Bad Day at Cao Danh
Olin Thompson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Copyright © 2008 by Olin Thompson
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DEDICATION
This is offered for the many men, Marines in particular, who lived and died in their service to their country. Two, in particular, who have returned and become close personal friends. We share places and names and dates where we served.
Jim, the retired Coast Guard CWO-3, who as a young Marine was with me in a fox-hole in Korea in 1954 and 1955. We shared an experience I wouldn’t trade for money.
Jim, the Marine Captain back from 18, yes, 18 months in Iraq on an almost indispensable assignment – no one could be found to replace him.
These men and others with whom I served and came in contact continue to be a part of my life. Sgt Majors, Colonels, and old Sergeants of the 1st Marine Division Association who were where the action was also came with their Globe and Anchor pins and had meals together, shared war stories, and bonded. Dave Severance, Colonel, USMC (retired), the CO of the company of Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, often stops where I work and we shake hands inquire how one another is doing, and then part with a feeling of brotherhood, that Band of Brothers Marines are.
Thanks to all of you who gave me strength to finish this book. You are My Marines and I love you, one and all.
Chapter 1
April 15, 1952
“All right you muthafuckas, get aboard! Lock and Load!” They stood at the tailgate of the big dirty mud splattered ten wheel truck with the First Marine Division signature on the bumper. The First Marine Regiment insignia was on the tail gate.
A loud nasal voiced Corporal handed out bandoleers of .30-06 ammunition, screaming over and over, “Next!” Lyon looked to Marston. Marston shrugged. They looked at the other twelve men in the truck who stuffed ammo in every pocket of their green dungarees. The two jammed clips into their rifles, thumbed chambers closed, and pulled the safeties; it appeared the rest of the men aboard did as well. When the men sat, the rifles stood at attention between their legs.
“Hey, you assholes, move it! We ain't got all fucking day here. Move it!”
Lyon and Marston followed instructions. Sort of. The next men who boarded looked for guidance, loaded weapons, and sat as the others did.
“This is shit,” the new man said and shoved his ass in between two other Marines who bitched and moaned about having to be there in the first place.
“Shit!” one of them said and kicked his sea-bag a bit to make room.
When the Corporal returned, his camo material covered helmet set saltily low on his brow, he looked inside the dark truck and screeched over the din of all the vehicle noise, “You load yo' fuckin' weapons an' lock yo' fuckin' safety? If we get ina fight, roll to the sides of the road; I'll be yo' squad leader fo' the action. Might save your fuckin' ass if you pay a-fuckin'-ttention.”
Marston guessed the tail gate was left lowered for easy falling out on the side of that road.
Lyon looked sick, a pale green tint to his brown skin. Marston felt he too was some ghastly color. He felt the fear. He saw Lyon shiver. Anxiety lashed at them both, it seemed.
* * *
Marston and Lyon, the warriors, chose this way of life. They were not yet bigger than life, but it would arrive one day.
But for now they had to survive. They'd arrived just hours before on Draft 40 which was a shipment of replacement Marines from the States to Korea.
“What's a draft, Sarge?” Marston had asked before they loaded on the navy transport.
“A draft is a collection of men to replace Marines due to rotate back to the States after a time in the field,” the Sergeant said, unusually pleasant it seemed to Marston.
Marston and Lyon hung out together in the ship's library and on the fantail dragging their clothes in the ocean water, bleaching them “salty” while Draft 40 headed west to Korea, to the place they were told by a red faced ripe Second Lieutenant, “We face Communism and defeat it before it comes ashore in California.”
Lyon mumbled something and Marston smiled. Easily translated was “Fuck!” and it was also pretty much a consensus of opinion after the lecture.
The lectures were required. Half the men, Marston noted, in the muggy ship's compartment nodded at least half of the lesson and the other half of the men slept the other half of the lesson. It seemed every one of them had the same opinion Lyon had, fuck!
* * *
At Inchon Harbor Lyon and Marston were almost separated at the first step by a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant who stood counting off the new men. Marston saw the numbers coming as the Sergeant counted one this way and one that way one this way one that way. Marston dropped his sea bag and a man stepped forward; Marston stood and ran into line just behind the man who had moved up.
“You! That way,” the Sergeant called and Lyon didn't look back.
“You! That way,” the Sergeant called and the fellow ahead of Marston marched off to a waiting truck.
“You! That way,” the Sergeant called and Marston followed Lyon.
The men with them in the truck now all seemed to shiver though they were told the temperature was 80o when they arrived. Humidity was high and mostly because of that, the heat was oppressive.
The Gunnery Sergeant also told them as they went through the last firing exercises on board the ship, “Men, fear will freeze your balls to your ass!”
Now, Marston thought, I know exactly what he meant.
The Marines were told over and over that they were coming to do a job. There was never any question about it when the Marines climbed up the rope landing net to get aboard the ship in San Diego.
But now Marston had questions. One was, What the fuck am I doing here?
“You Marines replace other Marines who had come to fight!” a Sergeant said into the rear of each truck. It was an exhortation, obviously, to do a job.
Lyon repeated his expletive, “Fuck!” Marston laughed quietly and agreed.
“We kicked the fuckin' North Korean and their asshole buddies, the Chinese, out of fucking South Korea,” one young man called out, a bandage the size of a football on his hand a waved to the men. He appeared to be the inspirational speaker.
Both Marston and Lyon sensed the guy was sincere, but they both laughed, not out loud, but inside as they couldn't get over the serious nature of the lectures to the new guys.
* * *
May 1, 1952 “You fucking men of the First Marines sit astraddle a hill which overlooks fucking North Korea!” the First Sergeant yelled at the company formed in front of him at Lounge as opposed to Rest or At Ease.
To Marston, everyone seemed to yell at them. Fuck was the most repeated word in the lectures, conversations, and mutterings. This place and this man was no fucking exception.
Lyon and Marston heard him when they checked in with Easy Company, First Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division: E-1-1 was the designation.
While the First Sergeant yelled at the men outside, the two newly assigned replacements waited in the CP and listened to the radio chop and chatter of network talk between various units.
