War vet recalls time on the front lines, Celina Record

Korean War vet to address ‘misconceptions’ at Celina event Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com May 26, 2016 In the book “Passage Through a Hell of Fire and Ice,” retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Bill Quigley details his experiences while fighting in several of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War. It dismays retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Quigley to hear the Korean War referred to as the forgotten war. “For those of us who fought through Korea, it will never be a forgotten war,” he said. “You had over 50,000 Americans dead and about 180,000 wounded.” Quigley, who lives in The Colony, served two tours during the conflict that lasted from June 1950 through July 1953. He was shot twice and wounded another time while fighting in several of its bloodiest battles, including the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, the Inchon Landing, the capture of Seoul and the Chosin Reservoir Campaign. The 83-year-old chronicled his experiences and detailed the war’s crucial first five months in “Passage Through a Hell of Fire and Ice” (Page Publishing Inc., 2015), a book he said took him decades to write. Quigley will be the guest speaker Monday at the Celina Area Heritage Association’s Memorial Day program on the city’s downtown square. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about what went on” in Korea, he said, “and people don’t really understand or are even aware of what took place.” Quigley, a New York native who spent 30 years in the Marines, recalled once speaking about the war to a group of civilian friends. “They thought it was nothing but a small police action. The Chosin Reservoir, they thought, was a resort area where we went to relax. They even thought we were fighting the Japanese there,” he said. Also, “The people who fought through that war were never really appreciated for what they came through and what they accomplished. They deserve the same recognition, the same honors and the same gratitude as the people that fought World War II.” Following the Korean War, Quigley served as a drill instructor, a platoon sergeant and completed a tour with the 3rd Marine Division in the Western Pacific, among other duties, before heading to Vietnam in 1965. He served three tours there and earned a combat field commission in the process. During his career, Quigley was also awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Valor, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, the Naval Accommodation Medal, a Good Conduct Medal and the Purple Heart. Colin Kimball, a McKinney photographer, portrait artist and military historian, has known Quigley for over a year. “He’s a legend in the Marine Corps,” Kimball said. In 1967, Quigley became a tactics officer at the Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia, and was tasked with devising a combat obstacle course that all candidates would be required to complete. “We needed a course that would not only test them physically but … would have to challenge them mentally, put them under the type of stress they might [experience] in combat,” Quigley explained. The idea, he said, was to make those who ran through it look as though “they tangled with two constipated pit bulls and lost” after emerging on the other side. What he came up with was a swampy, foul-smelling, supposedly snake-infested, water-based course complete with barbed wire, logs and concrete culverts around which to maneuver. “At the same time, they have a guy running through shooting a machine gun at you,” Kimball said, “and when you’re done they ask you what kind of gun he was shooting, what color hat he was wearing … all these little details. So not only is it stressful, but they have to be paying attention.” Dubbed “The Quigley,” the course quickly gained an infamous reputation among officer candidates who, nearly 50 years later, are still required to crawl through its muck. “As long as they’re [complaining] about it and cussing it, then the thing’s doing its job,” Quigley said, adding that the course was even mentioned in Tom Clancy’s book “Marine.” For more than two decades, Quigley, who retired from the military in 1979, has been waging a different type of battle. In 1994, he was diagnosed with cancer he said resulted from being exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. “They gave me six months to live,” he said. “I told the doctor, ‘I’ll make you a bet on that.’ So, here we are 24 years later and we’re still waiting.” Quigley, who is undergoing chemotherapy, largely credits his mind for helping him hold at bay this very personal enemy that he has nicknamed “Igor.” “You beat it; don’t let it beat you,” he said. “Every morning I tell Igor, ‘Take your best shot, Jack, and let’s get the day on.’” Spoken like a true Marine.