STILLWATER, Okla. — As combat duty goes, arranging basketball games and escorting movie stars may not sound half bad. But for Art Bieri, the Korean War was far from easy.

Bieri served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He worked in special services administration at an installation in Chuncheon, near the 38th Parallel.

Bieri’s duties included handling USO shows when they came through and arranging athletic events at the base. He organized track and field outings, horseshoe matches and basketball and volleyball games, he said.

Because the base was so near the conflict, Bieri said, arranging USO shows was difficult; extra precautions had to be taken to make sure the performers were safe. Any time performers came through, Air Force MPs and a few officers were on hand to ensure their safety. Even at that, Bieri said, it was impossible to keep the performers totally safe.

“They were always in jeopardy,” he said. “You never knew what would happen.”

One of the highlights of Bieri’s service was escorting Marilyn Monroe during a visit she made to the base.

At the time, Monroe’s husband, New York Yankees slugger Joe DiMaggio, was conducting a baseball workshop in Japan, and Monroe spent the period visiting Allied service members in South Korea.

The men at the air base had very little contact with women at all, Bieri said, so Monroe was well received, to say the least.

“When you’ve got guys up in the front area and stuff like that, anything looks good,” he said. “And that wasn’t anything. It was special.”

Monroe’s visit went off more or less without incident, Bieri said, but another performer caused a bit more controversy when she visited the base. Actress Terry Moore, who had starred in the 1949 film “Mighty Joe Young,” performed for the troops as a part of a USO show. Bieri is sure she wasn’t trying to cause trouble, he said, but trouble found her, all the same.

“She had a green emerald dress on, which was really short and revealing,” he said.

Moore hadn’t been trying to be overly showy, Bieri said, but officials at the base were concerned that her attire during the performance might cause problems.

“There was so much controversy because they didn’t want too much stirred up in the area that we were in,” he said.

None of the performers that visited met any problems, Bieri said, but that wasn’t always the case with the troops at the base.

To keep the troops occupied, Bieri scheduled occasional games and other events. On one occasion, a group of airmen was gathering on a basketball court for a game. Bieri and two others were officiating the game.

Out of nowhere, Bieri said, he began hearing shots and saw small tufts of dust rising from the ground. The airmen knew what the sound meant immediately, he said — North Korean snipers were taking shots at the players from the mountains. Bieri looked back at the players.

“I said, ‘This game is canceled,’” he said.

The men immediately got to their bunkers and went to their assignments. When the shooting died down, he said, the players went back to the court and resumed the game.

“You weren’t too scared, but you knew to get out of the way real fast,” he said. “It was enough to stop that game right away.”