11
INFANTRY SOLDIERS LIVE MOST OF THEIR TIME OUTDOORS. Their mood and their morale, their physical wellbeing, indeed their very survival is tied to the natural phenomena we call weather conditions. Yet, it matters not whether the rain is falling in torrents or whether the sun is parching the earth like a brick oven, infantrymen must, in order to survive, do the following things:
• Live in holes in the ground or earthen shelters in order to gain a measure of protection from the merciless shelling. Artillery shells do not know or care what the weather is on a particular day, their only role is to explode and send shrapnel through the air—whether clear, wet, or snowy.
• Sleep on the ground or in makeshift bunks in the trenches. This often requires considerable ingenuity and luck just to get a brief rest in such close contact with nature.
• March along roads that are so dusty that the grime permeates your nostrils until you choke or gasp for air; or in the other extreme, when drenching rain transforms the road into a vast sea of mud, sliding you now to the left, then to the right, then down—taking human being, field packs, and precious weapons with them into the mud. The muddy spills and harsh elements leave the infantryman with enough earth caked to his clothing and body to form a new third Korean nation.
• Eat one’s meals while sitting under a poncho, on top of a steel helmet, in dust storms or in rain showers that fill up one’s mess kit turning an essentially unappetizing Army meal into a soupy, unappetizing Army meal.
The working environment of the infantryman can provide unremitting misery at times. Weather conditions always seem to color his mood and in some situations may actually impact his very existence. Sometimes, in order to escape from such harsh realities, if only for brief moments, the infantryman might attempt to, through mental operations, place psychological distance between himself and the ugliness of inclement weather. A brief sojourn into reverie could provide the only means of tolerating such climatic extremes. This mental distancing—the psychological defense mechanism called “denial”—provided a miserable GI brief respite from the harshness. It involved convincing oneself that all of this is not really happening. These, of course, are only temporary measures in a seemingly endless and bleak situation and are probably somewhat maladaptive, because you always have to return: there is no real escape.
BACK AT THE FRONT TO TRENCHES DEEP IN A RIVER OF MUD.
The environment changed drastically from the cold, frozen ground we had experienced during January through March into a warmer but much wetter habitat. Spring was here, along with ample rain. The spring thaw brought different miseries than the winter had delivered. No longer did the cold wind make us shiver deep in our bones and shake uncontrollably at times while peering through the night looking for shadows in the front. Rain, endless cold drizzle, poured from the skies in what some have referred to as Korea’s “rainy season.” This term seemed to me to be a clear understatement of reality because it implies that sometime, somehow, the rain will end at some point life will return to normal. The rain in Korea in the spring months provided no inkling of a cessation; even if it did stop, the roads and those brown treeless, trench-scarred hills could never dry out again because they were so saturated with water.
The profuse drizzle brought a number of different challenges—including marches under a constant, steady downpour and a wet cold; roads that disappeared under flowing streams that gushed from the hills.
Even though the threat of artillery shells persisted, no longer was it possible to seek refuge under the sandbag covered trenches—the trenches filled with water and the bunkers caved in, occasionally trapping people inside. On several occasions we had to dig out GIs who had fallen asleep in a nice dry place, only to awaken to a rumbling sound of wooden beams crashing to the ground trapping them inside. On one occasion a bunker cave-in resulted in the death of a soldier inside. Death up front is always tragic, but this mode of destruction seemed to us somehow to be worse than simply being shot.
Artillery shells bursting in rain- and mud-filled trenches present a different visual picture than those exploding on ice capped terrain or hard rock soil. But these appearances are misleading because the true business of these monsters of destruction remains the same and equally effective.
Our one consolation about the weather (and having to move outside the trenches) was the thought that the Chinese might be having it rougher. We didn’t know this for sure, but we surmised that the gods of rain were dispassionate regarding our respective causes and would make the Chinese just as wet and miserable as they made us—perhaps even more so because the Chinese needed the protection of earthen caves more than we did. We had air superiority, that is, when weather allowed planes to fly and Joe Chink had to stay hidden. The caves they called home were likely to be just as susceptible to water problems as our bunkers, even more so.
At one point we conducted a reconnaissance patrol deep into the Yokkokchon Valley to get a look at what effect the rain was having on the Chinese positions. Were they showing a lot more surface trenches, fresh digging, and so forth? Had they evacuated to different positions? We could not determine much from the close inspection of the Chinese hills; however, we could see fresh digging and signs of activity around the hills. Ole Joe had apparently not evacuated as some had thought, although we could not determine much about his quality of life.
