In the fall of 1951 an Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps was established at Colby. Participation was compulsory for all able-bodied male freshmen and sophomores. Students took courses in air science and tactics, a military program that included everything from world history to drill. The courses were taught by Lt. Col. C. Philip Christie, a World War II veteran and survivor of the Bataan Death March. Several alumni recalled Christie's World Political Geography as one of the most interesting courses they took at the College.
ROTC candidates pulled duty manning a lookout post in Lorimer Chapel, phoning in every aircraft sighting to the Air Force, recalled Dave Roberts '55. On Armistice Day every year, Colby men marched downtown to take part in the city parade. One day a week was designated as uniform day on campus and students marched in formation and underwent inspections on the lawn in front of Miller Library. "All over campus you'd see Air Force blue," Farr said.
Lt. Col. C. Phillip Christie, a World War II veteran, teaches a miltary science course in world geography at Colby
As many as 30 ROTC candidates were commissioned after graduation, including Farr, who missed the war by a year and spent his Air Force stint flying tanker aircraft that refueled Cold War B-52s. Others did serve in the war, including Wiley, who pre-dated ROTC and was drafted four months after graduation. His mathematics background landed him a job as a crew chief for an Army field artillery unit. Wiley's unit accompanied the 2nd Infantry Division and other troops as they fought some of the most famous and bloody battles of the war: Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill and Heartbreak Ridge.
"The lieutenant up front would have us fire," Wiley said. "Sometimes he'd say, ‘Left five-zero,' which meant left fifty yards. ‘Add five-zero,' which meant to elevate our plot fifty yards. God forbid if anybody plotted incorrectly and you had a short round. That was suicide over there."
Did that happen? "Oh, yeah," he said.
In a war that produced heavy casualties early, on both the battlefield and among American prisoners of war, some soldiers fell before they even reached the Korean Peninsula. Others, through the chance of the battle plans, drew safer assignments than others.
Deering recalled a reserve unit from Michigan that was stationed at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, near his home. He befriended some of the young recruits and had several to his home for dinner. That unit was dispatched to the front lines in Korea and suffered 70 percent casualties. Deering spent his time in the war warning his fellow airmen in Libya that they shouldn't complain about the heat and flies because "there was an alternative."
