Jocko Podcast - 425: Perspective from A Diary of The Korean War.

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

"Waiting for the Blessed Light on Dawn", by Ted Hofsiss.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 425 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I've got to go. My voice is hoarse with dread and sorrow. Why can't they just leave us alone? Why can't we just be left alone? She asked no one.

Her voice is tight with fear. Fear is growing in me as well. Wild ideas flashed through my mind. We could run away, hide in some mountains, or even somewhere in the Texas Canyon country anywhere to relieve this feeling of having lost all control over our lives the knot just below my stomach is getting bigger harder I open my mouth to speak then close it and swallow my throat is dry this is madness but to run would be greater madness I clench my teeth as I push those crazy

thoughts from my mind and struggle to accept what is happening to us control of our lives our future is caught up in a wild storm of war in a small Asian country a storm of fire shrapnel and death I put my hand on her shoulder please I beg kiss me then drive away we kiss strength seems to pass between us as she grips my hand and smiles through her tears. I can let her go now. I turn toward the barrack. I hear the station wagon turn the corner. First Sergeant Fisk blows his whistle. Time for us to put on our combat gear, shoulder our weapons, and find our places in the company formation. And that right there is

from the opening of a book called Waiting for the Blessed Light of Dawn. a diary of the Korean War, which was written by Ted Hofsus. And I received this book in the mail some time ago from a woman down in Texas, a woman named Nina. She wrote me a nice note and explained that she had gotten a copy of this book. And although she did not know Mr. Ted Hofsus directly, she, uh, Nina attends. church with mr.

Hofsus's daughter Mary Lou and that's how I got this book I looked on the internet there's one other copy out there so I don't think you'll be able to get a copy of it or maybe they'll print some more but the book details the Korean War incredibly well it's a it's a harrowing read and of course the Korean War

was a nightmare like all wars and for the soldiers out there on the front lines, it was hell. And for soldiers like Ted Hofsus, this is very unexpected, because this is 1950. World War II had been over for, what, five years at that time. And after World War II was over, Korea, which had been liberated from the Japanese, who had, you know, kind of occupied and held Korea as a common. colony for 35 years. Once World War II was over, Korea had been liberated by the allies,

but the allies at that time included America and also included the Soviet Union. So it was split in half. Korea was split in half, divided at the 38th parallel. And the North of Korea, North Korea became a communist state and the South, South Korea became a capitalist state. and both North and South Korea claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. And there was some, you know, there were some hostilities and some clashes along the border. But no one expected the North to invade the South full on, which they did on the 25th of June, 1950. After that happened, the United Nations denounced this aggression and put together a force of 21 countries to repel this invasion and of course 90% of that force was American men and in the first couple months of

fighting the UN forces which again was mostly Korean and American forces they were pushed back retreating into the Pusan perimeter which is where they kind of ended up and then shortly thereafter in September there was an amphibious landing famous amphibious landing at Inchon and the fighting escalated and that was the situation that Ted Hofsus found himself in August of 1950 so to get a little bit a little bit of background on him and how he got there and go through this story we're going to go back to the book so here's what he says I was just a skinny four-eyed kid who was lucky enough to get out of Brooklyn and into the dairy country of the Catskill Mountains for four summers when I found out there was something in this world besides concrete and cockroaches

I decided I want to live in the country I love the idea of spending my life as a farmer I hated the city so much I joined the army to get away permanently the recruiter said I would be sent to heavy equipment school Ha I was really dumb but everything is turned out just right I met Laura That's who he's talking about in that opening that I read I met Laura and fell in love with her beauty, her Texas draw, and her smile that makes me, makes my knees weak and softens my heart. She has a confident way of approaching almost every situation, not to mention

she loves me. We had already begun to dream about buying a farm in Texas. There were only eight months left on my enlistment when we married. We planned to go back to Texas and eventually find a farm to build a home for us and the family we would have. We felt. We felt we were on our honeymoon, we felt we were still on our honeymoon until the lousy Korean Reds started this war. To add to our misery, President Truman added a year to my enlistment. So this war was completely unexpected.

And I might be reading into that a little bit, but by all counts, when you talk, when I read history books about the Korean War, people had no idea that it was gonna kick off like it did. I would say it's probably similar to when Russia invaded Ukraine. Like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, it could. But it could happen, but no one actually thought it was going to happen. I thought it was going to happen.

But most people didn't think it was going to happen. An interesting thing about this book is it's a journal. It's written in journal. So it's very cool to read. And the journal picks up and starts in August. So again, they, the North Korea invaded. in June so this picks up in August and what is a couple months later two months later it picks up and uh we'll take it to that section where it kicks off so fast forward a little bit we're crowded

into the USS general pope a world war two transport the crew tells us that we're we are twice as many as the ship was built to carry three battalions and several smaller outfits are squeezed like sardines into the holds and then he goes on to detail what it's like when a bunch of army guys that aren't used to being at sea, get out and there's eight foot swells and everyone's throwing up. It's pretty nasty. And it says the ship's newspaper informs us that the North Koreans have boxed the South Korean army and U.S. Army units into the southeast corner of Korea. That's what I talked about earlier, the Pusan perimeter. And think about this. Even when I went on my first deployment on a Navy

ship it was 1994 there was no email there was no internet there was none of that it didn't exist didn't have it so now you go back to 1950 there is just completely limited information that you're going off of i mean you're just completely cut off so they hear the ship's newspaper reports that they're surrounded fast forward a little bit the third platoon of King Company so he's in King Company usually gathers on the forward hatch there are six of us who have been spending most of our time together on the ship there's Vincent Ike Ayakalono Kalano George Malululul William Willie Garrity George Sorenson Muriel Brown and me four of us are from the Northeast in fact Ike

Malul and I come from Brooklyn Willie is from Jersey City We four speak nearly the same language. Sorensen is from Blue Earth, Minnesota. Brown is from Arkansas. They're real nice guys and get along with everybody. I sometimes wonder how they can understand us, but they do. We have a good time hanging around together and kidding each other. Nothing has been said, but I believe we'll make it a point to check on each other whenever we can.

