Featured photo John Mashiska, right, and his childhood best friend, Sam Calazzi, enlist in the Army in June 1951. However, they were granted a one-month delay as Mashiska was due to get married a few days after receiving his draft notice. And Calazzi was his best man.
AUSTINTON — John Mashiska said he refused to serve in the military because he thought the military would find him if they wanted him.
He was right. Two years after graduating from Youngstown East High School and attending New Castle Business School, he received his draft notice from the US Army in June 1951. As luck would have it, Uncle Sam allowed him to delay for a month as he received the announcement several days before he was to marry his high school sweetheart, Beverly.
Also receiving a draft notice on the same day was his childhood friend Sam Calazzi, who got a delayed entry because he was best man at Mashiska’s wedding.
Mashiska, who turns 93 in December, entered the Army on July 9, 1951, while working at Truscon Steel on Youngstown’s East Side.
“I was furious when I got my draft letter. I was getting married,” he said.
He went to Kentucky to complete his six weeks of basic training at Fort Lee, Va. as a tank unit, so he and Mashiska didn’t see each other again until they both returned home. Calazzisi returned early after being hit in the back by a shoe.
“I was in administration. “I knew going to business school would benefit me somehow,” Mashiska said with a laugh.
After basic training, Mashiska said he was put on a boat and sent to Korea.
“They wasted no time,” he said.
He was assigned to the 849th Quartermaster Gasoline Supply Company, responsible for handling petroleum, oil, and gas used in airplanes and jeeps, and for lighting and heating operations.
Mashiska said he did not see combat because he was in administration, but once the North Koreans tried to bomb his unit in Incheon Korea. If the bombing had been successful, he said, it would have burned down their entire camp because of all the flammable liquids.
Asked if he had been shot, Mashiska said, “Not that I know of. I was lucky.”
At one point, Japanese men approached him and two other soldiers and asked them to buy money orders at the post office. Mashishka did as he and his fellow soldiers did, but when they were asked a second time a few days later, Mashishka sent the money order home to his wife.
“It was $600. This was a lot of money and we realized that the Japanese soldiers were using it to buy ammunition for the enemy, so I didn’t feel anything.
Mashiska said he worked hard because he wanted to become a corporal so he could get paid more.He said his wife was working at Livingston in downtown Youngstown at the time. He is paid $374.30 a month by the Army.
He was eventually promoted to corporal, but was discharged a short time later on June 10, 1953 at Custer, Mich.
“When I was in Korea, I didn’t have to fire my weapon. I was lucky,” Mashiska said.
He said one of his best memories of his service was going to Okinawa, Japan for vacation and recreation and also seeing a USO show on base.
After returning from the war, he returned to work at Truscon Steel, but was fired. He was fired from several jobs before working as a production supervisor at Youngstown Steel Door for 22 years. In the year He lost his job there in 1985 and worked in a Cary, Pa., rubber plant for four years. He worked part-time for five years at Sears in Austintown before officially retiring.
John Mashika
Age: 92
Residence: Austintown
Branch of Service: Army
Military Honors: Foreign Campaign Medal and Good Conduct Medal
Occupation: Various steel companies, Youngstown Steel Door for 22 years
Family: Wife, Beverly, 66 years (died October 2017); daughters, Lynn Jovanovich and Phyllis Miller, and a son, John, all of Austintown; Five grandchildren, a set of triplets, and a great-grandchild due in December
