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Shows how little you know about how Williams really felt about being called to active duty and sent to Korea. Williams wasn't very disappointed when he got sent home after four months in Korea either.

He wasn't exactly thrilled with the way he got into the military in the first place, either. First, an account from the man himself, from his memoir My Turn At Bat:

War was imminent. I had gone to my draft board right after the season, about November of '41, and told them everything about me, how much money I had in the bank, how much I sent my mother every month, everything. I was put in III-A, which meant I had a dependent. (Note: Williams was the sole support of his divorced mother; he had a ne'er-do-well brother who had once sold out their mother's furniture from under her, an incident which was misinterpreted in the Boston press of the time as having been done by Williams himself, even though they knew it had been his brother, such already were his troubles with that town's then-notoriously cannibalistic press. - BD) I went on up to Minnesota to fish and see my girl, up where they had had that terrible blizzard, when scores of duck hunters were marooned on the lakes and froze to death.

...In January (1942) I got a notice that I could be called at any time. I had been reclassified I-A. A friend of mine suggested I go see the adviser to the governor's Selective Service Appeal Agent, an attorney, because I was the sole support of my mother. She worked for the Salvation Army, but she didn't get anything, and she and my father were divorced. So I told this man my story as honestly as I could - I've never been a liar, never could lie very well - and he said, "You're right, you should still be three-A."

He took it to the Appeals Board, but they voted me down. This really got the attorney mad, and he said he was going to go to the Presidential Board, to General Hershey. Well, I had nobody to advise me, no father, no mother there to tell me anything, no real personal big league friends to go to and say, "Tell me what to do," so I just let him take charge, and about ten days later I got word I was back in III-A - I was deferred by the Presidential Board. I thought, well, this is the top of the heap, I'm going to be all right.

In the meantime, I got my 1942 contract, and boy, I remember I put it in my wardrobe trunk. $30,000. The end of the rainbow. But now some awful things are being written about me, mean things about my draft situation. The Japanese are really running wild, and patriotism has invaded the press box. Bill Corum (a New York sportswriter - BD) takes out after me, and Paul Gallico (a syndicated sports columnist, if I am not mistaken - BD).

They're writing, "Williams ought to get in the service. He doesn't have to hide behind anybody. He can get in." And "Ted Williams isn't going to spring training, is he?" And yow, yow, yow. There are a million ballplayers in III-A - (Joe) Gordon played baseball that year, DiMaggio played, Musial played - but Ted Williams is the guy having trouble with the draft board. I remember I had a contract to endorse Quaker Oats, a $4,000 contract. I used to eat them all the time. But they canceled out on me because of all this unfair stuff, and I haven't eaten a Quaker Oat since.

Well, Joe Cronin writes and tells me I ought to go see Mickey Cochrane at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Cochrane, the great old Tiger catcher, had joined up and was running their athletic program, and by now it's quite obvious we aren't going to win the war in six months. Cochrane had a new car, a Lincoln Continental with pushbutton doors, and he drove me around the Great Lakes center. There were 10,000 guys there, and Cochrane's all decked out in his Navy uniform, buttons shining like mad, and he gave me the big pitch. I met a few of the guys and I'm weakening. I'm about to enlist right now.

Then he says, "Gee, it's going to be awful tough to play ball. You try to play ball this summer, they'll boo you out of every park in the big leagues."

Boy, I saw fire. I said to myself, I don't give a damn who they boo or what they do. I've heard plenty of boos. I'm going to play ball if I can.

Then Mr. Yawkey got into the act. He said he didn't think it would be smart for me to come to spring training. That was the first mistake the Red Sox made with me. I made up my mind that I was going to go anyway. All I could think about was that big contract, and the very fact that I was entitled to be III-A, and now for the first time in my life I would be able to get my mother out of hock a little bit and fix up that house...It turned out a lot better than I thought I would. Will Harridge, the president of the American League, called me and told me to keep my chin up, that I wouldn't have been deferred if I wasn't in the right. I heard a few remarks in the spring, not from other players, from some smart-alec fans, and I got a letter one day that was nothing but a blank piece of yellow paper, and that burned me up, but by the time the season started it was mostly over...Near the end of the season, I signed up for naval aviation, which took the heat off completely. In November, I got called, and five of us, Johnny Sain and Buddy Gremp of the Braves, Joe Coleman of the Athletics, Johnny Pesky and myself, went to Amherst College for preliminary ground school - navigation, aerodynamics, math, aeronautics, all basic stuff. I wasn't exactly overconfident about getting through, not having gone beyond Herbert Hoover High, but I had no trouble fitting in and I made up my mind I was going to give it my best.