We have, after all, been spending most of our waking hours together. We slept near each other in the barrack and in the field for many months. So those are his friends. So those are his bros. Ike, George Malul, Garrity, Sorensen, and Muriel Brown. That's his boys. Fast forward a little bit. We're still in our teens.

By the way, he's 18 when he's writing this. We're still in our teens, but we've been in the army no more than 21 months. So the longest of them has been in for 21 months. We are trained to move any terrain and to fight in cold or heat. Nearly every day has been spent slogging through mud, snow, dust, climbing, or rappelling down Colorado's red cliffs and maneuvering in mock battles. In spite of our young age, we feel we learned our craft, at least as much as we can learn from lectures and exercises.

Most important, we've learned discipline and duty. The few young men who didn't have pretty well been weeded out. Some went the hard way through the stockade. A few others were discharged as unfit for military service. The rest of us are proud of our regiment, of our officers, and of ourselves. The 14th regimental combat team is trained to climb mountains and ski and then to fight as infantry in any country or weather. 18 years old, bro.

That's what's happening. 22 August, 1950, no more rumors. We land in Pusan tomorrow. So imagine that. America and the Koreans are surrounded in the Pusan Peninsula. That's where you're going. That's what's happening. We all know that no one is going to get through this by himself.

All of our training has been about teamwork. Everybody needs to have someone looking out for him. We know that each of us will watch out for the other five. The unspoken pact will have a few problems. Malul is in the second squad. Garrity, Brown, and I are in the first squad. Ike is a bazooka gunner in the fourth squad. So, so he's basically saying even though they're all bros, they're in different

squads. So there's going to be a little distance between him. Ariel Brown is my assistant gunner on the bar the B.A.R. The Browning automatic rifle will be watching out for each other all the time. So that's his that's his bro right there got his crew They offloaded and again I would tell you to get the book. It's going to be hard to get this book But and who knows maybe they'll do a reprinting of it or I'll I'll talk to the the daughter or something maybe we can get some version of this out there But fast forward a little bit, they disembarked the ship. We carry our packs, weapons, field gear, and change of underwear, nothing else. I carry everything I need.

Water, cigarettes, lighter, writing paper, and Laura's picture. Most of us have at least one meal left in our sea rations. We march off the wharf to the cadence count of First Sergeant Fisk. King Company's CEO, barrel-chested Captain Ralph Kurfman, marches several paces in front of the first rank of four platoon leaders. Sergeant Finner is in that spot for our platoon. We came to Korea without an officer for platoon leader. The rest of the formation is ranks of 16 men, four from each platoon of King Company. We march facing straight ahead, trying to look grim and purposeful, all the while looking

out of the corner of our eyes at this strange place and the people we're here to help. The Koreans watch us as we pass but make no move or sound to cheer us on. I have very little understanding of our situation. and fears flit in and out of my mind. I know that all those games and exercises in Colorado and other places were meant to prepare us for this moment. As I march shoulder to shoulder with my fellow soldiers, I begin to feel stronger. I'm surrounded by men, however young and untested, who I know better than I know my own family.

Our company CEO is a man I trust completely. Maybe we'll be able to carry out this police action without too many of us getting hurt. They march for a little while and they get to a rail station and they jump onto passenger cars. Fast forward a little bit. Soon after we unload all of our gear, including ammunition, we march along the track towards the Naktong River. There are no roads, no buildings, only hills that are terraced near the bottom and bare and rocky near the top foot trails are everywhere. As we form up to walk on either side of the track, ammunition cases are open and each man is given a bandalier. Five clips of eight rounds, 40 rounds total.

And I are given five additional bandoliers for the bar clips. This must be war. We weren't, we aren't told to keep a written record of ammo received, nor are we told to carry the ammo cases with us to collect brass cartridges. It's just that lack of information and the transition of going from a training environment where there's no thought in your mind that you're going to war and then you fast forward a month and you're in war. That's that's a radical mental transition you got to make and even he's picking it up like every time he signed out ammunition back in Colorado

For training. It was like all right sign this piece of paper with how much ammunition you have and then how much how much how much of the brass you got to get back and here they're like there's none of that obviously Now we'll fast forward a little bit king company is responsible for more than a mile of the front line even I know tactics better than that so now all of a sudden getting put on the line and getting All right, you got a mile worth of line that you have to cover. And they go out on, they start doing some patrolling, not much contact. He says, we thought we were becoming veterans as we patrolled the hills around the battery perimeter. We saw and fired at North Korean patrols, but couldn't tell if we hit anyone. They always disappeared as we tried to close with them. The best part of the day was the end of a long patrol.

We usually had to wade the creek to enter the perimeter of the artillery battery. The cool water soaked our hot, tired, feet. So again, this is September. And all he's talking about, when he, you know, when you read the whole book, he's talking about how hot it is, it's drenched with sweat the whole time. Only our officers know that King Company is about to make its first attack. Fast forward. So there's a planning for them to do an assault. We are still amateurs, but we're well trained and trust our CO. Captain Kurfman has been our CEO and father figure to most of us for more than 18 months. He's a Mustang.

