Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [154]
We withdrew to our position facing the hill. For the next day or two, we watched as a Mosquito—a small, slow-flying plane—came in and marked target areas with tracer bullets. Then the Marine Corsairs, which were flying out of ground-fire range, swooped down with napalm, rocket, and machine gun fire—plastering the Chinese trench lines. As soon as the air strikes let up, we could see them repairing the damage. I’m sure they had many dead. However, we would find out there were plenty of them left.
We were sent back a few miles, to a peaceful area, where we got showers, clean fatigues, underwear, and socks. The fatigues were never your own, they were a clean pair they just handed you. I was handed one that had stripes for a buck sergeant instead of silver bars, but who cared?
After everyone got cleaned up, they gave us three cans of warm Budweiser; which lasted about ten minutes. We also practiced night attacks; I guess the higher-ups finally realized we were not going to take that hill in the daylight. They came up with the idea of lining the whole company—abreast—across the valley at the foot of Hill 346. We were to sneak up just short of their trenches, then at daybreak jump in and rout the Chinese.
By this time we had become so decimated that they sent up mail clerks, cooks, and non-coms from battalion—basically anyone that could carry a weapon. Assigned to my platoon was a Master Sergeant who was ready to rotate home. After only staying there one night, he disappeared the next day; I couldn’t really blame him.
The following morning we had chow around 3:00 AM, then we were trucked up to our favorite hill—the one facing 346. It was tough moving through the darkness of night. We were tripping over rocks, tree roots, and cussing all the way. We were late getting to where we wanted to be when daylight caught us about two-thirds the way up. The Chinese began to fire at us with machine guns and mortars. Being one of the first to get hit—in the right hip—a medic was quickly called over to me. He gave me a shot of morphine, patched my wound, and placed me on a litter. These litter bearers were a brave and fearless group of men; they were oblivious of the mortar rounds falling around them. I yelled for them to take cover, but they had a job to do.
While being treated at the aid station, I told the doctor the bullet hole didn’t hurt, but my right foot hurt like hell. They took off my boot, which I had bought in Japan on my way over, and couldn’t find anything. I was soon taking a helicopter ride over the hills to a M.A.S.H. unit. During surgery they discovered I had serious nerve damage in my hip (more accurately, my ass), which was the cause of my foot pain, and paralysis to my leg.
In November 1951, I arrived at Walter Reed Hospital in a cast from waist to toe. Several months later a couple of us were in our beds moaning about not ever being able to play golf again; Freddy, with his artificial leg, and me with my paralyzed lower leg. One of the wards overheard us and said, “You bunch of crybabies oughta quit bitchin’ and give it a try.”
To us this sounded like a challenge, so we took him up on it. After his shift was over, he loaded us in his flivver and away we went to a nearby course, with nine-holes. He held us up when we swung, and picked us up when we fell—we were hilarious.
On that day, Freddie and I quit feeling sorry for ourselves, and decided to join the real world.
I retired from the Army in the fall of 1952.
* * * * * *
Sergeant James Beaver, a farm boy from Indiana, was transferred from another company to replace my wounded platoon sergeant.
Over our three can ration of Budweiser, we didn’t talk about our plans for our third attack on Hill 346. Instead we talked about our families, friends, and hometowns.
By the end of the following day I was at a M.A.S.H. unit, and James lay dead near the top of that miserable hill. He was one of the very few men in Korea that I had the privilege