little of what was happening or going to happen. As they heard the commotion they could do little but watch helplessly from afar. They rushed to

Pearl Harbor to help with the wounded. The hospital was filled with people all injured or dying.

After this incident even after the training Robert Hill saw no combat. He was assigned to an occupation force. Though he saw no combat he made him self of use in various other ways. Eventually he was stationed in Germany, and was in Belgium in when Germany surrendered. In 1943 he was sent back home for having done more than his fair share of work. He returned to Los Angeles and went to school paid by government money, also known as the GI Bill. He eventually after a short while got his license as an official electrician.

Years later he rejoined the army to help in the South Korea effort to fight off North

Korea.

He first arrived in the port city of Pusan, Korea. One day when the HQ was trying to fill a hole between two line companies, they were getting a mass of wounded people.

He went to help the medics, but 1st Lt O’Connor, which was commanding officer at this time ordered him to go get him some food. Grudgingly, he complied and returned and dropped the case of rations in front of the 1st Lt and went to go back and help. O’Connor stopped him and made stand at attention and reminded Robert that he could be shot for insubordination and leaving his post in a time of war. Robert just kept quite and complied with the commanding officer. The very next day he and his fellow comrades got a new

Commanding Officer.

A few months later after the landing of Inchon, they started north and stopped to make camp for the night. As the Bn Ex. Officer and the Sgt. Major were getting back into the jeep to turn around and head up from the river they hit a mine. As Robert rushed down to help his superior officers he saw an appalling sight that would make most human sick at the sight of it. The Sgt.’s legs left two holes in the dashboard. Half of his shinbones were gone. The major on the other hand was a little better but both were now removed from the war.

Finally they landed in Unason, and everyone thought the war was over. Robert was carrying out his orders with no questions asked. On the First of November he and the rest of the company was ordered to act as a rear guard. The next day at two in the morning mortars started hailing down from everywhere. Ten minutes into the bombardment of mortars, the flares were set off. Robert found himself quickly in a hole that was roughly maybe ten feet by ten feet and he was in it with a friend Larry. The

Chinese threw a grenade into the hole. Without having time to do anything all he could do was cover his face. Larry didn’t get hit but he did by parts of the shrapnel, which buried itself in the left shoulder and under the left arm.

Wounded but not out of the fight he told Larry to make it for the next hole about fifteen feet away. As he did so Robert saw two Chinese heads in a hole 20 feet ahead, quickly he picked up a rock and lobbed it as if it were a grenade and the next thing he saw both Chinese jump out of the whole. Taking this chance to react he picked one of them off but the other made it more to the right and out of vision. Then the next thing that happened Robert still can’t shake from his mind at all even for years still to come. After a few minutes of flares going off Larry yells to Robert to look over his shoulder. Without thinking or any moments hesitation he turned and pulled the trigger…

The target was a mere few feet away as he did so, and he saw that man’s face as he dropped to the floor.

Later as he climbed to Larry’s hole he was shot in the same spot where the shrapnel hit previously. He lied on the floor in pain. Choppers tried to pick up wounded and deliver ammo but no drops succeeded. Later the next night the Chinese assaulted again and this time they were out of ammunition and was captured. During his capture, he suffered many harsh weeks of torture, not just being beat by the Chinese but also mentally and physical injuries from the battle he was captured in. They went days with little or no food. All they got was a few drinks of water a day. They were robbed of any valuables and all was left with was an undershirt and a pair of pants. On the eighteenth day they took his and several others to another place a few miles away. They were given a bucket of rice and was patched up and told that they would be set free. On the last night they were sent to walk two mile down the street and into another hut where they would spend their last night. The next morning at sunup they heard two American soldiers tell everyone to come out of the huts. They all did so but Robert Having the most trouble to do so, they came out and heard tanks, American tanks, and the sound of freedom.

Robert was taken back to bases and patched up. From there he returned home to start or rather resume his business as an Electrician. Over the many years he married and had three kids. Eventually he remarried and had another two kids, which makes up as four girls and one boy. To this day he still does his best to remain in contact with what’s left of his friends from the army. He admitted that at times he felt like giving up but something inside always told him to press on that he can’t give up now. Today he is seen as one of many brave heroes but when asked if he was a hero he said “hell no, I’m no hero…only a hero to my four girls and my son.”