He was an enlisted man in the Pacific in World War II. During the fighting, he received a field commission. Hell yeah. He was our CEO for the whole period we were at Camp Carson. I worked for him as mail clerk for about six months and as company clerk for about a month when our regular clerk was on leave. I know I was the lousiest company clerk he had ever seen. But he was patient and never raised his voice to me,

even when he told me to redo the daily morning report for the fourth or fifth time. Again, very important to note, this guy's a World War II enlisted guy gets a field commission, veteran, combat veteran, Mustang, never raises his voice. I was privileged to hear his reason for sending three King Company soldiers to be court-martialed. The three soldiers had been caught stealing gas from cars in the company parking lot. Captain Kurfman had the men in his office. I was in the outer office. He was telling them why they were being court-martialed. They had stolen from their fellow soldiers the men who would have put their trust in them if they were in combat

He would have punished them with the severest company punishment allowed if they had been caught stealing from anyone else He was in effect throwing the book at them because they had committed the most serious of crimes they had stolen from their own comrades He would not stand for that He doesn't stand for any nonsense but isn't afraid to stand up to a superior officer if he knows knows the position he is taking is right. Boom, there you go. That holds for a single GI in trouble, unfairly, or for the whole battalion. He approaches every situation with the long and short consequences in mind.

I will follow him into hell or go in first if he orders me. So there you go. He's thinking tactically, but he's also importantly thinking about the big picture, thinking about the long term, thinking about the strategic outcome. Now we're going to get into this assault and again there's more details in here But I'm gonna get right into it we reach the ridge line just as the company mortars begin to fire Now everybody up on the ridge fire slow fire steady finner yells over the hollow sound of the mortar shells hitting the bottom of their tubes The deadly blast of those same exploding shells landing on the hill across the valley makes us duck

It's the first time I've heard the sounds of a mortar shell from the funk as it hits the bottom of the tube to the whisper as it passes overhead ending in a blast as it explodes on the hill where the North Koreans are dug in. It's hard to find individual targets through the smoke and even more difficult to hit them as my hands shake with fear and excitement.

As the assault platoons charge up the hill trying to run and fire at the same time, our mortars stop. Individual enemy soldiers stand in their holes and fire their rifles or throw grenades down the hill at our guys. We have targets, a whistle blast blown by North Korean officer or noncom starts their withdrawal from the hill we fire rapidly as smoke from the mortars and grenades clear then the enemy begins to retreat as they leave their holes to flee westward we kill more of them cease fire hold your fire lieutenant brown yells lieutenant brown is our new platoon leader he came to us while we were in the artillery battery his command is repeated along the line until everyone in third platoon has stopped firing the men of first and second platoon keep firing even after they charge over the crest of the hill

Some of the men stopped to check foxholes and bodies lying around Several of our men are down GIs are waving at medics to get them to come to help their buddies We can hear the shouts of our men and the crack of individual rifles fired at the retreating North Koreans They are running across an open field heading for the safety of a large mountain six or seven hundred yards away Ike gives me a wave he hasn't been ordered to fire his bazooka I use several clips of my bar That's the first time I had fired my weapon at anyone I hand the empty clips to Brown he lays on his back staring at the sky blowing out air out of his lungs trying to relax

Garrity is on his stomach staring at the captured hill within minutes we are ordered down the hill across the dry steam bed stream bed and up the captured hill to join the rest of the company close up the aftermath of the attack is sickening dead Koreans lay as they fell some have parts of their bodies missing all are covered with blood and gore several GIs are being helped by medics a couple of our men are seriously wounded Their face is gray with pain and loss of blood. One man is held down by two GIs. He's thrashing his arms and screaming for them to kill him.

An exploding grenade has blown away most of his legs and his genitals. I don't know him by name. He transferred from another unit only days before we left Camp Carson. He was married five days before we shipped out. I look at him as I pass by, thinking I will never forget this sight. I'm sickened by what I'm seeing, fearful and grateful. that it isn't me. He dies on the way to the aid station.

The third platoon is placed on the forward slope, facing the field and the mountain where the North Koreans have fled. Platoon Sergeant Finner walks up and down the perimeter, above the foxholes we inherited from the original owners. Two men to a hole. Make sure you have it the way you want it before dark. They'll be back to try and take this hill tonight. Do you really think so, Sarge?

Bergstrom asks, count on it. Get everything together in your hole. No one leaves his hole after dark. Finner's style is exactly the opposite of Sergeant Quimby's and the guy that's another guy he had. Sure wish he hadn't transferred, but at least he's out of this mess. Finner's style consists of he speaks, you do, no questions, no discussion. My hands shake as I set the bar on its bipod and put an extra clip beside it.

I'm nervous and about half sick. Even though I wasn't in the actual assault on the hill and our platoon suffered no casualties, the sight of the dead and torn bodies and wounded men makes me realize that we are only now getting into combat. Besides my naive sense of fairness makes me question if I should be shooting at people who aren't shooting at me. I adjust the sights for 600 yards, sea movement, and fire. Finner is standing behind me, binoculars pressed to his eyes, way low, raise it up a couple of I nod we got any tracers I could see how I'm shooting if I had tracers no keep shooting Let him know we're here thinner turns and walks away

Conversations dwindle between whole partners if you have to smoke you do it under your poncho our eyes Alternately water and dry out as we strain to see without light every few minutes someone hiss is for quiet It's dark now I'm afraid Time drags it's so dark we can't see any features of the hill or any thing outside our hole the word has been passed to quit smoking even smoke can direct enemy to our positions suddenly they're here I think I hear the harsh grunting sounds of Korean just before someone fires in seconds everyone is firing M1s B AR's machine guns grenades and finally the company mortars from the reverse

slope the only light is the strobe like muzzle flashes or light from the explosions of grenades and mortars shells in spite of the constant blast of sound I think I hear shouting directly below us throw a grenade I yell in Browns here pointing out and down from our hole instead of whispering now I have to shout at the top of my voice he pulls the pin on a fragmentation grenade and flips it up and out the explosion and screams seem to come at the same time good throw I yell again we fire mostly at sounds a North Korean officer or non-com shouts in several Americans guns blast away in that direction of voice firing brings return fire a whistle sounds anywhere somewhere out in the

field and the invisible enemy still shouting and screaming moves away a magnesium flare the first fired in this firefight exposes a scene of running stumbling men in its blue white light finally mortar shells escort the enemy across the field my legs are shaking I don't know when it started but I'm losing control I reach down and grip my knees hard as I press the trembling eases I relax a little against the back of our hole stay in your hole nobody gets out of his hole they'll be back sergeant Krause puts himself in danger by yelling but he can tell that we're relaxing getting careless as we

begin talking like frat frightened magpies they do come again shouting firing throwing grenades we return fire sometimes firing a full clip at a sound it seems to Brown and me that the whole effort of the enemy is to knock us out They're below our hole Firing, yelling, throwing grenades We run out of grenades and have to expose ourselves to fire Into that bowl-like depression below us Enemy mortar shells begin falling inside the perimeter