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These days even moving back to a rear echelon job was no guarantee of an easy life. Our friend Watcott’s new job as a rear echelon jeep driver proved to be nearly as dangerous under the new conditions as the shelling had been when he was up front. We heard that he had an accident in which his jeep had slid over a steep hill in the mud, rolling as gravity pulled the vehicle down the slope. Fortunately for him, his vehicle was equipped with a machine gun mount on the top that served to raise the jeep’s roll, allowing him enough room to drop free from the vehicle. He escaped with only some broken bones from what could have been a fatal accident.
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Troop movements during the rainy season proved challenging whether one moved by vehicle or by foot. The jeeps and two-and-a-half-ton trucks that occasionally served our movement along the front, often sat in quagmires along the roadways that at times appeared more like rivers. Men had to dismount, wade through the muck, and push the vehicles free of the newly formed swamps.
Marches through the drizzling rain were often more miserable. One would slip and slide, maybe crash up against one’s comrades to the front or rear. It was always tougher to carry heavy equipment in the mud because of the need to slow periodically or stop to shift the equipment. Sudden movements, halts, or start-ups could cause a fall. Occasionally, when men shifted equipment between them in order to share the burden of carrying heavy weapons, they would both fall. Cursing of the gods of weather under such circumstances was generally approved and actually expected.
One of the most challenging motor skills that I learned to accomplish (albeit with some difficulty) during the rainy season was the ability to pry loose a cigarette from my dry pocket underneath my poncho, light it in the pouring rain, and then smoke it down to the stub without it getting wet. But, after a while I was able to do so with dexterity. I certainly was getting a lot of practice trying to learn it! The development of this skill bears witness to the fact that the nicotine addiction is a more powerful force than torrential rain.
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The reader has likely gathered by now that Korea is an extremely hilly place. In order to get to some of our positions it was almost always necessary to climb a slope. Our trails always seemed to be steep and winding. This climb was often difficult but it was made especially so in winter snow or in rain.
In winter and spring, we were supplied ropes to affix on the trails to assist climbers. Of course, there were few trees to tie the ropes to on the barren hills so we had to pound iron posts into the ground. The rains and slippery hills did assure us somewhat that the Chinese were not likely going to make a major assault because they would have difficulty making it up the frontal slope.
Conducting combat patrols in the rain was somewhat of a mixed blessing. The expectations for covering great distances at night were lower and the missions more realistic; however, the ground was often very difficult to cover. An added problem was that the small streams that we negotiated during winter months over ice had now become seemingly as wide as the Mississippi and as deep as the Pacific Ocean. Traversing some of them was impossible if the goal was to maintain an integrated, effective fighting force.
VULNERABILITY TO SICKNESS UP FRONT
One dread medical problem that seemed to become more prominent in the spring in Korea was malaria. Several people in our company contracted the disorder and required treatment. Malaria is a parasitic disease that is spread by a mosquito that frequented the rice paddies of Korea. Once bitten by this creature the GI usually would become symptomatic in a week or two. The symptoms in themselves were quite disabling and recurring or appearing in stages. The symptoms of malaria included such things as a fever that can reach 105 degrees, uncontrollable shivering, profuse sweating, severe headache, general discomfort, and vomiting. The GI afflicted with malaria was usually evacuated for treatment by antimalarial drugs. After a period of time their symptoms would be under control and they would be returned to duty until they experienced a reoccurrence of the symptoms.
Another more common problem that seemed to hit us in the spring was an epidemic of flu-like symptoms. Whether or not this was related to the weather or simply an accidental association is not known—but our ranks were decimated by symptoms including high fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and fatigue. At one point nearly every one in the platoon had this malady. We should have all been evacuated for treatment but we tried to stick it out. Although I did not have the problem as severely as some in the platoon, I was out of action for several days. Several of the men did have to be evacuated to the Battalion Aid station because they simply could not function. During this period our line became extremely thin.
GETTING ACCLIMATED TO SOME NEW MEN UP FRONT
When I took over command of the platoon I was assigned a new assistant platoon sergeant who had no combat experience. This African-American staff sergeant, who I will call “Donaldson,” was an “old soldier” having been in the Army for nearly fifteen years. His duty assignments had largely been in stateside training or quartermaster units. He was a very affable guy who seemed to know a lot of things by the book.
One of his jobs was to take care of the administrative details of the unit operation, such as developing duty rosters and other paper and pencil tasks. I noticed that when these had to be done he always took them back to his area, even if it was only a two-minute job. He would return in a few minutes with the paper work finished and neat. As I watched this happen over and over again, I finally asked him what was going on. He told me that he had never learned to read in school and that he was having one of the men in the platoon write the stuff out for him. I was amazed that he had gotten as far as he had in the Army without knowing how to read.
