PENSACOLA, Fla. — Like a lot of kids in the area, Frederick Waters loved baseball and living in Baldwin County. He had a lot of family in the area, and he worked at the Hoiles grocery store.

But something about cameras fascinated the young man.

So, when the family left to work in construction in Miami, Freddie, as he was called, 12, took a job as a newspaper carrier. The money helped, but Fred had his eye on a bigger things. There was a prize for carriers.

“If you won you had a choice - you could be a copy boy or a darkroom boy,” said Waters, sitting in his Florida condo.

Naturally, Waters won and took the darkroom job.

They let me mix chemicals,” said Waters.

Back then, right before World War II, and for a long time afterward, mixing chemicals, or “chemistry” was part and parcel of a photographer’s business. Digital hadn’t been thought of.

It was a demanding, exacting, often smelly job, with the most critical steps done in total darkness lest a stray beam of light ruin the film or print.

But, there was something about seeing a picture, a split second of reality, emerge from the chemicals that was absolutely magic.

That’s what caught Waters’ attention.

The family returned to Robertsdale when Waters was 14 and he headed off to Robertsdale High. At least temporarily.

“I left school when I was 16,” said Waters. He had brothers serving in the armed forces, and there was a war on. He joined the Navy. He finished his high school diploma, Waters said, by taking courses through the military.

Waters was selected for photography school. But, military officials were not happy when Waters rejected his first assignment — aerial photography.

“I didn’t think it was safe,” said Waters

To “punish” him, Waters was assigned to a Marine unit.

“I loved the Marines,” Waters said. “I went through a lot of battles with them.”

Waters said he was “in time for Okinawa” and after the war was over, he headed back to Robertsdale and to earn that high school diploma. Again.

That didn’t last long.

“A friend arranged for me to take a test,” said Waters. “I earned a Tennessee diploma.”

But education wasn’t Waters favorite thing, and with the Korean War heating up, Waters decided to get back into uniform — this time with the Army. He was trained at the Army Photography Center in Long Island.

Based in Japan, Waters had a “byline” with the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes. His nickname among the Japanese was “Mizu,” or “Water.”

“It was only then that I realized MacArthur didn’t read that paper,” chuckled Waters.

This is despite MacArthur saying to the staff of the paper, “This is my daily paper and I want it on my doorstep every morning, including Sunday."

Waters started covering the doings of troops in Korea, and noticed something — while American troops had little warm clothing to face the bitter cold of a Korean winter, Associated Press staffers had suitable clothing.

“I had eight blankets,” recalled Waters. “Four of them were off dead people.”

That clinched it.

“I wanted to work for AP,” said Waters. “I saw that they took care of their people. Every man at the AP had an armload of clothes.”

As soon as his enlistment was up, Waters headed for New York.

“I walked into the AP office, and had another job,” he said.

Two or three days later, Waters was back in Korea — with plenty of warm clothes. He says that some of his contacts didn’t even realize that he had gone.

While it seems hard to believe in this day when we take getting sound and pictures instantly from anywhere on the globe for granted, but words and pictures from Korea took, hours, days and even weeks to get out. Photographers had to be cagy about getting fresh film for their cameras and getting exposed film out to the world.

“We would go out and tell AP where we were going. AP would send every division (on their route) film packs,” said Waters. He said he got around using a Russian motorcycle with a sidecar.

Getting film out was also a challenge, but Waters says he and other photographers solved that problem by making friends with pilots of commercial and military planes who could wing their precious film and notes out of the war zone.

Add the fact that the Speed Graphic, the workhorse camera of the time was heavy and only could get 12 photos on a film pack, and photographers of the time had to compose their shots carefully. That’s why in movies and newsreels of the period, it is not uncommon to hear cries of “just one more” from the photographers.

But, war photographers had no “just one more” shots. It had to be right, the first time.

“A major in Pyongyang (now North Korea) told us that they were going to take the last plane out and burn the airport,” said Waters. “We were on the end of a convoy going out and Max (fellow AP photographer Max Desfor) won a Pulitzer (“Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea”) for his work.”

Waters knows of other photographers who would smuggle cameras and film into POW camps to get images in those places.

Sometimes, a war photographer’s best shot is his or her last shot. More than one news photographer died covering combat.