Our own mortars walk shells up the hill toward our positions In effort to break up the attack Shrapnel buzzes through the air in front and behind us We fire and yell curses as if the filthy words will kill Where our bullets can't They're so close the silhouettes creep up the sky as they climb toward our holes. We can actually smell the garlic they eat. The enemy penetrates our perimeter on the rear slope, putting us in danger of being overrun.

We don't dare fire behind us. We have to trust our men inside the perimeter to protect themselves and our backs. A few bayonets are bloodied as several of the enemy try to take the company CP. The fight continues into the early morning. Before dawn, they retreat again. The screams of wounded and dying take the place of gunfire and exploding shells. It seems in eternity before there's enough light to see. A blanket of fog forms as dawn breaks, adding to the horror of the scene.

GIs leave their holes in spite of the danger. Buddies need help, and there aren't enough medics. They look at the wounds, wretch and vomit at the sight. Then they do what they can for their comrades. So that's just pure mayhem. And this guy, Ted, he's very, and you're going to see a lot of this. You know, he's talking about how scared he is.

He's so scared he's shaking. And he has to physically grab his legs to stop them from shaking. So this is horrifying. 7 September, 1951, the sun burns off the fall. The enemy is gone except for those who died or are still dying on the hill and in the field the rest of us leave our holes coughing stretching groaning as adrenaline stiffened muscles move grudgingly The air begins to heat creating a smell many smells the odor of gunpowder and cordite is as sharp in the nostrils We have sweated in spite of the cool night air our fear adds its distinct odor Most of us have urinated in our clothes some of us lost control of their bowels

Blood is adding to the mixture of odors as it soaks into the ground. From the bodies of our enemies are added the pungent, peculiar odors of unwashed body and garlic. The national body odor of Korea, north and south. Brown and I stretch out on the ground above our hole. We're exhausted. Shutters rattle our limbs as we try to relax. God, I hope that's the last time we do that. I don't think I could, Brown groans.

His mind seems unwilling to form the rest of his thought. I close my eyes. I feel sick. I don't know what I expected, but not this. I croak from a throat still dried by fear and excitement. A few minutes later, we are moving like old men, checking on our comrades in the holes around us. We've lost a few more wounded.

How long can this company last at this rate? I don't know the exact numbers, but I can count. We won't last long if we lose 10 or 15 men every night. The wounded are just as lost to us as the dead. God, listen to me. These guys are my friends. Some I've known for two years. There were a few less than 200 in King Company we got here.

At this rate, the company will be whittled down pretty fast. Massive reality check. And the thing that's really horrifying is the way that the Chinese and the North Koreans attack over and over. and over again and they don't care about casualties. They just keep coming. 8 September, 1950. We peel off our dirty clothes to allow little air and sun to reach our skin. Washing consists of pouring a cupful of water into a helmet and wetting the corner of a towel

to scrub face and hands. It doesn't get rid of much dirt, but it's a great morale booster. Your legs look awful. Brown shakes his head at the sight of my legs. They're covered from knee to foot with bloody pus-filled, ulcers. They're getting worse. I know. Medics called the crud, the Korean crud. I peel a stained sock from my foot. They gave me a penicillin shot the other day, but I can't tell if it did any good. Two weeks in this country, it's eaten me from the feet up. It's from too much sweat, having my

feet too wet too long and not changing socks often enough. That's what they tell me. You know how I sweat. I don't think I'll ever be dry. They ought to send you to the rear until you get rid of them no one leaves the line unless they have battle wounds I say as I scrub the sores with my filthy socks besides I don't think there's much rear left two two weeks been on the ground just open ulcers on his legs again from the heat and the reason I emphasize that heat a little bit because most of the time when people think of the Korean War they think of the freezing cold which is how they showed up ready they showed up ready to fight in heat I'm gonna fast forward here.

My stomach isn't a knot all the time. My hands shake, and I want to smoke every chance I get. This awful feeling that a bullet is going to blow my brains out at any second or worse, a shell will blow me to pieces never leaves me. I thought I might just be borrowing trouble until this afternoon. Oh, how I wish I were home with Laura. I squeeze my eyes shut trying to remember what she looks like, every detail about her. I don't want to take her picture out of its cellophane wrapper.

It's almost an insult to expose her to this horrible place. She said in her latest letter that she's probably pregnant. What a wonderful and terrible thing for us. I'll just have to be as careful as I can. Several hours after dark, the North Koreans come again. We think we hear people moving in the field, then in the bushes below. We're sure it isn't our imagination when we hear the guttural sounds of Korean, probably coming from non-coms ordering their group of men up the hill.

As the night before, a group gathers below our position, someone fires and the fight is on. We fire and they fire. We throw grenades and they throw grenades. Men yell in pain, anger, and fear. Our company mortars begin firing from the rear slope. We can see the enemy only in the flash of exploding shells and grenades. There seems to be more of them than last night, and they seem to be pressing harder. The piercing whistle blasts and angry shouts in Korean seem to be orders urging the end.