“The Skipper is pure death on training. You might fucking die in battle, but not because you wasn't fucking well trained!” the Gunny yelled at the company as the Marines stood about casually after the First Sergeant's talk.
“There's little need for any fucking formality here, because each of you men knows your fucking job,” the Gunny said and emphasized it with fists jammed in his hips and he scowled at the men like a demon possessed.
Marston and Lyon peered through the CP tent entrance at the scene before them. They knew they looked green. Very.
“Cap'n's comin'. We're gonna listen to him for a few minutes and get back to fucking work. Okay? Let's fall in now,” the Gunny said and he assumed a more formal position to the front of the group of men.
“Faaaall I-oooon!” he shouted melodramatically in a hoarse voice.
Clusters of men suddenly formed, lines straight. “Dreeee-ooos right, dreeee-ooos!”
The dress held for seconds, arms extended to the man next to him and eyes to the right.
“Whoooo!”
The “dress” dropped.
Squad leaders announced, “All present or accounted for.” “' Ease!” the Gunny screamed.
Everyone seemed to relax once more.
“We're gonna get hit. And hard. Those airdales think they got these Chinks figgered out. That's bullshit and you know it!” the Skipper announced loudly in a voice which carried, likely, into the valley below and onto the hills beyond which were occupied by the Chinese or North Korean army. More likely the Chinese, every one of them in place, at least the Marines who relied on the intel people clearly thought so.
“When they come they have to drive their tanks up that road right there,” the Skipper said and head nodded to the west. “First Anti-Tanks can handle that. First Weapons will get mortars on them right away. New Zealand arty,” he abbreviated the word for artillery, but it appeared everyone knew what he meant, “will jam their ass. Kiwis can flat shoot. But you and me? We got a problem. We're just a company on this god forsaken hill. We're expecting at least a battalion, maybe a regiment will come at us.” He let out a sigh. “Chinks got nothin' but people.” He paused, obviously to let that sink in. Everyone remained at ease.
Lyon and Marston looked at one another with that fear one gets of the unknown.
“Lemme put this in perspective for you. We drop fuckin' Abombs on them at the rate of one every hour forever, they can out populate the death ratio. You got that? Over one hundred thousand per hour. We bomb, they still keep comin'. Chinks are baby makin' sombitches.” The Skipper paused and looked almost as if he wanted to make eye contact with each man.
“Let me explain what we're going to do. We have to hold this position and tie in with the companies on either side. We haven't got a chance if the Chinese penetrate. Every gun will be placed and every man will hold his piece of real estate. Figger it's your little piece of earth and no Chinaman is gonna grab it away from you. Understand?”
The men all nodded as if they did understand.
“Let's get this show on the road!” the Skipper yelled.
The Executive Officer and the Platoon Leaders all came to attention.
“Teeen-Hooo!”
The company came rigid.
“Fall out with your Platoon Leaders. Squad Leaders take your men to their positions.” There was a delay while the orders were allowed to digest. “Faaaall ooot!”
The men rallied to their leaders. The men were led to their little piece of earth where they would die or kill.
Who knew? Marston wondered and shrugged. And who knows when? No one but the Captain seems certain. And he couldn't know anything for sure.
“Marston!” “Yessir!”
“Don't fuckin' 'sir' me asshole!” “Yessir, Gunny.”
“Get your ass in here.” The Gunny disappeared into the CP Tent.
Marston charged in with rifle at Port Arms.
“You'll be the Skipper's runner. Shit me that asshole buddy of yours. Lyon? Where is he?”
“Donno, Gunny,” Marston said.
“Well, go find him!” The tall, skinny, hard looking Gunnery Sergeant looked back down to his papers and with a mere wave his hand said hoarsely, “Move out Marine!”
Marston found Lyon with another squad of men who took position on a knoll which overlooked what appeared to be a dangerous ridge the Chinese probably wanted very badly.
“Fuck! Looks like no one would attack from that direction. Steep and rocky with barbed wire hundred yards, fifty yards, and ten yards out. Already collected scraps from previous battles,” the Corporal seemed to be chatting with Lyon about a deadly situation. “You can fuckin' see 'em dangle and shiver in the breeze.” The Corporal never looked at Lyon. He just looked straight ahead at the enemy's position.
“Gunny wants you,” Marston told his friend. “Now,” Marston added.
They ran back to the CP. The Gunnery Sergeant seemed to be yelling at everyone in every direction.
The Gunnery Sergeant said the Captain had told him, “'Your job is to train the men to live, to kill, and not to die!' So, I take this job very fuckin' seriously.”
Marston would remember that forever.
“It's gonna make me somewhat unpopular, bein' a hard ass, but you and Lyon will live because this Gunny was one bad muthafucka and trained you right,” the Gunnery Sergeant said, thumbed himself in the chest, and with a stern look on his face he seemed to add harshness to his demeanor.
“Right, Gunny,” the two said simultaneously.
“Lyon.” The Gunny motioned for the young Marine to come closer. “You do watch from oh one hundred to oh three hundred. See Corporal Sanderson.”
“Right, Gunny,” Lyon said.
“Marston. You too. Both of you will be with Sanderson.” The Gunny made another mark on the paper. He looked up and asked if the two had any questions.
“No, Gunny,” they said.
“Get the fuck outta here,” the Gunny said. So they did.
* * *
They sat with Corporal Sanderson in their shooting holes, which had been dug from the hardest most boulder strewn earth the Marine Corps could find. The night was slow to pass for all three of them.
To Marston it looked as if someone dug the foxholes by putting a grenade under a sandbag and blowing the hole. They still smelled of burned powder and there were fragments of metal everywhere. That night the men mumbled among themselves about girls and sports. More about girls. They talked about the situation they were in.
“Fuckin bug out Twenty Sixth dogfaces on our right. Fuckin' ROKs about a mile that way. Don't depend on 'em for anything. First fight they drop their shit and run,” Sanderson said softly, almost reverently, and spit a long stream of brown tobacco juice out into the air and smoothed out the tan earth under his hand. He flicked a pebble about ten feet in front of him.
