Merrillville veteran, 101, looks back at service in three wars
Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Oscar Primm Jr. of Merrillville has seen a lot over his 101 years.
He served in three wars — World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam — and also worked in a steel mill and ran his own body and fender shop. The widower was married for 52 years, raised four children, and earlier this year, remarried.
These days Primm can be found almost every day at the Greater Gary AMVETS Post 6 with his new wife, Cassandra, playing dominoes, his favorite game. He drives the couple there each day. Primm and Cassandra were married by his pastor during a small ceremony in January.
Primm served more than 20 years in the U.S. Army before retiring. He started his service Dec. 28, 1942, and served in World War II, leaving the service in 1946. After a break where he joined the Army Reserve, he worked in a steel mill and opened his own body and fender shop in Gary, where he lived. Primm was called back into service from the Reserve for four and half years to serve in the Korean War.
“Being in the Reserves when they called me back, I’ll tell you the truth, I cried,” Primm said.
Once the Korean War ended, he returned to the Army full time and continued to reenlist when his tours where up until he opted to complete a full 20 years to retire. He wound up serving through the Vietnam War before retiring in 1967.
Primm said he had the support of his first wife, Ida, who did not stand in his way each time he decided to accept another tour. Their marriage ended in divorce after he returned from Vietnam, but after a year, the couple reconciled and remarried. The couple had four children and were married 52 years before her death in 2020. She was 87.
The centenarian does not like to talk about his wartime service, preferring to recall the times spent with his young wife while he was an enlistee. One Memorial Day, back in 1952, the couple were broke, they had no gas and Primm would not be paid until Tuesday, May 31. He recalled fondly how they walked to the park and spent their last buffalo nickel on a bottle of Coke which they shared.
The service memories are difficult.
“There are many things in life I don’t want to talk about,” Primm said, pausing from his game of dominoes to reflect.
He recalled being trapped in a foxhole in Europe during World War II for seven nights as German
planes dropped bombs and shelled the area.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see daylight again,” Primm said. Some of the soldiers with whom he served did not.
During the Korean and Vietnam wars, Primm worked as a head mechanic for a trucking company, keeping the vehicles for his fellow troops on the battlefield repaired and operational.
“I saw the combat but wasn’t really in combat there,” he said.
Larry Jenkins, the commander of the Greater Sons of Amvets Squadron 6, said it is the veterans like Primm and his grandfather, whom he represents, that make remembering on Memorial Day the sacrifice of so many others who paid the ultimate price and did not return so important.
“A lot of these guys get ignored,” Jenkins said, adding the lives of veterans should be celebrated.
“We need to remember the folks who have fallen,” Jenkins said.