Soldiers up the hill over the noise someone yells for me to fire in front of their position I can't fire fast enough I move from one of the end of our hole to the other firing it sounds Every few minutes brown throws a grenade into a pocket of brush below our foxhole It's quiet for a short period then another group gathers below our hole I think they're trying to find a way to get us We yell for flares but none come I move to the right side of my hole firing to my right across the front of Garrities hole I'm right-handed so I put my weight against the front wall leaning out of the hole more than usual a figure suddenly fills the sky in front of me he's only a few feet from my face when he sees me

he swings the barrel of his rifle toward me he's too close for me to raise my bar without stepping back all the weight of my all my weight is against the front wall and my feet are out of position I let go of the bar trigger and reach for the pistol on my hip I shove it in the direction and fire The dark form flies backward down the hill, slinging his rifle away as he disappears in the blackness. My hands shake so hard I have to use both hands to put the 45 back in its holster. We curse and yell and fire. Again, the whistles blow and the North Koreans retreat as they flee across the field, dragging some of their dead and wounded flares blossom in the sky as if to help them find their way in the darkness.

We pray that daylight will come before the enemy tries again. The rule to stay in our foxholes is modified. Medics are quietly announced from hole to hole to treat the wounded. It's dangerous, but that's what these brave men do. Some of the wounded are easy to find as they scream for help or groan in pain. There are groans and screams coming from the field too. The gray light of dawn allows the exhausted men of King Company to see only the dead and dying on the hill and scattered below us on. the field I pull myself out of the hole and scoot along it in a tight squat to make a small

target as possible to any sniper or straggler I have to see the man I shot with my 45 I've been told that the power of a 45 bullet will throw a charging man backward even if he's struck in the arm the dead North Korean lays several yards below Garrity's hole his head is downhill arms and legs splayed there's a black and brown stain in the middle of his sand-colored jacket his mouth is open in a silent plea or shout or curse I turn him over the hole in his back is almost as big as my fist I stare at the hole and blood oozing up his back good shot Garrity smiles a small smile as he crawls from his hole couldn't miss I turned to my friend I could well say I didn't dare miss one man has been shot at

point-blank range by someone in the headquarters section the wounded trooper had probably left his hole during the firefight and in panic ran toward the crest of the hill so there's a little blue-on-blue activity They were super strict about getting out of your hole and that's why Many of the tactics we learned in training are useless But it's obvious if we haven't learned discipline we had better learn it soon None of the training none of the classes taught anything about fear That we should expect to lose control of our bladders and bowels that we would shake all over uncontrollably before during and after a

firefight we were told that fear was to be our constant companion or sorry we weren't told that fear was to be our constant companion a part of each of us every minute of the day and night we weren't told that adrenaline would keep us going during the firefight but leave us aching all over almost too stiff to move when it stops flowing no one ever told us that we were going to have That we weren't going to have time to grieve for our dead comrades or for ourselves. Yeah, this is like a next level of fear and horror. Is that you know you're here, you're stuck on this hill and you're going to stay on this hill. And tonight the Koreans are going to come and they're going to attack.

And they're going to try and kill you and try and overrun your position. And if we make it through tonight, we're doing the same thing the next night. And if we make it through that night, we're doing the same thing. that night. This is next level. I realize there's no time or place when I'll be safe. That's the point. You know, I deploy to Iraq.

You come back to base. Right. Come back to base. Guys are literally playing Halo. Like the video game. Yeah. Eating food. There's bunkers.

Like you're safe. Yeah. There's such a massive difference when there's kind of that rest. Whether it be you know I call it rest between sets, you know where it's like there's no like light at the end of the tunnel even for a temporary kind of scenario It's like night and day as far as the experience goes So I can't even imagine like in that scenario where it's like the most extreme of scenarios. Yeah and even You know I've I've talked about the fact of when when guys have combat trauma If guys are on the line for two three four days and you start to see it if you pull them back off the line

They'll recover. They'll be okay. Yeah, they like you're saying like they're saying like they just need a little rest between sets. Yeah. But when there's no rest between sets and it's just redlined, the engine is just redlined, redlined, redlined, redlined, redlined. This is how you saw World War I guys coming back with Shell Shock. There's just no relief. You're just going to sit in this trench.

You're exposed to overhead fire when you're in the trench. And by the way, if you make it through the day and avoid getting blown up by artillery, tomorrow morning, you're going to charge across no man's land into a machine gun nest. Horror. Yeah, and you're And every situation I mean, you know, the fear that he describes We're like literally you lose control of yourself physically

You're literally shitting yourself Yeah, and that is what you don't have arrest From that scenario Yeah, that is next level It's next level I realize there's no time or place Where I'll be safe I'm gonna have to watch my step

Look in all directions at once And never drop my guard Can I watch where I put my feet while watching every brush, every bush, bush, rock, and patty for the enemy? Can I be ready for every shell before it hits? With will, will all that be enough? Will I ever get back to Laura? I'm going to have to keep her in a special corner of my memory.

I can't let thoughts of her distract me. I will have to pick up the moments carefully so that one misstep that might kill me doesn't happen because I'm dreaming of her. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do that. That's why also like the acceptance of death in these situations is very I I guess I use the word important right? Yeah If you're worried that you're gonna die It's this is why you're shaking this is why you're freaking out

Yeah if you kind of say yeah you know what I'm here I volunteered for this and I'm there's I'm probably gonna die and That's a huge I mean I'm Imagine like, I'll try and think of, okay, let's say you were going to take a test in college. Yeah. And it was a test that it was going to be very important for your grade. And you weren't really ready for it. And you just one day you go, you know what? I'm just going to fail this class because I have to retake it. Like imagine how much that stress is relieved.

Yeah. Right. When you have something that you're supposed to do and then finally you're like, I can't get it done, it's over. And I'm not doing it. Yeah. It's relief. So when you say, hey, you know what, I'm probably going to die. And that's okay.