“Figger you gotta fight this fuckin' war all by yourselves. We don't know how hot the Gunny is over at fuckin' Able Company. If he don't do his job we gotta hold anyhow. Way we get out is to walk the fuck out,” the Corporal said and moved the swollen thing in his jaw from one side to the other. He seemed to talk out into the night. “Or be fuckin' carried out. Seems these muthafuckin' Chinese is serious.”
Lyon wiped his steel rimmed glasses and checked them against a dark sky. His hands were hard, his eyes were stern, and his attitude was one of business, Marston decided. The Duke, irritated, made a rock move with a kick at the side of the shooting hole. A bucket full of dirt fell at his feet.
Lyon stood and it seemed he merely looked over the parapet down into the darkness of the valley below. Treeless and tired from a war that seemed not to want to end. The images of sprigs of spring growth did not seem possible with the war where it was at this time.
Lyon must be six feet, Marston thought. Seems taller somehow, being so skinny and all. Marston was feeling as if he had become awfully close to a person and wondered if that was what he needed at this time. If one of them were to be killed or badly injured, how would that affect the other?
James Marston tugged up his belt, stiffened his courage and thought of himself nowadays as too skinny as well. He ran his fingers through his light brown hair and put his helmet back on. He and Lyon were about the same height.
Marston's mother once said he was a handsome Marine. He told Lyon that day after they left the turkey dinner, “Who am I to argue with my mother?”
Lyon had punched the Duke's shoulder and they tussled all the way to the bus stop where they headed for Camp Pendleton and their final days of training for Draft 40.
Lyon told Marston, “I have an almost unseen scar on my chin from a fall when I was a kid.” He pointed it out to his friend.
The Duke, as the MCRD Drill Instructor called him, peered at Lyon's chin.
“Can't see it,” Duke said. “See mine?” Dole asked and pointed to the little scar from his football days.
“Can't see it,” Lyon retaliated. They both laughed.
Tonight, deep in the middle of a war on a peninsula in Asia, Marston pushed at Lyon and in the dark of the morning they could barely see each other smile on the forbidding Korean country side.
“What's up with Gunny? He a China Marine?” Lyon whispered to Sanderson.
Marston wondered also, but remained silent.
“Got the big one. The blue Max. Three-Nine Marines on Oki' in the war. Sil' Star on Tarawa and Navy Cross last year for Wonson Harbor. Fuckin' guy is a legend. Top ain't all that bad neither, but Gunny one bad muthafucker,” the Corporal said, slurped another spit into the night, and was quiet with the others as he seemed to be hearing something.
A figure slipped out of the blackness to their right. “Mickey,” whispered Sanderson.
“Mouse,” came the reply. “Lyon?” “Yeah?”
“Come with me,” the voice said. “Where we goin'?” Lyon wondered.
“Beef up the flank,” the man replied and turned away.
“Be careful,” Marston said as Lyon and the runner headed down the trench toward the ROK boundary.
“Yeah,” Lyon said softly back over his shoulder.
The night became darker and the lights from the campsite dimmed considerably. Only the cook shack, a saggy tent, remained alight and made an eerie glow in the haze some two hundred yards to the rear.
Mist and moisture gathered on Marston and the Corporal as they both shivered in the wetness. Marston was tired. He'd been training for Assault on a Fortified Position with the rest of his platoon all day. He'd had no rest before supper and he was too excited about his turn in the trenches before he came on duty; so he got no sleep.
He and Corporal Sanderson had a flat rock and while one watched the canyon below the other ground the tips off the .30-06 rounds.
One of the lectures aboard the ship coming over was, “It is forbidden to shoot what they call dum-dum bullets. Flat tipped bullets will not be used. The Geneva Convention forbids you to file the tips off the rounds on flat rocks.” Someone asked, “Why?”
“Because if you ground off the tip, usually rubbed on flat rocks it will create a man stopping bullet. It is forbidden by law to grind off the tips. You understand?”
Everyone said they did. Tonight both Sanderson and Marston rubbed flat the tips of nearly two dozen bullets.
Another lecture aboard ship was impromptu. A Gunnery Sergeant told the men, “The problem is the trajectory. It isn't accu rate over a hundred yards. Most of the fightin' you'll be in will be within fifty feet. Never been hand to hand here, but with the Japs; I hear it's a bitch with these Slopes.” The Gunny was without expression. But his bright teeth, outlined with a tarry like substance identified by someone as “chaw,” gleamed when he talked.
* * *
“Go get some chow and a quick nap,” Sanderson said to Marston the next afternoon late. The sun still shined, but they couldn't see it through heavy cloud cover. “I'll wake you when the oh hundred watch comes up.”
Marston grabbed a fast hot-and-run meal: a slab of ham, two pieces of bread, a pile of mashed potatoes, a spoon of something they called gravy, and a canteen cup full of steaming coffee with milk and four spoons of sugar. He lay on the sand bags beside his watch post. The Corporal shook Marston awake, as promised, just after oh hundred hours.
“Time,” Sanderson hissed.
They relieved two men who'd been on duty since twenty one hundred.
“The Gunny's a maniac about noise makers,” Sanderson told Marston. “The traps are for enemy sappers who like to blow holes through the wire for the fuckin' Gooks to pour through.”
Little night sounds attracted the senses of the Corporal. He nudged Marston who was already alert.
“Movement in the wire,” Sanderson said softly. “Nothin' special. Just a twitch.”
Marston saw men everywhere; he cleared his vision with a shake of his head, and wiped a hand across his face. The visions went away. For a few seconds.
The noise maker the Gunny had the platoon attach now suddenly rattled and a beer can received a cascade of small rocks. In the quiet it sounded like a din. Once more a stream of tobacco left the Corporal's lips into the night.
Sanderson shouted, “Corporal of the Guard, Post number three. In the wire!”