Working with Donaldson was not unlike having to accommodate ROK or Colombian soldiers who were assigned to my platoon despite not being able to speak English. As MacGregor (1981) noted, black recruits at the time had much more limited educational opportunities, which challenged the Army’s ability to maintain a segregated system. My experiences with Donaldson revealed his many good qualities and I simply adjusted to his reading deficit and we went on about our business.
Another new man in the company, we will call “Dugan,” was one of our more interesting new men in the platoon. Most people deplore war and do not take well to its fickle and cruel ways. Dugan was not of the majority—he thrived in combat, he tried to stir up action if the lines were quiet. Had Dugan lived in times past, previous wars would have lured him to action: his would have been a lead voice in Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg; his weapon would have been the first to speak at the Normandy invasion because somehow he would have gotten himself in the first LST to hit the beach.
Before he joined our unit, he had already served two tours of duty in Korea and volunteered for the third. Although he had been a sergeant several times before, he entered our company with the rank of the lowest of privates, having been busted for some rule infraction in the rear area. Dugan was at the same time an outstanding soldier and a screw-up. He was usually quickly promoted when he was up front, and very promptly reduced in rank when he was not. He saw no value in rules and regulations. He did what he pleased. The latter part of the war in Korea, with its static line, was a rather tame place for Dugan—he sought the challenge of military combat, not to establish great causes, not to impress his fellow man, but simply because it was enjoyable to him.
Dugan was a gutsy infantryman. He thought nothing of running personal one-man patrols deep into enemy territory. He would wander out from our own positions and look for Chinese patrols. He was an outstanding fellow to have in a combat situation, although a bit hot-headed and prone to use his weapon against anyone who crossed him. One day in early May, only a couple of weeks after the battle for Pork Chop, we were sent back to the hill for a tour on that godforsaken, devastated outpost—a pretty bleak environment still requiring a great deal of work rebuilding bunkers. Fortunately, we did not have to walk up our “road to hell” but rode APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers).
Shortly after arriving on the Chop, I was making some notes about the lines of fire when I heard noisy, fast-flying footsteps, accompanied by enormous laughter. Donaldson dived into my bunker just as a string of bullets from an M-2 carbine came rattling all along the trench after him, missing him only by inches.
Donaldson breathlessly held up a can of chicken and vegetables assault rations to show me as he laughed uncontrollably. He giggled, as he quickly applied his trusty can opener to get into the can. “I just stole Dugan’s chicken and vegetables!” he said. (Dugan had made it known to everyone that the only canned rations that he could eat were the chicken and vegetables, and he traded everything else for them.)
I said, “Donaldson, you’ll get us both killed here! Go straighten this out with Dugan!”
“Hell, I’m not going out there yet!” he said, as he attached an oily rifle cleaning cloth to his bayonet and held it out into the trench.
RRAATTATT, RRAATTATT—the bullets ripped through the filthy cleaning rag.
I said, “No, I guess I wouldn’t either just yet till Dugan cools down a bit!”
FRIGHT AND FEAR UP FRONT
Another new man in the company, a somewhat inept private, presented a very different problem—one that caused us quite a bit of concern. He was absolutely frightened stiff about being on the front lines. It was not unusual for new troops to be afraid up front and most of us were pretty scared in the beginning; but this fellow was exceptionally scared and tended to freeze up with terror even when no danger was present.
For example, one night we were on the MLR and he was required to take a two-hour night watch (his first) by himself. His post was a relatively safe firing position in that out to his front there was a steep embankment lined with several rows of concertina wire. It would take an extraordinary effort for a Chinese raiding party to get to him.
After only a few minutes of watch he came on the intercom in a panic, “Sergeant! Sergeant! There’s something out in front! Come quick!”
I hurried over to his firing position and asked, “What did you see there?”
Excitedly, he said, “I heard trucks over there!” He pointed in a direction of the steep embankment.
“Where?” I asked, trying to hide my dismay at his naiveté. The Chinese, of course, had no trucks within twenty miles and certainly could not drive a vehicle up the rugged slope below.
He pointed again in the direction of the embankment and said, “There! Listen!”
I listened for a while to try to make out what he was hearing. Soon I could tell that it was simply the wind blowing against a tin can that was out in front on the wire. After I reassured him that there was nothing out in front, I returned to the CP.
