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At 98, Gary veteran recalls years of service in WWII, Korea, Vietnam

Oscar Primm Sr. gives himself the luxury of waking up anytime he likes, preferably noon.

On a recent day, however, he’s up early and dressed by 10 a.m. with good cheer and warmth in spite of the late winter chill outside.

Perhaps he is rugged owing to his 20 years in the military where he served in the U.S. Army through World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Or maybe it is his unwavering faith in God.

“I am 98, but I had a dream when I was in my 30s,” Primm said. “I didn’t think too much of dreams — but I had a dream that my hair was long and white. I didn’t think anything of it. The next night I had the same dream. My hair was long and white. The third night I had the same dream. My hair was long and white. I got concerned at that third time and I told my wife.”

His wife, Ida May Grubbs Primm, assured him, “the Lord is showing you. You are going to live a long time.”

His hair — not long and white — is hidden beneath his spotless U.S. Army veteran’s baseball cap.

He reflects on his long life and his military career with professional pride.

When he entered the service on Dec. 19, 1942, he was a single 20-year-old who had left his rural home near Louann, Ark., to work in the Gary steel mills. The oldest of 12 children, he’s the only boy left of the six. Three sisters also survive. He boasts four children and more than a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren.

He’s a widower now, but he likes to tell the story of how he met his wife, Ida May, on a Greyhound bus in January 1944. She was on her way home from visiting family. He was a young soldier on his way overseas to Bristol, England, to prepare for the Normandy Invasion.

“I boarded the bus first. When she boarded the bus, all the seats were taken and at the time, in the South, it was segregated. We had to ride in the back of the bus,” said Primm. “I was sitting in the rear seat and she gets on the bus and walks all the way to the back. I stood up and gave her my seat. She was only 17 at the time. She (moved over) and gave enough room for me to sit down. By the time she got off the bus, I had her name and address.”

They wrote letters to each other during the two years he was stationed in Europe.

While overseas, Primm served with the infantry in Trucking Company 3692. “We had 55 trucks in my unit. I kept those trucks running 24 hours a day,” he said.

He has to be prodded for details on how he fared in the war.

His company crossed the English Channel into France 18 days after the June 6 D-Day invasion. He drove a 5-ton wrecker the 60 feet from the landing craft onto Normandy Beach as the water came up to his waist in the vehicle, he said.

“We was located in Sainte Mere Eglise in France and the Germans came and bombed there every night. It got dark at 11 and they were never late,” said Simms. “I worked on vehicles all day and come 11 o’clock — we spent two or three hours in fox holes. Many nights I wondered if I would ever see daylight again.”

When the war ended, “we were glad. I was in France at the time and the church bells was ringing and the people was shouting in the streets. We went to Paris — and all the people — it’s hard to describe — it was a celebration — it was the end of the war.”

At the end of WWII, Primm remained in the reserves, but returned to his civilian life, Gary and the steel mill in 1946. He went to body and fender school and became a body man and repaired cars

“Ever since I was 12, I wanted to be a mechanic,” said Primm. “My father was a farmer, but we were very poor and sometimes we didn’t have food to eat. I decided if I could become a mechanic and know how to repair cars and vehicles, there would always be a demand for that type of work.”

When the Korean War broke out, I was running my own body shop in Gary on 25th and Broadway,” he said. “When I got called back (to military service), I was renting the shop and gave it back. I went to Fort Lewis in Washington state for refreshment training in October of 1950.”

Primm and Ida May had continued to stay in touch and date, although she had been reluctant to leave Arkansas and move north to Gary. In time, Primm won out and they married in 1951.

After he finished training at Fort Lewis, Primm was sent to Fort Riley, Kan., until January of 1952 when he was shipped out to Inchon, Korea. There he oversaw 160 vehicles and 26 mechanics with the Fifth Infantry.

“I planned to get out of the army, but recruiters came down and wanted me to re-enlist. I said, ‘No I’m going home.’ But they offered me benefits. I told my wife and she left it up to me. She said, ‘Whatever you do, I’m with you.’ So, I re-upped for three years. After three years, it had been five years total, so I went regular army and stayed for 20.”

His wife went with him to the various locations where he was stationed — Fort Riley, Kan., Camp Chaffee, Kan., Germany and Fort Hood, Texas.

“Camp Chaffee — that’s where I was born in 1955,” said Curtis Primm, Oscar’s second son.

The oldest, Oscar Jr., and Charlene, were also born at Camp Chafee. Primm’s youngest daughter, Manuela, was born in Germany. In 1965 the family returned to the U.S. from Germany and he was stationed at Fort Hood.

“In May 1966, my daughter got up one Sunday morning and says, ‘Mama I had a dream that they sent daddy away and we could not go with him.’ I didn’t think anything about a dream, but when I arrived at work on Monday morning, my company commander told me, ‘Sgt. Primm, they got you alerted for Vietnam.’”

Primm reminded his commander he was supposed to remain in the States for a year before being sent anywhere else.

“My commander said ‘they need a maintenance sergeant for a Signal Corps unit in Vietnam and you’ve got the best record on post — they want you.’ So, I got transferred to the Signal Corps Company B in Long Binh. I spent a year in Vietnam as a maintenance sergeant there.”

His first three months in Vietnam, Primm said he worked seven days a week and 14 hours a day, along with his unit.

After about two months, he had his operations organized and was able to offer his men a day off each week to read books, write letters, or take a pass and go downtown. He believed he would get as much work out of them in eight hours as in 14.

Throughout his tenure in the Army, Primm said he had been pushing for a promotion from Sergeant First Class. His Military Operation Specialist rank had been frozen, and the pushback on the issue was the army had too many people at the same rank.

“Two years earlier they had come up with a new ruling — if you get promoted from Sergeant First Class to a higher rank, you have to stay an additional two years,” Primm said. “After 10 months in Viet Nam, I decided my 20 years was going to be up and in October 1967 I was going to retire. My maintenance officer came to me and said ‘I’m going to put you in for a promotion.’ Because of the extra two years — I told him ‘I don’t want it.’”

After he retired from the Army, he moved his family to Chicago and drove a CTA bus for 14 years.

On July 30, 2014, Primm was aboard Honor Flight Chicago to Washington, D.C., where he was able to visit the war memorials and be honored along with fellow veterans of WWII and the Korean War.

“Today, I get up when I feel like it. I love to play dominoes,” said Primm.

He’s active in the First Baptist Church in Gary.

“Faith is important to me. Faith in the Lord. I joined the church when I was 14 and I started reading the King James version of the Bible. That’s when I started learning about God. The Bible says if God is for you, he’s more than the hundred against you.”

He looks back on his service to his country and says, “I served 20 years and I retired in 1967 and I’m still here! I have not regretted it.”

Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.