The Corporal took a grenade and pulled the cotter pin which, it seemed to Marston it had been previously straightened to extract easily. Sanderson pulled the cotter pin on another one of the grenades at the ledge of the trench, hung onto the spoon clips of both and held the grenades below the level of the trench while he breathed out and in a smooth motion the Corporal threw one grenade high.
The spoon tinged brightly into the night's silence.
Marston counted aloud but softly, “One, two, three four,” he dropped just below the edge of the trench and continued, “five, six, seven.”
Sanderson let the other one fly as well.
Just as Marston said the last number he heard the flat whump of the grenade, heard the zing of fragments, and shortly smelled the remnants of the cordite explosive.
Marston checked his clips of ammo. Each sat little brass soldier straight on a little shelf he'd dug for the specific purpose to hold ammunition.
Corporal Sanderson, elbows at the edge of the trench, looked over, pulled another pin on another grenade and this time rolled the bomb down the slope. A mortar bomped in the background, to the rear of the Marines, and in seconds a flare floated in the sky.
The night became day just in front of the position as what seemed to be about twenty five Chinese were caught in the open; they rose and pressed forward. Their whistles screamed and a horn of some kind blared as they surged toward the Marines.
Marston and the Corporal remained calm and quiet.
“Fire discipline!” the Corporal ordered harshly. Marston remained quiet, but he also held his post.
“Fire discipline, boy. Keep cool,” Sanderson said, and repeated it twice more.
Marston loved to hear his rifle crack and he liked the impact of the weapon in the crotch of his shoulder. He could hardly wait now. His heart pumped so hard he could barely hold his rifle still.
The Gunny had said to hold fire until, “...you're able to count the stitches on their coats.”
Sanderson knew that was a bit too close, but was probably better than trying to pick off the moving Chinese at a distance.
There were more bomps as round after round of mortar fire came. Several missiles were flares, others were anti-personnel.
Marston got antsy. He squirmed. The Corporal must have seen or felt the youngster.
“Steady now, boy. Steady,” he said moistly and spit toward the screaming, bugle blowing, whistle tweeting bunch on the slope. “No buck fever,” he warned.
The firm grip helped Marston. He settled down. The Chinese came through the wire with a burst from an explosion which shattered the thin protection into millions of small shards. As the enemy advanced Corporal Sanderson rolled two more grenades down the hill and watched them until the last instant.
The Gunny, somewhere behind them, shouted, “NOW!”
It seemed every man had waited for this moment; they pulled the M-1 triggers all at once. The whole front erupted as the fifty men on guard, and another twenty five who came to join them, all cranked out rounds at the same moment. The smell of cordite was heavy in the air; smoke from the heat of the rifle fire and night moisture made a gray cloud thick enough to darken the moon.
The heavy probe stopped still. Dead still. Only the sight of a few scurrying figures in the flare-lit-night assured the Marines they had repulsed the intruders.
The once quiet night was now filled with the groans of the wounded and dying. No one moved on the Marine's side. Sanderson patted Marston on the helmet.
“Good job,” the Corporal said quietly and never took his eyes off the valley and seemed intent on the sounds from below. Another flare lit the night.
“Fuckin' A,” Marston responded. But he shivered. He smiled as the Corporal spit a stream out into the space above the dead and wounded Chinese.
The Gunny crouched down as he ran up the trench. He whispered, “Mouse, mouse, mouse.”
He dropped beside Sanderson and asked, “What happened?” “Not much, Gunny,” Sanderson began his account of the events. He said, “They tried to sneak through the wire and we caught 'em.”
“Okay, you guys keep alert. These Chinks ain't no dummies and could try again.” The Gunny patted them on their backs and asked, “When you get off?”
“Oh three hundred,” said Marston.
* * *
After they were relieved from watch Marston grabbed a fruit juice can from the knocked together plywood and two-by-fourlegged table outside the bunker, he kicked open the canvas door to the hooch where he found and climbed into his two fart sacks and pulled the zipper up to get a few minutes sleep before the morning came.
The Gunny woke the men after dawn burned through the clouds. They grabbed scrambled dried/recombined eggs, canned dried/reconstituted ham slice and someone always complained the ham was actually horse meat, bread slabs which were heated by the handful to near toast, and coffee that was always too hot to drink, served in huge canteen cups, certainly too hot to handle.
The cook shack stood behind the trenches in the open. All the men ate sitting on their helmets on the ground. After they finished eating, everyone fell-to on the exposed side of the hill to rewire the approaches.
“Gloves here!” a corporal yelled and held up stiff leather gloves for the men to handle the barbed strands.
“Marston!”
“Yeah, Gunny?” He ran to where the Gunnery Sergeant sat with a bespectacled fellow in clean fatigues with two wide nibbed pen drawn corporal stripes and a starched crisp dungaree hat; he too sat on his helmet.
“You fired Expert on the range?” “Yeah,” Marston said.
The Gunny held a Springfield '03, bolt action rifle. It had a scope mounted on the receiver. Marston thought it must be a 9 or 12 power telescopic sight. Huge figures appeared in the viewer as Marston looked through it and ranged around the perimeter of the camp site, and he carefully avoiding pointing the rifle at anyone in the compound.
“Flash hider, silencer, smokeless powder bullets, infra-red, twelve 'by' scope, and soft trigger,” the bookish fellow said. “Strictly non-reg.”
“'Non-reg?'” Marston asked and followed that with the important question, “Where'd you get it?”
“Don't want to know,” the bookish fellow said.
“Yeah,” the Gunny answered. “The Marine Corps don't want us to use some of this 'made up' stuff we do. They have their 'regulations.' This is the Armorer from regiment, Corporal Roberts.”
Marston nodded, but wanted to know where this rifle came from. “Tell me,” he asked once more.
There was a silence and the Armorer looked at Gunny who nodded.
“Top secret,” the armorer said. Then he made it clear where the problem was. “This came from a collection that we found in a house destroyed near Ouijongbu. Seems they must have used it early in double-you double-you two. It was in cherry condition. I just took a chance. Mrs,” he turned to the Gunny, “Gunny sent the other stuff. Musta got past the inspectors at the mail box.”