Waters received three Purple Hearts (accredited news photographers received the same benefits as a major in the Army, according to Waters) for injuries received while covering the war.

“There were two (additional) minor wounds I didn’t put in for,” said Waters.

One was for a bullet wound that “creased my head,” said Waters.

Instead of wearing a standard GI helmet, he was wearing a wool cap at the time.

Another time Waters was wounded, he went up “Triangle Hill.”

“I got hit with mortar shrapnel, and I brought a GI down the hill,” Waters said.

The GI didn’t make it, but the doctor took one look at Waters and realized that he, too, was wounded.

“The doctor said , ‘Get your butt up on the table,’” Waters recalled.

Waters says that he was allowed to carry morphine syringes and had received medical training.

“If things got rough, I’d put down my camera and be a medic,” Water said.

All soldiers and journalists have their limit, and one death in particular got to him.

“I went back to Seoul, packed up my ditty bag and went to stay at an inn in Japan to drink beer for a couple of days.”

Waters’ boss at AP tracked him down and asked him what he wanted to do.

Three days later, Waters was back in Korea.

Waters’ home base had shifted over the years to Singapore. He was slated to take some home leave in 1956 and changed planes in Hong Kong.

An airline hostess for Cathay Pacific Airlines, Mary, was on his flight.

“He was very handsome,” said Mary. “He was very interesting.”

They started talking. The romance blossomed, and Fred and Mary kept making excuses to change flights so they could meet each other.

They courted for three years, and they were married in Hong Kong.

Fred was an officer with the Foreign Press Club in Hong Kong, and recalls that the party was one of the biggest he or any of the other journalists there could recall.

Fred and Mary set up housekeeping in Hong Kong,

The war in Vietnam was breaking out, and of course, where there is trouble, journalists are sure to follow.

Waters found himself one of only three western-affiliated journalists in Hanoi.

“Life and Time had left,” Waters said, “There were two (journalists) from AP and one from the New York Times.”

Waters recalls that he had a fake censor’s stamp made up so he could get his dispatches out without interference.

“A lot of good money went on the expense report for that,” recalled a chuckling Waters.

Waters says he and the other journalists were “looking for Ho Chi Minh,” (then the leader of North Vietnam)which would have been the scoop of the year.

That was not to be. The journalists got word that a certain “sergeant had a toothache,” which Waters says was a prearranged code that it was time to get out.

Waters and the other journalists left. Waters left Vietnam in 1962.

And it was time to return to the United States. The Waters’ first son, Oscar, was born in Hong Kong in 1959. Their daughter, Karen, was born in Singapore in 1961. Their daughter Jane was born in St. Louis in 1966. The Waters now have nine grandchildren.

Waters had taken a job with the AP bureau in St. Louis. He became a devoted fan of the Cardinals —both baseball and football.

But the “safety” of an American posting was short-lived.

“I covered a race riot,” recalled Waters, “and I told my boss that they were worse than covering a war. In fact, if they wanted me to cover that, they could put me back in a war zone — I would be safer.”

Waters said he was tapped to help AP cover the Melbourne and Rome Olympics. and helped a group of Hungarian athletes defect during the Melbourne games.

He “followed (Richard M.) Nixon around” while Nixon was vice-president

“I liked him,“ Waters said of Nixon

It was a fascinating time to be a journalist. Waters says he got to walk with and get to know Martin Luther King.

He also chuckles when recalling a tale about a governor kneeling down for a traditional photo with football players from that state’s university. When Waters declined to take the photo, the governor was confused, then a little angry.

“I told him to look behind him,” chuckled Waters.

A whole row of players was naked.

Waters believes he shot his last photo for AP while “helping out “ during the 1984 World Series, the Detroit Tigers verses the San Diego Padres.

“I said I would not stick around,” said Waters. “I saw friends who retired at 65, and died at 66. It seems to have paid off, I am 81 now.”

Both Waters managed condominiums in the area, and Waters says that Mary sold property in Robertsdale.

“I was just her driver,” said Waters in a phone interview.

Today, both are fully retired and enjoy the view of the ocean from their Florida home. There’s a computer in the living room and Fred is trying, with the help of another journalist, to wrestle his memoirs into book form.

“I hope he gets done soon,” said Mary Waters.