Yesterday was Memorial Day, a day on which this country's war dead are commemorated.
At this late date, some 58 years later, may I voice a personal memorial to a few good men, Marines, my comrades.
These ancient thoughts were taken from letters home and remembrances of 1951 in Korea.
Excerpts from a letter home, June 7, 1951:
I've just about decided not to make any friends over here. They just don't last. This morning, a patrol got hit, so 12 of us were sent up the mountain to help bring down the wounded. The first one was "Little Jake." He was a funny little guy. Always in a good mood. He was hit in the gut. They had to apply a large bandage to hold in his insides. I don't know if he will live or not. The next one was "Harby." We have been buddies ever since I got here. He got hit in the groin and thigh. The thigh bullet may have broken his leg. Another bullet creased his scalp. I helped to carry him all the way down on a stretcher. It seemed like a mile down and it felt like it took hours. The path was unsparingly rugged. And, he suffered, terribly.
It just doesn't pay to have friends, or you have to have iron nerves when they get killed or wounded.
One died, shortly after. The other died from those wounds some time later.
Referenced from a letter, June 16, 1951:
In late May, Phillip became another ammo carrier. We now had three in our squad: Andrews, Phillip and me. Fate had dealt him losing cards. He never should have seen combat. It seems that it is difficult for some people to cope with life. They seem to be eternal neophytes. Phillip was one of these unfortunates.
From Ohio, he almost lived to be 20. Unfortunately for him, he had joined a reserve unit and had never gone through boot camp. Not having been toughened to meet the enemy in battle, he applied for active status from reserve.
Phillip was not equipped mentally or emotionally for war.
"I became his instructor/mentor. As I was showing him how to dig a foxhole, he told me about himself and that after he had left home, his mother's husband had found a new job in Tennessee. Shortly, they would be moving there. He seemed perturbed about that. Other things worried him or caused a quandary.
Consequently, his agitation and flightiness grated on me.
During the last days we were together he became more morose and then confided in me. "Andy, what am I going to do? My mother and her husband have gone to some little town in Tennessee. I don't have any home to go home to."
I tried to tell him that he worried about it too much.
The night of the 9th, we were dead tired. We had been going up and down the mountain trails all day. We didn't get to dig in until dark and then it began to rain. There was some mix up which left me with the new squad leader. Phillip and the other ammo carriers dug their hole by the road. Then, the gunners dug their machine-gun hole. The squad leader and I were dug in out in the paddy on the other side of the gun.
About 12:30 that night, we got hit. The North Koreans came down the road and made contact with Phillip. He made a fatal mistake.
He said, "Halt. Who goes there?" He didn't fire and ask questions later.
The North Koreans ripped him with a burp gun. Phillip fell into the hole on top of Andy and his body took most of the fire. Andy was only shot in the leg.
Poor Philip died a few days before his 20th birthday. He was not prepared for war.
Condensed from September letters:
On Sept. 13, some time after 0800, HM1 "Doc" Cooper, our Headquarters Corpsman, came over to brag about his son. He stood beside my hole, telling me about his newborn baby boy that he had never seen and reading from a recent letter from his wife. He was a very proud papa; he knelt down to show me pictures. Then he straightened up. Doc was above average height and I had to stretch my neck to look up to him. Sitting in my hole, I was just able to peer out with only my helmet above ground.
Suddenly, a North Korean mortar barrage salvoed into our positions. I heard the "swoosh" an instant before it hit and I fell to the bottom of my hole. But it wasn't fast enough. After the explosion, I felt stinging in my back. With one hand, I reached around and could feel pieces of metal. When I looked, my hand was bloody.
Then I realized that my buddy, "Doc" Cooper, was lying there outside my hole, face down. The same mortar that landed beside my hole, landed at his feet. He was killed instantly.
Semper Fi, old friends.
And, a salute to all those who died for our country in the last 233 years.
Note: A burp gun is a Russian 7.62mm. air-cooled, hand-held, sub-machine gun used by the North Koreans.
Burton Anderson, Purple Heart Korean War Marine, B.A., M.A. degrees, junior college instructor, 32 years in aerospace industry, retiring from contract negotiation in 1992.
Burton Anderson Burton Anderson, a U.S. Marine veteran of the Korean War, has lived in California for about 50 years. He has a background in the aerospace industry. He may be reached at bandtp@aol.com. The Board of Contributors is comprised of local writers whose views appear on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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