He and the Gunny shrugged as if testifying to their innocence. Marston squeezed his eyes and decided there was an opportunity here worth more than any penalty he might be given if he were found using this, this, he searched for a word in his mind, killing machine.
There was a burned out tank, with the turret askew, in a crevasse three hundred yards from the Marine lines. The view glass aperture to the front was inches thick, but broken. The hatches were open and the blackened hulk testified to the very fiery end of the goliath.
The tank, an American M-46, was a hide-out during the day for Chinese or North Korean forward observers.
Everyone knew it. Patrols were sent out to eliminate the spies, but the Chinese had the area zeroed for their mortars and the patrols usually had to withdraw.
“We'd like to try to use it in the field rather than just on the test bench,” the corporal said.
Marston stood back as the gunsmith aimed and it sounded as if he had pinged a round off the body of the tank. With a little adjustment he fired again and the round banked off the open hatch making a loud gong sound and the round cast iron door vibrated.
The Gunny handed Marston the field glasses to observe the strikes on the tank.
The Armorer shot once more and Marston saw the driver's access cover quiver and when the sound reached the hilltop it was as if the bullet had made a direct hit on a huge cymbal.
The Corporal handed the '03 to Marston who laid the rifle on the berm of the trench, held the scope cross hairs on the tank's view glass, pulled the trigger gently, and felt the sharp thud against his shoulder.
I'll have to remember to hold it tight or I'll not get very many rounds off, he thought and felt like rubbing a suddenly sore shoulder.
“Must have missed,” he mumbled too quietly to be heard very far. There was no sound from the tank. He ejected the first round, slammed the bolt forward to position the next cartridge, snuggled the rifle tightly against his shoulder, laid his cheek once more on the stock, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
Again, no sound from the tank.
A Chinese, or North Korean, who had clearly been inside the monster stood in the turret and waved a white flag, probably a handkerchief, Marston thought.
The Gunny smiled with the field glasses pressed against his eyes.
“Man's getting off the tank, down the side, now he's on the ground,” the Gunny said. At that distance, it wasn’t easy to see anything specific except the stumbling and crawling person was in distress of some sort.
A Chinese speaking ROK Marine attached to Easy Company came running up with a funnel shaped device used to hail long distances.
“Lee, tell him to come forward,” the Gunny said.
“Ahp uh ro osip sy yo!” the ROK called through the hand held megaphone.
“Tell him to come this way,” the Gunny said and it looked as if he never took his eyes from the field glasses nor his glasses off the man at the side of the tank.
“Yi qil ro osip sy yo!”
Gunny looked at Marston. “The fuckin' round must have come apart inside the tank and zipped him like a hive of bees,” the Sergeant said.
The gunsmith nodded agreement. “You likely shot through the view glass. The armor piercing core of the rifle bullet stayed intact; however, the copper jacket woulda come off in hundreds of tiny pieces,” he said.
“The guy's a mess. Blood's everywhere,” the Gunny said, once more with the field glasses up against his eyes.
A Corpsman came forward and the ROK Marine liaison stood on the parapet. Two Marines came up carrying a litter. Two more arrived with .45 caliber M3A1 machine guns, lovingly known as grease guns. The last man came with a white flag.
They waited to see what the Chinese would do.
Nothing, it seemed, since they did not try to aid their comrade. The Corpsman's red cross was no assurance he would be safe from fire by the enemy. The red cross on the bag he carried or on the helmet he wore were often a convenient target.
“Hey, Gunny,” Marston said, “Lyon is a better shot than I am.”
“Lyon?”
“Yeah. The guy who came with me. From Texas. We came in at the same time,” Marston said.
“You mean that colored kid?”
“Yeah,” Marston answered. “He's a better shot than I am. He was ten points higher than me on the range at Pendleton.”
The Gunny walked off and soon was heard yelling, “Lyon! Goddammit, Lyon! Where the fuck are you hiding?”
Marston shook his head and wondered if someday..., but he didn't continue the thought. He turned back to look to the injured man below, nearly three hundred yards away, now sitting wounded by the tank.
* * *
The next week Marston and Lyon rotated as one would spot while the other would snipe at the few Chinese who exposed themselves.
The Top Sergeant and the Gunnery Sergeant one day came to view Lyon and Marston at work. Mortar rounds from the Chinese began to fall in and around the trenches where the Marines had put the killer sniper rifle. The two Staff NCOs talked in a huddle and announced they had decided to make the rifle part of the daily job of the company.
They also said there would be a bunker built.
And it was. Ten sandbags wide and interlocked with others to dome over the two-man position. The Duke and Lyon inside changed positions of the rifle to gain the best advantage. They had to make adjustments to some of the sandbags; they pulled here and there and made some holes larger and some smaller until they were satisfied with the right combination.
Chinese mortar rounds began to fall in earnest as the two shooters attracted attention from the other side. The few rounds which landed short splashed dirt in their faces, but nothing which landed on top would penetrate; the missiles only shook dirt down on the two Marines.
“We got this war by the ass,” Marston laughed and wiped dirt from his dungarees.
At night they sat quietly until very late. They would nap and when they woke in the dark they turned on the infra-red to watch Chinese walking patrols in the valley. Too far for the snipers to shoot at first, but when these patrols came within the six hundred yard “for sure” killing range the two men would crank off rounds from the Killer, as the two called it. It lived up to its name.
The Gunny came up late the next night.
“They're coming,” the Gunny warned. “They probed just over the hill at the Third Battalion front. That's what all the noise was,” the Gunny said and nodded toward the west. “The radio says the Army's Twenty Fifth Regiment is takin' an ass kickin' up by Pan'jom.”
The Gunny stood silently watching out into the night, apparently listening for anything.
Marston swung the infra-red around the valley and saw nothing unusual. He stopped. Suddenly.
“Sheee-it!” he said harshly. “What?” the Gunny asked.
“Fuckin' thousand or more,” Marston said.
“Lessee,” Lyon said and reached for the rifle and scope. “No see to it, man,” Marston said and backed away.