Which he wouldn't really get the chance to give until Korea; Williams became predominantly a flight instructor and never saw combat in World War II (he'd actually made it out to Pearl Harbour by the time the war ended). Here is how he remembered his getting to the Korean War, with the backdrop being the elbow injury that he suffered in the 1950 All-Star Game, after which he wasn't quite the same hitter he had been (though he'd still be spectacular enough) and struggled (his word) to bat .318 in 1951...

Despite my damaged elbow, and despite my previous service, and despite approaching my thirty-fourth birthday, I was called up from the inactive reserves into the Marines in 1952 for the Korean War. I would not return until late the next season. Together, the two wars took four and a half years out of my career. Much has been made of this, and much speculation over what I could have done or would have done with those vital years. I wonder myself. I was not alone, of course. Hank Greenberg lost two years, most of a third, and part of another in World War II. Bob Feller lost three years plus. Joe DiMaggio lost three.

I was singled out for sympathy because I was called up twice. In my heart I was bitter about it but I made up my mind I wasn't going to bellyache. I kept thinking one of those gutless politicians someplace along the line would see that it wasn't right and do something. I know that winter my number had come up, that it would just be a matter of time. At spring training in Sarasota, there was a big cheese man from Ohio, a baseball fan who told me he knew Senator Robert Taft. "I'm going to personally see Senator Taft about you," he said. "I know him like a best friend. I'll talk to him about it."

The way I understand it, all Taft said was, "I have some reservations as to the fairness of it, but I don't interfere with a thing like that." I wish I had the letter I got from him. John Kennedy, who was a Massachussetts Congressman then, told Fred Corcoran (Williams's personal business representative - BD) he tried to do something for me but couldn't. Eveidently none of them could. I didn't say anything, but I was bitter because it was unfair.

I know well enough, in other words, the actual story. I find it intriguing, though, to note that in World War II he seems to have been a member of the Navy, but for Korea he was called into the Marine Corps. This is nothing against the Marine Corps by any means (you seem to have the impression I dislike Marines, which is simply not so), but I do note that, whereas he became properly proud of having been a Marine, it may not exactly have been his choice to become one.

By the way, in your hypothetical Ted would have been in Korea as a member of the Air Force, like former Marine Joe Foss was, not the Army Air Force.

Remember - I alluded to Williams entire terms of military service and not just Korea; in World War II it would have been the Army Air Force. And I never suggested I would prefer Williams in the Army Air Force; I said only that the kind of pride he had to the day he died in his military service should tell one that he'd have had the same pride regardless of the branch where he served - which is not the same thing as suggesting his "preference" or mine.

Knowing now that you served in the Air Force confirms my earlier suspicions. You just don't get it.

If you are or were a Marine, you've just discredited your honourable branch of service with that gratuitous crack. I was fortunate enough to be able to choose my branch of service and I have no shame whatsoever for having chosen the Air Force. It was then, it is now, and it ever will be an honourable branch in which to serve these United States, as is any branch of the military. You, sir, are the one who just doesn't get it.

With apologies for an HTML mistake of mine, and for clarity's sake, here is how the rest of the post should have looked after the end of my excerpt from Mr. Williams's memoir:

I know well enough, in other words, the actual story. I find it intriguing, though, to note that in World War II he seems to have been a member of the Navy, but for Korea he was called into the Marine Corps. This is nothing against the Marine Corps by any means (you seem to have the impression I dislike Marines, which is simply not so), but I do note that, whereas he became properly proud of having been a Marine (I would, I repeat, expect any serviceman to be likewise proud of his service no matter which branch had the honour of his service), it may not exactly have been his choice to become one.

By the way, in your hypothetical Ted would have been in Korea as a member of the Air Force, like former Marine Joe Foss was, not the Army Air Force.

Remember - I alluded to Williams entire terms of military service and not just Korea; in World War II it would have been the Army Air Force. And I never suggested I would prefer Williams in the Army Air Force; I said only that the kind of pride he had to the day he died in his military service should tell one that he'd have had the same pride regardless of the branch where he served - which is not the same thing as suggesting his "preference" or mine.

Knowing now that you served in the Air Force confirms my earlier suspicions. You just don't get it.

If you are or were a Marine, you've just discredited your honourable branch of service with that gratuitous crack. I was fortunate enough to be able to choose my branch of service and I have no shame whatsoever for having chosen the Air Force. It was then, it is now, and it ever will be an honourable branch in which to serve these United States, as is any branch of the military. You, sir, are the one who just doesn't get it.