In a few more minutes he called again, this time in sheer panic. “Sergeant, I hear Chinks’ voices! Come quick!” We went through the same routine and I tried to reassure him that there was nothing out in front. We relieved him early from his watch and let him get some sleep, which of course he was not able to do being so keyed up. The next night we replayed the same scenario. It was becoming apparent that he was not constitutionally suited for this line of work.
I felt that he would be dangerous to himself and to others if he remained on the front lines. The next day I told the company commander that I thought that the fellow should be sent back to the rear. I did not think he would ever be able to adapt to the circumstances of military combat. The CO agreed and gave him a job in company rear until he could be transferred back to division headquarters.
THE DEATH OF JANUS
One of my best and trusted friends in the platoon, Janus Krumins, was a Latvian-born soldier with great talents and common sense. He too was killed in the line of duty. This was one of the most tragic personal losses I experienced during the war.
Janus was Mr. Reliable—always ready to take that extra step and could handle any job, with any weapon we had on our side or any weapon the Chinese might have. Janus had emigrated to the United States and entered the military in order to facilitate his application for citizenship. He was one of the best soldiers we had on our side, and he died in service of a country in which he was not even a citizen.
The night he was killed we were on Outpost Uncle and he volunteered to go out on an armed listening post (LP). Often, the job of the observers on the LP was simply to detect the enemy’s presence and then to hightail it back to the main position without engaging the enemy.
On this particular hill, due to the location of the main line in relation to the LP, it was not easy to effect an unobserved, speedy withdrawal. Moreover, the LP was really an advanced fighting position whose function was to fight the enemy as well as observe them. This particular LP was manned by two soldiers, usually with automatic weapons. Janus took with him a BAR and one ROK soldier to help with listening and carrying ammo; they set up their positions just before dark.
About an hour after dark, we heard the telltale whispers on the commline indicating that there was some movement in the front of the positions. This warning sound was made by blowing directly into the microphone a designated number of times. As soon as the warning came, we could hear the familiar sound of a burp gun followed immediately by the equally familiar music of the BAR rapidly firing. Then, more burp guns and several grenade explosions. Then silence.
In what seemed like ages, the BAR opened fire again in rapid succession. Then another pause—a few more rounds then silence again. No other sound was heard.
We waited in the main positions for a few moments, as standard operating procedures required, to see if they were going to return to the CP area. The LP team did not respond to a call up on the telephone. Then, we mounted a six-man patrol to go to the area of the LP to rescue the team if possible. When the relief patrol reached the LP they found both Janus and the ROK soldier dead. Janus was still clutching the BAR that was pointed downhill toward the finger of the hill below.
It was apparent from the area below the LP that the BAR team had effectively defended its position and had interrupted the Chinese raiding party. Although the Chinese, as they usually did, had taken away their dead and wounded, there was substantial evidence in the form of blood stains and discarded Chinese equipment that our guys had taken a major toll of life in their defense. It was estimated that Janus and the ROK had killed or wounded more than six or eight of the enemy.
ON THE EMOTIONAL DOWNSIDE OF COMMAND
There is an old adage among NCOs that reads: “Field officers send men to take obstacles; corporals send men to their deaths.”
There is clearly no way of knowing in advance whether a particular order will result in a dire outcome such as the loss of troops in one’s command. The effective NCO needs to make command decisions and issue orders without worrying about death. It may sound strange to say, but death may be the least of the NCOs worries in making decisions.
Most NCOs I knew in Korea were both competent and safety conscious; that is, they looked after the welfare of their troops with great regard. The system of promotion from lower ranks normally assured that these two qualifications were present. Errors do occur, however; exigency results in too rapid a promotion beyond competency in any field. But, most of our NCOs were conscious and respectful of the lives of their charges. None of us would have casually or willfully sent a soldier into certain death, although there were times in Korea that all of our activities carried with them a high potential for harm (like the time when Moosemaid was prodded up Pork Chop to his death). Everyone was in grave danger. Such actions cannot be faulted or regretted. We were all equally doomed.
There were times as an NCO in Korea when I had to select someone for hazardous duty, such as a listening post or a dangerous patrol. Volunteers were always welcome and the same guys would tend to step forward almost every time. It got to the point that a few men were carrying the biggest share of the hazardous duty. At times, if we had a dangerous project and there were not enough volunteers to do the job, we needed to assign personnel to the task. As noted earlier, when I became a non-com I vowed not to send anyone into a situation that I couldn’t do or wouldn’t do myself. It is very uncomfortable indeed to be instrumental in the death of one of your own through a command decision. Yet, command decisions sometimes had to be made that were followed by dire results.