“Light the area,” the Gunny said into his handy dandy walkietalky.
There was a thump of mortars and the bang of lighting flares to the right and left. Suddenly the whole hillside was ablaze in brilliance.
“They's hunderds of 'em,” the Gunny said flatly into the two way radio. “Mount the company,” he said.
A voice responded with something un-intelligible and the Gunnery Sergeant walked down the trench-line. “Pull up stakes, boys,” he said over his shoulder.
Marston looked at Lyon and said, “You realize, of course, we're in the wrong place with a single shot, bolt action, highly sensitive rifle?”
“Let us pack that baby and cut outta here,” Lyon said, clearly agreeing with the assessment by his friend.
They placed the rifle in the case, closed it gently, took their positions further down the trench with Corporal Sanderson and four others, where they prepared to fight for their lives.
The Gunnery Sergeant ordered fire discipline until the flares showed the enemy within fifty yards.
All hell broke loose. The Chinese and the Marines poured hundreds and hundreds of rounds upon each other. The Chinese kept coming. Even as bodies piled up in front of the Marines, the Chinese continued to walk over their dead. The Chinese entered the trenches of the Marine defenders.
Trained for just such an event the Marines did as commanded by the Gunnery Sergeant who stood on the knoll to their rear.
“Fix baaaayooooonets!” he yelled at the top of his voice and still barely heard over the din of battle.
The Gunny, the Top, the Commanding Officer, and the Radioman stood back to back and hand fought with a squad of Chinese who tried to take the Easy Company Guidon from the pole to which it was tied.
Marston and Sanderson rushed to the CP to aid as they could. All of the Marines went hand to hand combat with the attackers. Several Marines fell with serious wounds under the load of too many Chinese. But more Chinese dropped than Marines and the night closed with “friendly” mortar fire practically on the Marine position.
Marston watched, and as if in slow motion one of the enemy soldiers stood in the doorway of the command bunker. The man armed a grenade. The Duke yanked at the man's hand, but couldn't free the grenade to throw it back outside; so Marston pulled the man inside, forced the man to fall on his own grenade, the Duke fell on top of him just as it began to sputter and throw out sparks. It frittered away to become another Chinese dud.
Marston breathed deeply thinking of what might have been the last moments of his life. When he looked up several men were staring at him with what appeared to be awestruck expressions.
They took the badly burned Chinese outside and later marched him away with the other prisoners.
* * *
On the other side of the company compound Lyon lay in the bottom of a fighting hole and felt what he was sure was the blood of the man above him drip on his forehead. When Lyon opened his eyes he saw feet of men running past and it wasn't Marine Corps combat boots either. It was black rubber soled shoes. He closed his eyes almost tightly and squinted against the blackness and the flare of occasional light.
A shadow loomed above him and he was fearful that if he moved he would be shot. Again. The pain in his shoulder was coming now. It had been a numb ache, but the blood loss, the tearing of the membranes, the fiery stabs of pain, were all coming to a point where he wanted to yell for a Corpsman, but dared not.
The shadow was clear now with the flare in the sky above the man. It had been a Chi-Com soldier. He had a potato masher in his hand and seemed ready to arm it by pounding it on his knee. The man seemed as if he thought better of wasting one on two dead Marines and a dead Comrade.
Lyon breathed out as the man moved on. The Marine rolled the dead Chinaman off, the garlic and spice smell was overpowering, almost as revolting and terrible as the wound in Lyon's shoulder.
He took the man's rifle, since Lyon's own was shattered, and began to crank round after round into the backs of the enemy.
Lyon threw his own grenades; he also threw the Chinese bomb he’d snatched from the dead Chinese soldier. Finally Lyon threw a rock.
He lay back as the Chinese frittered away to the left and right looking for a fight they couldn't find. Or win.
The Marines beat them off the hill and Lyon crawled out screaming, “Corpsman!”
The dead and dying were piled beneath the feet of fighting men, the commander and his flag defenders were wounded at least once each. The flag guardians yelled and growled like savage beasts as they fought the battle of and for their lives. The position held and the Chinese were unable to penetrate further than a few yards into the Marine compound.
The defenders were deep in blood and gore of the dead and dying Chinese. The Marine dead and injured were evacuated to the MASH as quickly as the Corpsman could triage the wounds.
The lightly hurt and the able to walk were on their feet. Everyone gathered after the fight calmed to a few random shots. The men pulled dead enemy to the parapet and tossed them over the edge to roll down the hill and into the wire.
“The Comrades,” one Sergeant said and used the word derisively, “can come get their men later.”
The death stench would come, but not right away.
The Skipper and the Gunny helped the Top and the Radioman with their injuries. The Corpsman ran to them with bandages.
A dying Chinese soldier gasped and held out a hand. The Gunny pulled his .45 and shot the man. The Gunny helped the Radioman with a tourniquet.
Someone asked, “Why?”
The Gunny pushed the man over with his boot and there were two grenades in the man’s hands, just waiting to be used.
* * *
The re-enforced E Company, First Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division had been mauled. The hundred seventy five men were at best fifty percent casualties. Seventy five percent if minor wounds were counted.
The Chinese, on the other hand, had really suffered.
The Gunnery Sergeant had taught the Marines the best lesson they could learn, “Do not fear a man who is trying to take your little piece of earth. Kill him.”
Chapter 2
May 15, 1952
The Jarheads cleaned up the compound and pushed the remaining Chinese dead to the roadside for a mass burial. The Sergeant in charge of the detail wanted Marston to help, but Marston ignored the invitation.
Neither had he come to grips with what he had actually done inside the confines of the command center. His mortality was in question and he hadn't seen any curiosity yet. As time came and went he would, however. Just now he relived the moment and it was not a pleasant thought.
The Gunny clearly understood Marston and didn't press him. The Sergeant in charge of the detail also wanted Lyon to recover Chinese identity discs and bundle them for dispatch to Panmunjom for the Chinese authorities.
Lyon told the man to shove it up his ass. Marston had never heard Lyon talk that way to anyone.
