William Bussear Sr.:  

from Delta College in Saginaw, Michigan. I received two Bachelors of Arts Degrees from California State University at Long Beach, California. One degree was in Spanish and the other degree was in Latin American Studies. I then received a Master's Degree in Education from Pepperdine University at Malibu, California. Your Friend/Teacher -- -- William Bussear "Mr B" Military In 1959, I joined the United States Marine Corps. I traveled by train from Detroit, Michigan out to San Diego, California. I attended Marine Corps boot camp at MCRD in San Diego. After boot camp I went on 30 days leave. When I returned, I attended Aviation Electronics Operators School on the base in San Diego. After graduation, I was sent to Kanehoe Bay in Hawaii. I thought that I had died and gone to heaven! Hawaii was so beautiful! Being a radar operator was not difficult work. I do remember how hard it was when we were ordered to build a road up the side of the volcano so we could put our radar antennas on top of the mountain! We used jackhammers and bulldozers and shovels! We were the ones on the end of the shovel handles! But it was so beautiful there! Everything changed when, in the middle of the night, they woke us up and told us to tear down all of our radar equipment and put it on board trucks so it could be transported to Pearl Harbor where we were going to load it on ships! If I remember correctly, it took us two or three days before we had all of our equipment loaded on board the ships in Pearl Harbor. It was very exciting but also very intriguing because no one would tell us where we were going! When the ships pulled out of Pearl Harbor it was dark and they told us to go below to our sleeping racks to sleep. Of course, hardly anyone went down below decks! When the sun came up in the morning, it came up over the fantail of the ship. That meant that we were heading West toward the Orient. All kinds of things started going through our heads. Two days out of Pearl Harbor, we were standing by the ship's railing, when one of the guys pointed East and said, "Holy ****, you guys! Look at all the damn ships!" When I looked in the direction he was pointing, on the horizon we could see a bunch of tiny specks. The specks kept growing and soon we could make out the different kinds of the ships that were catching up to us. I don't remember exactly what we saw but there was an aircraft carrier, tenders, cruisers, destroyers, and other supply ships. They were definitely going faster than we were and it seemed like they were in a hurry to get there. I remember one morning going topside with my buddies; T. J. Spinner, Neil Jensen, Mike Ringwelski, Scotty Gossard, and Rodriguez. We walked by a group of infantry marines and they were sharpening their entrenching tools with files. I asked one of them, "Why are you sharpening your entrenching tool?" He looked at me like I was a moron and answered, "To hack up the Gooks with you idiot!" I didn't know what to say, I was astounded by his answer. After we had passed the infantry marines one of my buddies said, "Damn it, this is really serious!" Well, we went off the coast of Vietnam for a couple of days and then because of a typhoon, we went up to Okinawa. We were in Okinawa for about 45 days and then we headed back towards Hawaii. When we got to Hawaii, they sent us on to San Clemente Island off the coast California for more military maneuvers. We were there for 45 days and then we returned to Hawaii. We were then sent to the Island Lanai for more military maneuvers! We were there for about 45 days and when we went down to the beach to be picked up but no one was there! We radioed over to the Navy on the main island of Oahua, they told us a standby on the beach. Lieutenant Spann told us to set up the mess tents and that we could go swimming because we had been unable to wash much for 45 days! It was there, I dove into a shallow tidal pool and broke my neck! I was immediately paralyzed from my neck down and I am still in a wheelchair after more than 43 years!