That's a, it's, it might sound, it might sound negative. It might sound pessimistic. But man, I'm telling you, for me, it's the solution to this level of fear. Yeah. Is just, yep, I'm going to die. Do you think that it kind of play, it's this weird kind of dance that your mind would do? I would think, I don't know. Then actually this is the question where.

doesn't that so like you know the discomfort that a lot of times these older wars like provide just daily discomfort guys has lesions and ulcers on his you know um you know and not to mention like I don't know their food scenario

or the hunger the heat he doesn't he doesn't talk about it much but like the food the hunger situation sucks yeah they do get because there is like a line there's a front line so they do get some meals delivered up to the front but

you know it's not great let's put it through that way so you're living in a moment to moment physically uncomfortable scenario like almost to the point of just living in pain essentially

absolutely absolutely and then so wouldn't if you fear death wouldn't you be able to I don't follow me because I'm trying to figure this out right now we're in an extreme situation like that where the fear of death will kind of help you push through that pain because you want to live.

But if you're like, I'm going to die anyway, wouldn't it almost like, kind of like, hey, like almost like not, it's not giving up, but in a way kind of giving up. You're right. And he's going to get into that. He's going to get into situations where he is like, you know what? It's, I would rather just die right now. Yeah, because it sucks. And we'll get to, in those moments, the only thing that makes him say, you know what,

I'm gonna take one more step is thinking about Laura. That's the only. If you didn't have Laura, he'd be like, well, giving up. Quitters eyes. You think about like going through seal training. You see guys when they're gonna quit. You see their eyes. They're not gonna do this anymore.

Whatever the thing is. Yeah, yeah. They're not gonna be cold anymore. They're not gonna be wet anymore. Now just imagine that you're so petrified with fear. And like you said, you're suffering physically. And you know the food situation, like I, said it wasn't great but they did he talks about sometimes they get hot meals but I mean

they get like one hot meal every two weeks or something like this I mean it was I don't want to make it sound like it was a comfortable gig like they had you know good food no they're getting junk food junk totally physically uncomfortable I mean being in a foxhole is not comfortable you can't really get comfortable these guys didn't have ground pads like even right now I mean my My whole career, I always had a ground pad with me. I put it, it was, it was in my pack. I could survive for a long time and be with a ground pad.

Ground pad's nice. They don't have modern, they don't have Gortex. They don't have wicking, wicking, polypro socks. Yeah. So yes, they're completely suffering. And there are times, and we've covered this with POWs too, where it's like there's POWs that they're suffering, and they give up and they die because of it.

But on death march, the guy's like looking at people like, oh, he doesn't want to live anymore. He's going to give up and you're going to get there. So yes, to your point, I think you have to accept the fact that, oh, yeah, I can be killed. And then at the same time, I'm going to win and I'm going to live. You see what I'm saying? It's like, yep, and part of the accepting that you can die

is just accepting that there's things that you're out of your control. Like you might just get shot by a sniper You might just get hit a roadside bomb and you're dead Those things can happen Mortar shell comes in There's a if you could hit with a random mortar shell There's like that's it You're walking down the street you didn't

Look there's times when mortars are close I've been I've been mortared where I could what he's talking about I heard the mortars going off You could hear him And you I've been aware that you could see the sparks From the mortars Yeah and then you go okay I was with my buddy Johnny

We're on a rooftop And the mortars come Actually it wasn't with him He was in a different spot But the mortars we hear the thum Thun thong fung and Johnny comes up On the radio goes That's three boys count him out

He was freaking out but because you want to You hear him get launched and now when three explosions go Okay now I can check and see what's going on But I'll never forget him coming on the radio going That's three boys count him out He's all three boys. freaking out to you Johnny Johnny was getting after it but having that yep yep I can get killed by a random thing and I got to accept that but I'm gonna do what I can to and I think you really

kind of have to just focus on the mission because if you focus on your own safety part of your safety is the mission but if you're like I don't want to move right now because I might step on a landmine well that could be at any single step that you take so therefore you're now not moving. So you have to be like, look, I'm going to carry out the mission, but I'm going to accept the fact that I may die. Very strange place. Yeah. I know for me, like I just thought, yep, I can die. That can happen. That's, that's one of those things. And it, and if it is, it's going to be random, it's going to be random. Like, it's going to be a roadside bomb. It's going to be a sniper. I'm just going to be dead. And that's the way it is. But,

I'm going to fight and I'm going to pay attention and I'm going to do my best to carry out my mission and we'll see what happens. If you get in that mode of like kind of what he talks about like a full survival mode, I believe that's very tough to deal with in combat. If your primary mission is your personal safety, it's I believe that's very difficult to deal with in combat because nothing makes sense when it comes to personal safety. Like you're going outside the wire, that doesn't make sense for your personal safety. You're doing something that doesn't make sense for you to live. So speaking of comfort, it is so hot, back to the book, it is so hot there is no cooling from the rain. Just clinging, clothes and wetness. Everything is wet after two days of rain.

Our boots are beginning to mold inside. It's hard to save anything, especially cigarettes, matches, paper. I'm losing Laura's letters almost as fast as I get them. They turned to mush in a few days. Fast forward a little bit. A short metallic scream from directly overhead announces the arrival of the first enemy mortar shell to drop on our hill. Brown and I dive into our hole and squat there. Every shell lands nearby makes us flinch as we try to grind our bodies into the earth.

Dirt and shrapnel strike one side of the hole than the other. Pieces of hot steel bounce off the side of our hole dropping on our fatigues and on the back of our hands scorching our clothes and skin. So think about that, you're getting mortared and hot shrapnel is landing on you and burning you. A close hit makes a buzzing sound like a swarm of angry bees as shrapnel flies over our heads.

At the explosion of every shell, I know, even as I try to squeeze myself into nothing, I know I'm going to be hit. I alternate between praying, get it over with quick with a direct hit, and please let it be a million dollar wound to get me out of here, even as I will the next shell to land somewhere else. As I try to control my bladder and my bowels, I have to control my panic, too.