The Sergeant found someone else to do the job, but Lyon would likely be reported to the Top or even a Platoon Commander for insubordination.
The report of the action was left to the Third Squad leader since no officers remained in the camp; one said he was too busy for the insubordination report and told the Sergeant to find someone else; the other said he’d think about it, took the report and when the sergeant left the tent, he wadded it up and put it in the round wood fired stove.
Two other officers had died defending the CP after a hand grenade had exploded in the door. A Chinese died as a Second Lieutenant grabbed the man to keep him from throwing a potato masher into a cluster of Marines; it was said the youthful “yellow bar” was on a stretcher to MASH and likely would be sent to Pusan and later Japan with a large hunk of his intestines missing.
“He'll get a Cross for that,” the Top mumbled, meaning the Navy Cross which was just a half notch below the Medal of Honor.
Marston wandered about aimlessly until he found the cook's shack and searched for a scrap to eat since the Marine cooks had taken up rifles and fought Chinese with the other Marines.
Marston grabbed fruit, punch, bread, and a hunk of meat to which he took his Kabar and cut off of a haunch laying in the open on a table where flies now congregated.
He felt as if he hadn't eaten for a week, but it had only been the night before he'd had a baloney sandwich, apple, and two cans of recombined milk. Now he drank three canteen cups of juice from a curiously shaped stainless pitcher with what looked like a bullet hole in it just above the “water line.”
The clean-up detail ordered by the Gunny and the Top was slow and agonizing as there were only fourteen men to police the company grounds. Lyon and Marston finally volunteered and scoured the area until there was merely dirt left for the next inhabitants.
Two Court Martial trials were ordered for men who refused, from either fear or cowardice, to stay and fight. And though the grapevine spread the word the men were not acquitted they would not have to serve long in the stockade as the U. S. Navy Medical teams wanted to psychoanalyze them.
The Gunnery Sergeant was said to have wanted to shoot them. The Navy won. The replacements showed and everyone who could walk did. The men marched out of the compound in formation.
* * *
Seoul, as Duke and Lyon found was a wonderful place; it appeared peaceful and generally an oasis. There was ruble and destruction, but life sprang from the horror and women appeared everywhere.
Military Orders read: Military Script will not be traded or bartered or given to any indigenous personnel.
Military script bought lots of pussy, however. So did cigarettes. And food. Candy. Anything would buy pussy, it appeared.
The Duke tried it all. Lyon too.
The many Korean women available were not attractive to Marston.
“Howsomever, there are no ugly women,” he told Lyon, “at oh two hundred with the lights out.”
Lyon agreed.
Their butts became pin cushions for the penicillin-shootingCorpsman in the E Company rest area outside of Yongdungpo. The Marine Corps recognized the men would dip their wicks, as the Officer in Charge of the VD lecture said, and so the Marine Corps provided Corpsman with what the men soon called The Wick-DipRepair-Kit.
Marston arrived in Korea a virgin. He made up for the lack of experience in short order. His friend James L. Lyon joined in randy coast to coast pussy chasing. They decided to trade anything excess for pussy. They had plenty of excess and they got plenty of pussy.
The morning came with Lyon and Marston in formation making rude remarks to the new Corporal designated to bring discipline and order to an otherwise grab-ass bunch of killers.
Marston and Lyon were assigned as Squad Leaders and reported all their men present and accounted for.
The Gunny recounted to the Executive Officer, a new man who had never seen combat and came, it was said, from a Berkeley, California Marine Reserve outfit, who passed the information to the Commanding Officer who was recovering from his wounds with an arm in a sling and a crutch stuffed in his good armpit.
The Gunnery Sergeant read the orders for the day which were: Clean weapons and attend classes in the bleachers.
“Assault on a Fortified Position and Defense of a Fortified Position will be taught by PFC Marston and his asshole buddy PFC Lyon!” The Gunny added forcefully, “Ten hunderd hours. Be there!”
Company E responded rather quietly, “Aye aye sir.” “I can't heeeear you!”
A roar responded, “Aye Aye Sir!” “Don't call me 'sir'!”
“Aye Aye Gunny!” the company replied and there were a few chuckles.
James L. Lyon and James M. Marston hurried back to their tent, grabbed the manual, and referred to the material they needed to present to the company at the training bleachers.
“Maybe we were too smart assed?” Lyon wondered.
“Nah. They were gonna nail us for something anyhow, Duke said.
Chapter 3
July, 1953
Their class at the concrete pavilion and in the sunlit wood step-bleachers was successful. They were monitored by the Company's Gunnery Sergeant who smiled when the two men divided their class lessons between truth, the book, and reality.
“The book, the Manual,” Marston explained, “is designed to be a guide.”
“It will give you basic operating techniques,” Lyon told them, “that you will have to modify to meet the situation.”
After class the two teachers withdrew and looked at one another, each wondering if they had done all right.
“The Company Commander wants to see you two pukes,” the Platoon Sergeant said as he stood in front of the pair after the training session. He didn't seem pleasant or happy with his fists jammed in his hips.
“Thanks,” the two said and smiled benignly. They spiffed up as well as could be expected. They shined their boots with a quick ragging and knocked dust off their uniforms.
“Should we change?”
“No time,” Lyon said as he whapped at his clothes with a towel and dust flew about their canvas covered quarters.
The Company Commander's Office was in a tent at the end of a long row. A board was attached to the flap. Marston rapped.
“PFC Marston and PFC Lyon reporting,” the Duke announced.
“Enter,” the soft voice from inside said.
They pushed through the tent flap and found the interior a spotless well furnished residence, for a tent. The Duke was not amazed, nor did it appear that Lyon was.
The Captain was authorized a houseboy, if he could afford the twenty-five cents per day pay; the “boy” kept the place tidy. The enlisted men combined their money for a “tent rat” who kept the place fairly clean and the rat would shine shoes.
The houseboy sat on a ration box in the corner shining the Skipper's brass for a class A uniform, i.e., a clean dungaree uniform. The Skipper sat at a folding bilious green battered wood field desk. His chair, of the same green, wobbled as he shifted to rise.
