Still Searching for
'Tony Dufflebag'
herald-citizen.com — August 31, 2008
By Megan Trotter, Herald-Citizen
Clarence G. Oliver Jr., author and Korean War veteran, recently held a book signing at the Leslie Town Certre for the book, "Tony Dufflebag and Other Remembrances of the War In Korea."
A room full of fellow veterans, family, friends and others greeted Oliver as he led a short presentation about the background of the Korean War and highlighted several stories from book.
Clarence G. Oliver Jr. signs a copy of his book, "Tony Dufflebag and Other Rememberances of the War in Korea", for Mimi Smith at the Leslie Town Center. Herald-Citizen Photo/Ty Kernea.
Oliver honored Joe Mac Floyd, retired Tennessee Technological University professor emeritus and fellow veteran. Oliver retells in his book the story of Floyd's injury on a trip flare and the Herculean efforts of his fellow soldiers to pull Floyd up a snowy mountain to receive medical help.
Oliver also told the story of Tony Dufflebag, the namesake of book.
Olver and the rest of the 45th Infantry Division had been given three days of temporary leave to Seoul, Korea. Two of his fellow soldiers decided to walk to the streets. They went out on the street to Iook around and they saw what looked like a 6-year-old Korean boy. He had nothing on except what we would call a tank top....The men decided to do what they could to help. They took him to a Korean bath house to wash up, bought him clothes and fed him.
"None of us spoke very much Korean,' Oliver said. "He didn't speak any English. Finally, through an interpreter, we found out that his parents had been killed by the Chinese and he was fully alone on the streets of Seoul at 6 years old." Not knowing what else to do, the men decided to take him back with them. In order to sneak the boy past a military check point, they put the boy inside a Duffle bag, nestled among the soldiers' clothes. At the checkpoint, the....
"His Korean name sounded a little bit like Tony. And he came to us out of a duffle bag, so that was his last name (that we gave him)," said Oliver. Tony Dufflebag lived among the soldiers for about a month. There was not a lot of dangerous activity at the time, so he remained relatively safe. Soon the soldiers' superior officers found out about the little boy and requested the men turn him over so he could be placed in a Korean orphanage. "But every time they would come up to get him, Tony would just disappear," Oliver chuckled. Eventually they were given a direct order to release Tony and....
Stories of Tony in Korean newspaper...with a plea for the boy to...the Korean media has been uncooperative. How...Oliver has not given up and continues to seek him out. "Tony Dufflebag would his mid-60's now," said Oliver. "He probably, with his personality, would have been a mar...leader in that country had he survived, and I believe he did."