Mostly I hate war stories… They’re usually bullshit, with the storyteller getting more heroic with each tellin’….. But dammit, an approaching cold and snowy Pennsylvania winter hearkens me back to the Korean War, early Fifties…
Gotta tell this one.
We froze our buns off in winter, especially during the so-called “stalemate” when neither the enemy to the north nor us friendlies to the south contested each other’s real estate. Mostly we just kept an eye on each other, probed with recon patrols, stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong, Korea was no cake walk… probably the bloodiest war since the Civil War… as many casualties in three years as the Vietnam guys suffered in ten. But we did have occasional periods when we just sat quietly eyeballin’ each other, tossing artillery back and forth, but largely content to live and let live. Mostly both sides tried to keep warm, a heavy challenge given we couldn’t make fires.
I was on an outpost in the middle of No Man’s Land… Our hill was a small lump of real estate from which we could observe the bad guys, launch patrols and such. My job was to protect an artillery forward observer – his job was to find targets with his “big eye” lookin’ glass.
It had snowed heavily all night so mostly all we saw were pristine white hills to the north where it was very mountainous… Can’t patrol much when it’s like that — under constant observation. A patrol would stand out like a turd in milk. So we just hunkered down.
One morning we’re watchin’ Hill 1062, a large enemy-held mountain lookin’ right down our throat in No Man’s Land. That strategic high ground belonged to the Chinese. It was pure white, featureless beneath four feet of snow. Suddenly I noticed near the military crest of 1062 (that’s about a third of the way down from the top) a streak of dark brown. It kept getting larger and flowing down the face of 1062. Some silly Chinese soldier was digging out his position, probably trying to make it more livable. But the stupid bastid was dumping black dirt down the pure white face of Hill 1062, creating a long black arrow pointing to and ending at his position. Well, we let him dig most of the morning, laughin’ at the guy. We enjoyed our private joke. He was giving us a great target. Anything to break up a frigid and boring morning was welcome entertainment. By now with the FO’s “big eye” we could make out his head and shoulders and his quilted uniform as he shoveled. Damn, he was truly industrious!
Our position was drawing a crowd of guys wanting to watch our busy Chinaman. Some of them urged me to zap him with my Springfield sniper rifle. Others begged me to leave him be… How could we shoot such an innocent asshole as an enemy soldier who shows the entire US Army exactly where he lives?
For years I wondered if that silly SOB survived the war… If he did it would have been a minor miracle… and he owes me big time for his life…
~ bb