Interviewed by:
Caleb Linnell & Eric Poyant

"The people pretended to like us. But you had to look back on the whole idea that
we decimated two of their cities."
~ Francis Farley 20:47

Francis Farley's Story:

Francis was born on June 13th 1928 in Lowell, MA, just at the beginning of the Great Depression. He grew up in Lowell all the way until after high school, and enjoyed his childhood very much due to all of his friends living within a one mile radius of each other. At age 17 the Second World War had just ended so there was no need for him to enter the draft. Francis then went to school and worked for several years before the draft was reinitiated. He entered boot camp in the August of '54 at Fort Ord, California. Then, after another 8 weeks of typist school he was stationed in Japan . During his stay in Japan, Francis encountered many people who had dealt with war, including those coming back from the Korean War for rest and relaxation. From these people Francis was able to develop friendships and hear the stories of the people who went to war. One such story was that of a young man who cried every time he would tell his tale. The man described to Francis of how his entire team was killed and he alone was only injured. He told Francis not of how lucky he felt that he survived, but rather of how guilty he felt. To Mr. Farley this story seemed to summarize how he felt the Korean War was. Francis' experience of the war was as he described a year and a half vacation. The only war-like thing he had to do was shoot a few guns every Wednesday. Except for one day he said in which he feared for his life. The day he recalled began a t his camp. The soldiers that were just on the front lines came to rest a little before going back returning to war. After a year and a half of that his mother got very ill and the red cross was able to transfer him to Fort Devins for three months. In June of 1956 he was out of the army and went to Merrimack College.