"Nobody's superior to anybody; we're all dependent upon one another Everybody got a different talent Everything you do, somebody else got a hand in it of some other nationality." (Audio Interview, 24:16)
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Eugene Hill, Jr.
War: Korean War, 1950-1953; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Army Unit: 619th Ordnance Ammunition Company, 1st Army Service Location: Antarctica; Korea; Japan; New Zealand; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Port Hueneme, California; Davisville, Rhode Island; also: Vietnam Rank: E-6 Place of Birth: NC
Eugene Hill is blunt in admitting why he enlisted as a teenager. His North Carolina town was run by the Ku Klux Klan, and he felt there was no future for a young black man there, so he "joined the Army to learn how to kill," a skill he assumed he would need to survive in his home town. His tour of duty in Korea was mainly search and destroy missions with a small squad of men. Hill's careers in the Army and later the Navy included many stops, including two tours of duty in Vietnam. Along the way, that "blazing hot" hatred he held as a young man cooled as he was exposed to different cultures.