Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [110]
After dismounting the trucks, we began our march up the valley in a staggered column. We came upon a cluster of unoccupied heavy equipment, and in the background we could hear the buzzing sound of swarming green flies—it was deafening. They were hovering over clusters of dead soldiers lying throughout the grassy field. We continued on; there were more dead soldiers. Soldiers with the Indian Head patch, with the inscription “2nd to None” embroidered on their jackets. [One of these soldiers lying in “the valley of the shadow of death” could have been Ernest Everett Edge.]. We came to a squad tent that was filled with dead Army officers, one of which was wearing the gold leave cluster of a major; it was obvious this was the CP. To the rear was a mess tent, which had a few eating stands built among the trees. One of these stands had a staff sergeant standing alone, resting his canteen cup on a board that was nailed to the tree. My first thought was he had been caught by surprise during his morning coffee. However, after further inspection, I believe it was an enemy prank to demoralize the approaching Marines.
As I noticed a red-headed soldier, lying in a shallow parapet, his new size 11D combat boots caught my eyes, because my boondocks had large holes in their soles. I made the trade and wore his combat boots throughout my tour of Korea. I wasn’t happy about taking boots from a dead soldier, but I still had more hills to climb—he did not.
Before dusk we reached the crest of the hill that I would guess to have been about seven-hundred feet in elevation. Even though the terrain was very rugged, Charlie Company made a perimeter with deep foxholes. Since the valley in front of us was as flat as an Indiana cornfield, we could see for miles.
As we were making our way down, I lost my footing and my helmet tumbled down into a deep, narrow ravine. I could have located another helmet, but inside mine was a tattered photo of my youngest sister, Nancy. She was dressed in her ballet costume, and I carried it as a good luck piece. She almost died from an appendix infection, but with many prayers said by our mother, she miraculously recovered. With some risk, I retrieved my only object from home. As we reached the bottom, we saw a Chinese truck in the distance headed north. We dirty-faced, young Marines had just seen over two-hundred dead soldiers, and our summer of fighting was about to begin.
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In June of 1951 during a battle in the Punchbowl Charlie Company again proved to be a formidable force. The first platoon, under the leadership of Pete McCloskey, and the second platoon, under the leadership of Chuck Daly, led a John Wayne type charge against highly fortified enemy positions, with only minimum casualties. Falling on a grenade to save the lives of other Marines on Hill 610, my good friend Whit Moreland received the Medal of Honor.
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Below is an excerpt from a letter I sent home to my parents in August 1951:
Dear Mother and Dad,
…
We take great pride in being able to live and sleep in a dirt hole, and preparing our individual meals, and being able to survive the coldest of winters or the intense heat of summer...
We are the dirty faced boy Marines of Charlie Company. We carry a full pack with clean rifles, hand grenades attached to our cartridge belts and extra bandoleers of ammunition are criss-crossed around our chests. Many of our shoes have holes in the soles from climbing mountains all year long, and our toe nails are black from the dirt from the mountain terrain...
Love Always
Rick
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In September of 1951, I rotated back to the states.
~~Thirty-Three~~
Byron Dickerson
23rd Infantry Regiment
2nd Infantry Division
U.S. Army
I joined the U.S. Army at the age of seventeen while living in Texas in 1948.
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On January 5, 1951, I arrived in Korea where I was stationed with a truck