Submitted photo Richard “Dick” Coughlin was 19 when he was at Army boot camp in Fort Rucker, Alabama, in February 1951.

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BOARDMAN — Richard “Dick” Coughlin said his ego, and a little bit of his Irish temper, landed him on the front line of the Korean War in early 1951.

Coughlin, 91, a 1949 graduate of Ursuline High School, was working the graveyard shift in the open hearth at Republic Steel when he volunteered to join the Army.

“All of my friends were out having fun, but I couldn’t join them because I was working 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. I told my boss if he didn’t put me on day shift, I would quit. He said goodbye and I was all of a sudden out of work,” Coughlin recalled.

So in February 1951, he joined the military and was sent to Fort Rucker, Alabama, for eight weeks of basic training, after which they said he was being sent to Korea.

“I wasn’t scared. At 19, I didn’t think anything would happen to me,” Coughlin said.

After spending about three weeks on a ship, where he was seasick for part of the journey, he and the crew arrived in Korea. They were told to go to a tent to get their assignment.

“I took typing in high school, so the Army officer said I could go to Tokyo to work on ‘The Army Times’ newspaper or stay in the infantry. My ego got the best of me because I didn’t want it to look like I was backing down, so I chose the infantry,” Coughlin said.

He said about a dozen soldiers were loaded onto a truck and headed for the front lines. After a few hours, they could hear artillery fire in the distance, but the sounds got louder as they got closer.

“It was the first time I realized this was a real war,” Coughlin recalled, noting by the time he got to Korea, the United States was fighting the Chinese Army.

He said most of the battles were fought on hills and mountainsides, and on their way up one mountain, they passed a couple of dead bodies. He said there were trenches built into the mountainsides, so all that was visible was soldiers’ heads and shoulders.

“The Chinese loved to fight at night because that was basically their only advantage. So every night, our whole unit was on full alert or half of us were on full alert so the rest could sleep. It was so dark, you couldn’t see 5 feet in front of you and your mind starts playing tricks on you. You think you see and hear things that aren’t there,” he said. “I got antsy one night and thought I heard something, so I threw a phosphorus grenade, which doesn’t have shrapnel in it, but lights up. It started a fire and my sergeant told me to put it out. As I was crawling over to put out the fire, I thought I’d get shot. That was the last time I did that.”

Coughlin said he was paired up in his unit with a Chinese-American from San Francisco and he felt sorry for him because when the Chinese soldiers would yell and threaten the U.S. soldiers, he could understand what they were saying.

“He was always afraid he would get captured,” Coughlin said.

After spending three months on the front lines, his unit was able to go back to headquarters where they got a hot shower and had a big meal because it was Thanksgiving. However, the break was short-lived because the Friday after Thanksgiving, the unit was put on high alert because they were told an attack was imminent.

Coughlin said during nighttime fighting, a big explosion occurred right in front of him and he assumed it was a grenade because he got shrapnel in his right eye.

“I don’t remember it hurting too much, but I remember my unit was helping me down the mountain because I had a cloth wrapped around my eye, and they were very nervous about getting shot at on the way down. I didn’t blame them,” he said.

He was flown to Tokyo, where his eye was removed and then was flown to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he was fitted with a prosthetic eye. Despite his injury, he was not sent home but was given “gopher jobs” until he was discharged in November 1951. He earned a Purple Heart for the wound.

After his discharge, Coughlin worked at Automatic Sprinkler in Youngstown for about five years until it closed. He was a mail carrier in the Newport Glen area of Boardman for 30 years before retiring in 1992. Shortly after that, he and his wife, Cathy, whose nickname was “Shorty,” opened the House of Erin Irish gift shop on Southern Boulevard. He retired for a second time from there after 25 years.

His wife died in 2004, and he now lives on Melrose Avenue in Boardman with his daughter, Maureen, and two Yorkshire terriers, Bonnie and Murphy. Maureen also has two horses that she boards at a horse farm west of Canfield.

Richard “Dick” Coughlin

AGE: 91

RESIDENCE: Boardman

SERVICE BRANCH: Army

MILITARY HONORS: Purple Heart and Combat Infantry Badge

OCCUPATION: Retired as mail carrier for U.S. Postal Service after 30 years; retired again from operating House of Erin gift shop after 25 years

FAMILY: wife of 49 years, Cathy, who died in 2004; son, Jack; daughter, Maureen; eight grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren