Leader leaves lasting legacy
Timothy McCarthy looked forward to being in the service. In fact, he volunteered to enlist right after high school, but was told his knees and eyesight would hold him back. But then came the looming conflict in Vietnam.
Drafted four days after his 21st birthday, McCarthy shipped off to basic training in July 1965. Private McCarthy trained at Fort Gordon, in Augusta, Georgia, to be a multichannel terminal operator and was soon stationed in Chuncheon, South Korea. As his superiors were getting sent to Vietnam, he was promoted to sergeant only 16 months later.
“Our job was to supply information to the Air Force fighter jets who were defending the DMZ,” said McCarthy.
Every few weeks, the North Koreans would send a pair of fighter jets south across the DMZ (the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea). McCarthy’s team enabled communications that detected them on radar, relaying data to Air Force pilots and missile launchers to target and intercept their jets.
“Knowing that our communications enabled that interaction to occur… what a great feeling,” McCarthy said.
For 30 years, he served in many units within the Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM), adapting to each evolution of communication technology.
In 1995, he retired from the military as a Command Sergeant Major at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
Today, he enjoys his retirement with the love of his life, Kang McCarthy, whom he met coincidentally one evening while at a friend’s house.
“When I saw her, I fell in love,” said McCarthy. “So, then I had to learn Korean.”
Luckily, one of the guys on his team was a graduate of Seoul University whose major was English. When he wasn’t working, he would study Korean so he could one day propose to her.
After 50 years of marriage, he still recalls what she was wearing the day they met.
“She had on a white ruffled blouse, red-stitched ruffles on the sleeves, with a red felt vest and red pleaded skirt,” McCarthy said.
In the last few years, McCarthy has seen a change in societal attitudes, not just toward Vietnam Veterans, but all Veterans.
“I think our society has made a major turnaround since the 70s, which was really horrendous for a lot of people,” said McCarthy, who never experienced it in the States. “It didn’t occur with me because I avoided it.”
He was overseas in Vietnam and Korea during the Kent State shootings, and when Veterans returning home were taunted and called names.
Although he’s dedicated his life to serving his nation, his greatest achievement, he says, was teaching Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) to 9th graders for 16 years.
“To go from seeing these young people, shy, with their head down, afraid to speak up, to seeing them observe a situation, step forward and take action on their own, was the most rewarding part of my career,” said McCarthy.