Veteran has miles of memories
At 88, Uber driver can tell you about Korean War, Bush 41
David Arnspiger is in his natural element, inching along a Memorial area street, Purple Heart ballcap pulled tightly on his head, two paying passengers in the back seat of his Ford Fusion.
“Do you want to hear a story?,” Arnspiger asked, stopping at a traffic light last week and glancing at his Uber app running on the phone affixed to the dashboard.
The stories can be colorful, even peppered with salty language and themes, but at 88 years old Arnspiger, a Korean War veteran, has plenty of them. There’s the one from long ago about his daughter giving then-U.S. Rep. George H.W. Bush way too much medical information about her mother. That one, he said, is a go-to for out of towners, who all know Bush. There’s another about the time Arnspiger and the former president ran into a strict head usher at their Episcopal church who insisted on ushers stepping in unison off the steps, left foot first.
Often, when it comes to the people he picks up as Uber’s oldest driver in the Houston metro area, his Purple Heart hat or Purple Heart license plate gets the stories started. He’ll likely be wearing it proudly for Veterans Day, one of the country’s 18.8
million former members of the military, and more than 7.2 million still in the labor force. About 1.8 million Korean War vets are still alive, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, though it’s unclear how many are still working in some manner — let alone keeping Arnspiger’s more than 40hour weekly pace.
“If they notice, they ask and thank me for my service,” Arnspiger said, two hands on the wheel and one eye on the woman walking down the sidewalk as he chuckles at how short skirts have gotten.
Prompted, his mind moves quickly from fashion for women to war on the Korean peninsula, as seamlessly as he changes lanes. He grew up in New York City, the family moving there shortly before the Wall Street crash of 1929. He graduated from Wisconsin’s Beloit College in 1950, where he’d been involved in ROTC and a Marine Corps platoon leader class. Rather than officer candidate school, Arnspiger chose a combat experience course.
A few weeks later — just like his family’s move to the city right before The Great Depression — North Korea invaded South Korea with help from the Soviet Union. The United Nations, and primarily the United States, leapt into the
fray and China responded by aiding the north.
So Arnspiger ended up leading a mortar platoon on a hill that looked toward another hill populated by North Korean troops.
“You can’t get better combat training than them shooting live bullets at you,” he said.
Generally, they weren’t shooting at him. Positions were entrenched and his platoon of mortarmen were trained but underappreciated.
“All my guys had flaming inferiority complexes,” he said, brought on by infantrymen calling their use into question.
Battle recounted
Then a major visited Arnspiger’s little hill, and decided that hill of North Koreans needed to go. He ordered infantry troops to train at night on a nearby hill and prepare for an assault on the enemy position. Arnspiger’s men would be the final salvo, “so (the infantry) could get off the hill and the Chinese and North Koreans would run right into my mortars.”
As the Marines fled after the assault, Arnspiger’s men fired 103 mortar rounds — a quickening assault that blackened the opposing hillside, even as the enemy fired toward the retreating Marines.
Infantrymen raced up to the mortar position frantically looking for cover behind the mortars shielding their escape.
“My guys were crying because it was the first time someone said something nice about them,” Arnspiger said of the thanks infantry rained on the mortarmen.
Then they heard the sounds. That familiar “wish-woosh,” Arnspiger recalled. The latrine exploded. Other blasts dotted the hill. “I caught a piece (of shrapnel) in back of my flack jacket,” Arnspiger said, shifting in his driver’s seat as if a phantom piece of flying metal made its way into his car.
He noticed the men he was standing with were wearing tattered trousers, then realized his pants were shredded as well.
They were all taken downhill for medical treatment, bloodied and unsure of the severity of their injuries. Knowing hospitalization was a ticket out of the war zone, Arnspiger asked the medic if he’d be evacuated. “He says ‘Lieutenant, we’ll have you back up on that hill in 15 minutes.’ ”
The wounds, though minor, earned him a Purple Heart for injuries during combat.
For years, Arnspiger said the award never sat right with him. He didn’t talk much about it. “I was kind of ashamed of it because I wasn’t hospitalized,” he said.
His acceptance, decades later, was more pragmatic than patriotic, he said. A friend who knew of Arnspiger’s service noted he was “a fool” not to accept the merit. And there are perks, too. Purple Heart vehicle registrations are $3 rather than $53 in Texas. License plateholders can park in Harris County-owned parking garages and use local toll roads for free.
“I got over my problem,” Arnspiger jokes as he turns off Westheimer, seeking another fare.
Lost his savings
How a one-time solider born when Herbert Hoover was president got sucked into the gig economy and Uber is a story all its own. When he returned from Korea, Arnspiger considered his options and settled in Wichita Falls, falling into the investment banking business. He moved to Houston a few years later in 1959, specializing in municipal finance and bonds. He raised a family with his wife and amassed a tidy sum.
“I retired in 1990 with more money than I ever thought I’d have,” he recalled.
Then he got bored. So he went back into business and lost practically everything on an investment in a computer firm. At 68, he found himself needing to make ends meet for he and his wife. He sold cars, but it didn’t suit him.
“I figured there had to be something better,” Arnspiger said.
At 86, decades older than a lot of his driving peers, he settled into Uber in August 2014, liking the idea of meeting people, sitting in the car and shooting the bull.
Arnspiger bought a new car and developed a routine driving eight hours a day, six or seven days a week. Uber confirmed Arnspiger is its oldest driver in the Houston region.
“I’m only 88,” he laughs when asked about the taxing schedule.
That’s not to imply, however, he is giving a pass to all elderly Uber and taxi drivers. To his knowledge, he’s the oldest, but he concedes there might be others out there who outrank him.
“If there is anybody, I sure ... don’t want to ride with him,” Arnspiger said with a laugh.
With so many stories, and so many memories, it’s hard for him to compare one to another. He’s seen war. He dodges traffic daily. He laughs at the similarities and the glaring differences.
“As far as the war is concerned, it is mostly boring and scary, in that order,” Arnspiger said, waiting for his chance to take a right onto Westheimer from the Galleria. “This is just a pain in the ass.”