On the second day, three more USMC infantrymen traveled that final road to freedom. They were Private First Class Francis E. Kohus, Jr., of A/1/7; Corporal Gethern Kennedy, Jr., I/3/1; and Private First Class Bernard R. Hollinger, H/3/5. Like the preceding three, their stories bore a similar pattern: usually they had been captured only after having been wounded or clubbed unconscious. As with other UNC prisoners being released daily, they told of the physical cruelty of their North Korean captors and the mental strain under the Chinese. Observers noted that many of the men released this second day were in much poorer physical condition than the initial returnees. In fact, one ROK prisoner was found to have died in an ambulance while en route to Liberty Village.
Mostly the repatriates asked questions about their old outfits: “Do you know if any of the other guys on the outpost got back off the hill?” and “Did we finally take the damn thing?” “Where’s the 24th Division now?”[547]
[547] HRB Subject File: “#1, ‘Prisoners Of War—Korea—General,’” HQMC Div Info release, n.d., n.t.
Technical Sergeant Richard E. Arnold was one of the two Marine combat correspondents at Freedom Village during BIG SWITCH. He described his impressions of the returning men—in some cases, coming home after 30 months’ confinement in North Korean POW camps, and others, as little as 30 days:
All are relieved and some a little afraid ... It’s their first hour of freedom, and most tell you that they can still hardly believe it’s true. Some are visibly shaken, some are confused—and all are overwhelmed at the thought of being free men once again.[548]
[548] Ibid.
As in prison life everywhere, the POWs told of the hated stool pigeons, the so-called “progressives.” These were the captives who accepted (or appeared to accept) the Communist teachings and who, in turn, were treated better than the “reactionary” prisoners who resisted the enemy “forced feeding” indoctrination. Continued the Marine correspondent:
They don’t talk much. When they do, it’s ... mainly of progressives and reactionaries—the two social groups of prisoner life under the rule of Communism, the poor chow and medical care, and of the desire to fight Communism again.
When you ask, they tell you of atrocities committed during the early years of the war with a bitterness of men who have helplessly watched their friends and buddies die. Of forced marches, the bitter cold, and the endless political lectures they were forced to attend.[549]
[549] Ibid.