Richard A. Busemeyer - Military Service

Military Service

Busemeyer was drafted into the U.S. Army in March, 1943. After basic training he served as an ambulance driver in the Medical Corps at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He was later sent to Dental Technician School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where he received training as a dental assistant. He then applied for and was immediately accepted as a candidate for Officer Candidate School (O.C.S.). Upon completion of his training as an officer he received a commission as a second lieutenant, U.S. Army Medical Corps. Upon being commissioned he received orders to attend Battalion Surgeon's Assistant school at Camp Butner, North Carolina, to train for assignments to front line medical units where he would perform triage on combat casualties. After completing that school he was assigned to a medical unit of the 5th Infantry Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

World War II had begun drawing to a close by the time Busemeyer had completed basic training, Dental Assistant school, O.C.S., and Battalion Surgeon's Assistant school and reported for duty at Fort Campbell. Busemeyer continued to serve with the 5th Infantry Division at Fort Campbell until after the end of the war in Europe and in the Pacific. He was released from active duty in the Army on August 2, 1946, after two and a half years of service to his country in time of war, and transferred to inactive duty in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Busemeyer served as an officer in the Army Reserve until, originally intending to complete 20 years of combined active duty from 1943 until 1946, and inactive duty in the peacetime Army Reserve thereafter. However, with the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and President Harry S. Truman's call-up of Army, Navy, and Marine Corps reservists to meet the new wartime emergency of the Korean "peace action", Busemeyer faced a dilemma. Married by then, and a family man with a wife and two children, one a newborn child and the other just a toddler, he made the decision to resign his Army commission and remain at home with his family.