Frank Santoro: Served in the U.S. Army in the Korean War
Frank Santoro is a retired Korean War corporal who was removed from his comfortable lifestyle to be drafted into Korean War. Before the war, Frank Santoro lived in an average house in a small town in Texas with his family. Frank also had a nice girlfriend and a new car. When Santoro was 19 years old, he was drafted into the Korean War, which forced him to leave his girlfriend, car, and the life he knew. He was transported into a base in El Paso, where he was given tickets to board a plane from New York International Airport (now known as John F. Kennedy Airport) to Seoul, South Korea.
As Santoro was going to Korea, he thought of everything he was leaving, including his beloved girlfriend, who he would have married if he had not been drafted. As his service was needed desperately, he had no choice but to fight in the war. Santoro was willing to go and fight in the Korean War, but he had to leave his beloved hometown. When he arrived in Korea he wasn’t treated poorly in the military camp, but he didn’t like the smell of human excrement that was used as fertilizer in the farms around the military camp. Santoro and liked to take photos with the locals, but he had a job to do. In the KMAG, or the Korean Military Advisory Group, his job was to advise Korean
military officials and units. Santoro explained how being in Korea was nice, but it was commonly called the Hermit Village because Koreans usually lived in isolation and purposely avoided foreign affairs.
While his time in Korea, he created an album kept at his son’s house. His name is also engraved in a memorial park in Parsippany, New Jersey. He explained that
he liked the experience in Korea, and wouldn’t replace it with anything else. After the war, he worked as a New York firefighter for 30 years. He moved to California due to a car accident, which broke his hips, and was moved to the retirement home where he currently
resides.