Jackson Advocate

Wife Tells Of Life On Korean War Front

An Airbase, Japan: To find out how an American wife spends her time here while her husband is in Korea your correspondent visited Mrs. Clovis Snead, whose husband, Fred, a sergeant, is with a fighter group in Korea.

The Sneads live in a four room bungalow on this airbase. Their home is rented to them furnished by the 5th Air Force. Their neighbors on both sides are white officers and their families.

The Sneads have an all electric kitchen, a new Ford and two servants. One of the servants, Suki is a college educated Japanese (Continued on Page Two)
Wife Tells...
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girl who sleeps in. She is paid a standard rate of about $6.50 a month and is included with the bungalow. The houseboy, who earns a dollar or so more a month is extra. With an electric kitchen and two servants Mrs. Snead has little housework to do except cook. "I cook all the meals," she said "and Suki serves them." When the Sneads lived on Guam, where the sergeant was stationed for sixteen months. Mrs. Snead found plenty to do.

Here relieved of housework, Mrs. Snead teaches two classes at the base school takes a course in flower arrangement, helps out at the service club, and attends various evening meetings with white women on the base—all of whom are also dependents. Her only colored friend is Miss Carolyn Lamb, a Special Service officer stationed here.

But over all this the same shadow of anxiety hangs over Mrs. Snead that any stateside wife would find when her husband is overseas.

Mrs. Snead is closer to her husband—but she's also closer to the
war. At night ack ack guns sound off and on from nine until around midnight. In the day the slit trench in front of the house is as ugly as a grave and at night its easy to fall into.

A big point in any of Mrs. Snead's lonesome days is a letter from her husband. He went to Korea on September 2 and came home for three days in early Nov. She has not had a letter from him in many weeks, but she hears from him regularly - mutual friends bring messages.

His letter to her are pretty much like any GI's letters home. In one he said, "we are living in a wooden shack but we have a stove." The temperatures have been around 20 degrees and we sleep in our clothes because in the shack its cold enough to freeze water. It's hard to say what is going on in terms of war. We wonder that United Nations will do. We don't see any papers and I have never seen a Korean city. The only radio program we hear came from North Korea. This war is not like the last one. I cannot put my finger on why. At night we hear gunfire in the hill back of us, but it seems so distant it does not bother us and yet in the daytime we realize how close it all is. We spend a lot of time looking at maps showing how close we are to Russia. Today I bought a Korean pipe, its about three feet long so I can never smoke it in the street."

Sometimes, during the day, Mrs. Snead re-reads her husband's letters but that makes me pretty blue. I try not worry, I try to think that his outfit will get thru all right and that he is safe.

"It is easier on me—mentally I mean—if I do some of the housework. In the morning Suki likes oatmeal with milk and sugar and i have toast and coffee. I also have to teach her things—like how to operate an electric coffee maker. and how to defrost a refrigerator. She is most fascinated by the mixer and loves to watch it whip things. In fact, she'll whip anything with it."

Suki is such a devoted servant that she pleases and at the same time gets on Mrs. Snead's nerves. For instance, one day Mrs. Snead
drove up to Tokyo to shop. She left the door open because it is frequently warmish in Japan when the sun shines. When she returned from the PX it was cold and rainy. Suki sat huddled in the kitchen with the radiators sizzling and the house cold. She had not closed the door because the "Mistress left it open." Also if Mrs. Snead goes out at night Suki will sit up until she returns.

Suki also annoyed Sgt. Snead because she called him "The Master" and waited on him too zealously. "He could not even light his pipe without her at least blowing out the match. He gave her a long talk once about not saying Master -told her it was not democratic. She told me about it saying "Master says its not democratic to call him Master—but he is Master," Mrs. Snead said.