Even though the demands of the situation were such that someone had to go, someone had to run the risks being faced, it nevertheless left a feeling of guilt and regret when something went wrong—which it could easily do in combat. The NCO making the decision may in times afterward “second guess” his decision or have remorse when something terrible happened, such as happened with Janus’ death.
In order to be an effective combat leader one cannot dwell upon tragic consequences of command decisions when the duty awaits, though later doubts may haunt us terribly. In times like these it is important to keep in mind that one can never really be certain what the consequences of an order will be. That is, whether the order will result in anticipated doom. We had circumstances in Korea in which a unit leader sent out a contact patrol into the valley in a very likely hazardous mission. The outcome was enigmatic—the patrol returned unscathed only to learn that their commander, who sent them, had died when his relatively safe bunker took a direct hit shortly after the patrol departed.
The role of fate in molding our life circumstances is often underestimated. But its importance as an influence on human thought was well described by the Persian astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam in his Rubaiyat:
The Moving Finger writes, and having writ
Moves on: nor all the Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it
Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
Fate! Happenstance! The unpredictable! All of these things describe the feeling that men often have when facing capricious circumstance of combat. We are often at the hands of fate as Khayyam so aptly noted. The unknown hand may strike at any time. Take for example one of our men, a company clerk, who was transferred back to Division Headquarters. On his first day back in the safety of this distant rearward headquarters an object fell from a passing airplane hitting him on the head killing him instantly. Where is it safe from harm in a war zone?
Many men develop a way of thinking to help them deal with conditions of frequent danger such as combat. Combat troops often develop a fatalistic way of thinking—the protection that comes from thinking that one will go “when one’s number is up.” Combat troops get into the magical thinking that their “number is not up yet so they are safe.” The NCO, in making command decisions, must assume that no one’s number is up!
LOSS OF HEARING
I was hurrying along a six foot deep section of the trench heading back to the command bunker from a routine inspection of the trenches when I heard an extremely loud whistling sound. I started my automatic dive toward the relative safety of the earth at the same instant that the shell exploded on the rim of the trench sending an enormous, loud shock wave through the trench. The bursting shell exploded the shrapnel outward but threw a large wave of wet dirt all over me and the loud burst pounded my right ear. I lay motionless for a few seconds trying to determine if I had been hit by any of the shrapnel. I got up out of the mud and went into the bunker. The radioman spoke to me but I couldn’t decipher what he was saying.
I sat stunned and somewhat confused for a while waiting for my hearing to return to normal. It did not. I couldn’t hear anything out of my right ear. It was about three days before my hearing returned to normal. Even after I dug the wad of wet dirt that had been jammed into my ear by the explosion, my hearing improved but I continued to have hearing problems that lasted for some time.
GROWING INWARD DISCONTENT WITH THE WAR
In spite of my own low mood about some of the recent losses described earlier, the external situation with the war actually appeared good. We were winning the battles and holding on to the real estate. We were clearly maintaining our responsibilities on our section of the MLR; but why didn’t we feel good about the war now?
Over the spring of 1953, I fell into a bad frame of mind in which the war began to seem a continuous, never-ending exercise in futility and unnecessary deaths. A lot of my daily thoughts dwelt upon the seeming endlessness of this war and the feeling that I was pretty much left alone here. Most of my close friends were either dead or had been evacuated with wounds to Japan or the States. It seemed to us that we were simply pawns on a broader political stage. It was just a game that the big shots were playing in Panmunjom while we were being sacrificed. I thought a lot about Grasshold and how he looked during the identification process and how excited he had been about returning to the States and getting married. I thought a lot about Sullivan and Krumins—guys that would likely have made great contributions to society had their lives not been snuffed out. Why was our government throwing away such great human resources? For what—a piece of trenched earth that we would soon see evacuated anyway?
There seemed to be very little escape, even in fantasy or socializing at a beer bust around a campfire. No more were we having any fun time to break the monotony of trench life or offset the horrors of combat. I certainly missed the happy tunes that Billy Marshall played on our beer drinking nights. The evening campfires, when we could have them, were less homey and often downright sad. The Chinese artillery and raids had devastated our ranks.
My own morale was at a low ebb following all of the personal losses that we had experienced on Pork Chop. Part of the problem came about, of course, from the fact that other guys in the platoon were not as friendly toward me—I was their platoon sergeant, no longer “one of the guys.” There was clearly something to the old description of leadership as carrying with it a “loneliness of command.” I was experiencing this isolation first hand. It was something that I had to get used to and had to learn to project a positive view in spite of my feeling of isolation.