The urge to get away from the screaming crack of death that accompanies each exploding shell, followed by buzzing knives of shrapnel, is almost uncontrollable. Time is our worst enemy. As the barrage continues, it becomes harder not to jump out of the hole and run. The pressure gets unbearable. logic and panic say run get away from here and hide somewhere by yourself where the shells can't find you we shout we curse we whimper brown and I grab and hold on to each other our helmets are solidly clamped together as we shout to each other and curse everyone and

everything there is no false bravery between us we don't mind sharing our fear in some ways I'm closer to brown than anyone we are closer than blood brothers how many shells and Grenades can land near us without ever landing in our hole. When the shelling finally ends, we sit up. The first thing we do is get ready to smoke. Once again, my adrenaline and fear leave us weak. My hand shake as I light my pipe. He smokes a pipe.

I forgot to mention that. I didn't read that section. Names are shouted from one hole to another as we check on each other. Shells continue to fall often enough to harass us and keep us in our holes. Every few minutes of one of us raises up to check the area for a possible attack. So this indirect fire thing, a mortar or artillery, what it does is it shoots very high into the air.

So it's a high angle. So it shoots, you know, 60, 70, 80 degrees up. So when it's coming down, it's for all practical purposes. It's coming straight down. And then when it hits the ground and explodes, the blast goes. goes up and away from the point of impact, up and away. So if you're in a hole and the, if you and I were in a hole, in a foxhole, like a, like, let's say a five by five little hole, six by six little hole, the mortar can hit one foot away from it and we're fine. It makes noise.

We're rattled. If it goes in the hole, we're dead. So it's like you're either fine or you're dead. Yeah. It's good. You're fine or you're dead. So, and by the way, the way they shoot mortars, they're not a, they're not a point accuracy weapon.

They're meant to, you can, it's more like shooting a shotgun. Like you're going to shoot 10, 20, 30, in these cases, hundreds of rounds of artillery and mortars. So you're sitting in there and all you can do is hope that one of these doesn't land exactly in your hole. And if none of them land in your hole, you're fine. You're 100% fine. And if one of them lands in your hole, you're dead.

Or you're gravely wounded. Gravely wounded. And those, depending on the size of the mortar, a lot of times when people think of fragmentation, maybe it's because of the word, we think of fragments, right? We think a little tiny things. You think a little tiny thing is like the size of your,

maybe like your pinky nail, like your fingernail on your pinky. That's what you think of a fragment, right? I saw pieces of fragmentation that were they're like the size of a freaking subway sandwich and all gnarly and sharp and evil metal metal so it's not these little like fragmentation when you get up to a 120 millimeter mortar that thing is thrown out giant knives like thick evil knives in all directions yeah I remember one time he said You told me that and I imagine like something that kind of the density of like a big hammer. Like you get like a steel hammer but sharp and probably hot too.

I would imagine totally hot and sharp. The weird part is sharp. But then again, it's like metal is ripped apart. Yeah. It's not melted apart. It's ripped apart. So when you rip apart metal, it's jagged. Yeah.

Like you've been working with sheet metal. Yeah. And you just cut yourself while you're working with sheet metal. It's just super sharp. Well, mine was more of an aluminum can. but yeah. Okay. Sure.

Same thing, though. Have you ever? Same one. And I'm not going to do it, but there's this trick we used to do when we're a little. And you do this thing. You go with aluminum can. Anyway, you press it and then you can kind of take out, take off the top of an aluminum can. If you don't do it right, you'll slip or maybe cut or it'll like puncture too quickly.

And you'll just cut deep cut. I have it. It's happened a few times. But anyway, to your point. Yes. Sharp metal. But not aluminum. We're talking big.

steel hammer size like five five pounds just hocking through the air it's a freaking nightmare and that's what these guys are putting up with and it's it's just hoping that this thing and by the way you wake up in the morning and you know you had nine holes two of them got hit and you lost six guys or whatever you lost four guys that's what happened and by the way we're gonna do that again tonight back to the book daylight comes slowly I thought I was going to be an I thought it was going to be an ordinary day even though I've been shot at shelled and I've killed a man up close I thought I was still a young man with a bright

future today I became an old man today I began to die lieutenant brown is sitting and there's a little bit of confusion in this book because he's got Muriel Brown who's a corporal who's his buddy and then there's a lieutenant Brown and he calls him Brown I'll try and remember to call them either Lieutenant Brown or Corporal Brown but back to the book here Lieutenant Brown is sitting near his hole at the platoon CP. Eight other men are standing close by. Malul is one of them.

We exchange nods and squat together waiting. Love Company is going to take that hill, Lieutenant Brown, points towards Hill 174. You're going to provide supporting fire from that hill. He points to another hill. Actually, a knob on top of the hill, several hundred yards to our north of our position. The two hills are connected by a saddle. This is a classic cover move. So you've got one element, Love Company is going to,

Actually go up the hill to assault it and their company is going to be on another hill another knoll and provide cover fires they go in this is cover move So now fast forward a little bit they get set up We get a glimpse of love company in the valley they're forming long skirmish lines in the creek bed screened from us screened from the North Koreans by trees and bushes The shelling of Hill 174 ends abruptly so that's what that's what you're gonna do you're gonna hit him with artillery you know Hill 174 you hit it with artillery and mortars so that gets the the enemy's heads down That allows these guys to get in position love company get in position to start to assault the hill and these guys are are doing this from the supporting position the base position Watching and getting ready to put down gunfire On sergeant Larson's command the machine gun and my B a r begin a tattoo of short bursts

We can't see the enemy troops so we fire in the places where they've been digging near the crest of the hill We lose sight of love company as they move through the trees and start to climb. Machine guns and BARs on King's Company's Hill join in. Mortar rounds begin falling on the enemy. Smoke makes it hard to find targets. We've been firing for a few minutes when suddenly a mortar shell lands just below our position. Within a few seconds, another lands above us near the top of the knob. Two shells and the North Korean mortarmen have our range.