“You two are gonna be promoted to Corporal. You'll receive your stripes and Purple Hearts for your wounds. There's a Battalion formation tomorrow after. I put in for a Navy Cross Marston and they downgraded it to Silver Star. Lyon, you'll receive a Bronze Star with cluster for valor instead of the Silver Star. I'm sorry, but congratulations anyhow. To both of you men.”
The terse conversation was clearly over. They stood at attention. Marston, and obviously Lyon too, were struck by the events. They had no control over them and the awards were sudden and unexpected.
The Captain looked at the stock still pair and said softly, “It's okay, you're dismissed.”
Lyon broke first, tugged the Duke's sleeve, said, “Aye aye sir,” and left the tent.
Outside Lyon was the first to speak. “Som'bitches thought because it was a dud you didn't deserve the Cross, man.”
Marston shrugged. “Didn't do it for a Cross or a Star. Did it ‘cause it was the thing to do.”
“Yeah, but if it had gone off you'da gotten the big one, the Max, but posthumously. How were you supposed to know it was a dud? I wonder where those guy's heads are?” Lyon shook his head; apparently he was disgusted with the paperwork pogey-bait reviewers.
* * *
The awards' ceremony came and went; the high spirits and the momentary glare of notoriety gave way to camaraderie and loud congratulations from other members of the platoon and some from other platoons where medals were given for extraordinary heroism in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers.
The Top held the formation at E Company front for a few minutes.
“R and R announcement,” he said. “The following will be sent on the next available transportation for two weeks in Japan. Draw your excess pay at the disbursing office and get your orders at Battalion. Pick up your chits at my office.”
He announced ten men from the lst Platoon, three from the 2d Platoon, and ten from 3d Platoon. Marston and Lyon were confirmed among them.
The thrill continued after the awards, the promotion, and into the R and R.
* * *
“Where are we?”
“At-su-gi, or somethin' like that.”
The two stood in a light drizzle while they waited for whatever came next. An airman directed them to a half-round Quonset hut.
The men on the plane for Rest and Recreation in Japan were given a lecture by the Air Force Chaplain on the need to remain clean and spiritually sound. They were warned not to consort with known prostitutes and to obey the rules of the Off Limits Area signs posted throughout the tougher parts of every major city.
Lyon and Marston checked into the hotel run by the U. S. Army Special Services at Fujisawa.
“Hey, bud, this is beautiful,” Lyon said and looked up the mountain at the splendor of the natural setting.
“Yeah. It's great. Glad you thought of it,” the Duke said and smiled.
The U. S. Army Special Services Director told them, and another fifty men who arrived with Lyon and Marston, “You men will be given passes, train vouchers, and maps of various historical and religious shrines to visit.”
And they were told again and again to behave themselves. “You men are all guests in a foreign country,” the U. S. Army Chaplain advised.
Civilian clothing was the next order of business after long hot showers and plate after plate of good food, real food, not re-hydrated or re-combined either. Tours of everywhere the Army wanted to take the men were arranged.
Lyon and Marston gawked with slack jaws at the beauty around them. And the women, of course.
* * *
When their time passed, all too quickly they agreed, they boarded the plane to return to K-13. They left dragging ass, and pulled memories of their overnights after them, the little bags full of all manner of civilian souvenirs. They slept on the airplane until it landed outside Seoul, Korea at an airfield they were told was K-2. And they nodded off again in the back of the truck which took them to their camp compound.
“Wow,” was all Marston would tell the men who asked how the R and R went.
Lyon merely nodded agreement.
They went to go to sleep in the cots in their tent.
But that was not to be as they were told to report to the Gunnery Sergeant. There seemed to be a frantic push and grab as men ran past the two on unknown errands. The Gunny was terse and unusually crisp. And, no one seemed to miss the boys.
“Get down to property, get your gear, and report to the Top,” Gunny told them.
The Top had the office clerk endorse their orders. The typewriter banged out the words on the documents and were handed back to the Top Sergeant.
“What's going on?” Lyon asked.
“Yeah. What's up?” Marston wondered. “We're goin' home,” the clerk said.
“Hot shit!” the two exploded.
And from that moment everything went as planned. The ship pulled out of Inchon harbor and into San Diego two weeks later. The dock was ready since the Navy had been doing this for a long time and when something screwed up it likely ruined some Ensign's day. The scuttlebutt had it he'd receive an ass chewing from every sailor in sight and treated as an idiot at the next white napkin lunch in the Ward Room.
Marston laughed at the image of some Ensign's difficulty. “’specially since an Ensign is rated beneath the whale shit which lies on the bottom of the Marianna Trench,” a passing gob told the Marines as they lined the railing waiting for the lines to be tied to the dock.
“I hope the day never comes we're ever that low,” Marston said.
“I won't bet you aren't,” Lyon said and looked into Duke's eyes. There was a gleam there and Marston didn't understand it.
He wondered over and over what Lyon saw or knew.
Chapter 4
July 22, 1953
Later, what struck Marston, and likely Lyon as well, was the lack of U. S. national appreciation of the American sacrifices for the people of Korea if not for stopping Communism there, at least for stopping the Chinese from taking military control over the whole Far East.
The fighting men, the warriors, the survivors, were ignored when they returned to the United States.
Marston and Lyon talked about it, some, but they were still young and not sophisticated enough to understand the people were without a national will to win or at least vanquish the enemy so they could no longer be a threat to their neighbors. The two Marines never expected red carpet, but as they talked about it, they did agree that something was missing.
There were no welcome parades. The Navy band at the dock was not even the regular band, but fifteen sailors in uniform gathered and played a couple of tunes; they finished with California Here I Come. And then the sailors disappeared into a gray school bus and drove off, probably bored by the whole thing.
The Marine Corps wasn't much better. When the men arrived at Camp Pendleton they were dumped at the newly built camp site in the farthest corner of the base.
Lyon suggested to Marston, “Maybe they want to hide us from the public in case we got something we could spread.”