Have I explained that to you? Have I explained how you bracket somebody? Okay, so like I said, mortars are not a pinpoint accuracy weapon Yeah, so what you do is something called bracketing and it's it's math. It's basically math Oh yeah, so I shoot one there with the first one goes long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I'll overcompensate a little bit The second one will go short and the third one's gonna get you. Yeah, what's it called bracket bracketing? Bracketing, bracketing, and so what he says right here within a few seconds, so suddenly a mortar shell lands just below our position on the hill within a few seconds another lands above us yeah so you know

this is a freaking nightmare two shells in the north korean mortar men have us have our range and by the way a lot of times they'll range like you'll set a mortar up and you'll you'll you'll make down a range card we're like okay the mortar in this position to hit the top of that hill right there here's the settings yeah yeah it's like uh pre-designated fire positions you're play battleship back in the day Wait, I think it's called Battleship, right? The one. That's like E4. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly right. Same deal. Yeah. That's crazy. Bracketing in battleship. The next round will almost certainly land somewhere in between. We're bracketed. It takes a good mortar squad to find the range that quickly.

Shells are landing faster than I can count. The noise blasts our ears and our nerves. The angry buzz of shrapnel is everywhere. And what's scary about this is you're not supposed to be in the fight. When you're in a supporting position like this, the goal is, you're just kind of out of the fight putting down suppressive fire on the enemy

while the assault team moves in. So this shouldn't even be happening. There's no way we can give support to Love Company now. We can't even raise our heads to look. Somehow the North Korean mortarmen have zeroed in our five foxholes with pinpoint accuracy. I'll bet the enemy mortarman registered this knob as a possible target.

That's exactly what I just said. Every shell is falling within a few feet of our shallow holes. We can only crouch down and wait to die. Sergeant Larson is in a hole at the center of our position. Get out behind the hill. He screams over the roar of exploding shells. The men in the hole on my left scramble out and race behind the hill. Brown and I are next.

We jump up and run full out behind the knob and fall to the ground. Sucking gulps of great air. Malul and Sergeant Larson should be next. The last four men run for us. One is slightly wounded. Sergeant Krause, my squad leader, is the ranking NCO until Sergeant Larson getting away from the mortar barrage. I guess they waited to be last go back to the company move Kraus waves his arm to include everybody

I turn in the direction where I expect Malul and Sergeant Larson to come from maybe they're waiting for a lull in the shelling Kraus gives me a push and I trot toward our hill and the platoon CP I dropped to the ground again and unhook my ammunition belt I'm exhausted and still trying to catch my breath I watch for Malul the shelling stops Malul and Larson should be in sight sergeant Kraus squats in front He knows that Malul and I are friends. Malul and Larson won't be coming. They're dead. That's silly, I squeal. I saw him when I jumped from my hole. They should have started right behind Browning me.

I try and stand. Kraus puts his hand to my chest to hold me back. Kraus's hand is shaking and his voice quivers as he leans against my chest. A shellmice have landed right in front of him as they stood up. There's nothing left. My brain seems to explode. I jump to my feet. I have to get him.

have to get him we can't leave him out there sourcing and Garrity grabbed me their arms tighten in the heart embraces I struggle both of them shout something in my ears but I don't know what it is I roar my anger and grief from deep in my soul as I slip toward the edge of madness they hold me until I quit struggling Malul my friend I don't know when the firing on Hill 174 stops I sit on the ground surrounded by Garrity Brown and old man old man is a a South Korean soldier that's with them. I don't know what I feel other than my chest hurts and my throat is dry.

Just before dark, a detail is sent to get Malul and Sergeant Larson. I get up to help. Garrity and Brown hold me again. Malul is gone. He was a hard-nosed 18-year-old kid molded by the streets. He wanted everyone to believe he was tough. He was somber and pessimistic most of the time, but he had bloomed like a rose this spring when he fell in love with a girl from Pueblo named Wanda Laura and I had double-dated

with them we've had even introduced that city boy to horseback riding it's getting dark it's raining already is shelling the gooks on hill 174 damn you malul what am i going to tell your mother teen september 1950 love companies attack failed they had heavy casualties I don't remember much about last night except that Malul is dead. I think I was in some kind of shock. I feel different. I feel as if I'll never laugh again. Or maybe I feel as if there will never be anything to laugh about. Malul, Ike, Garrity and I have been in the same platoon since we joined the army. I think he felt about his girl in Pueblo the way I feel about my Laura. And oh, how he loved his mother. Now he's gone. Sergeant Finner reminds us to clean our weapons.

and get more ammo and grenades at the CP this afternoon King Company will get its turn trying to take Hill 174 So you watch Love Company You see them take massive casualties you see them fail to take the hill and what are you doing the next night? You're gonna go try and take that hill We move and fast forward Would they move towards this? Starting point same thing heading to the hill the artillery station The hill is just mud from the rain and they get there.

There is no sign of life at the top of the hill. There's still hope. Maybe the enemy has been hurt enough in the bombardments and fighting for this hill that they have just given up. Maybe the artillery and mortars have killed most of them. Then the first enemy mortar shell lands about halfway down the hill and I know it's going to be a fight. Shells fall faster. The explosion shake the ground and shrapnel buzzes around us. Some bigger pieces zip by.

They ping on rockets and helmets and splat in the flesh and mud a piece of a piece ricochets off my helmet and rings like a high-pitched bell in my ears our skirmish line disappears i lose brown and old man we soon become small clusters of men trying to stay alive by staying close to someone else who is still alive every time we rush forward to a tree or rock we leave behind men some are dead and some are wounded a few just quit and decide to stay where they are The South Koreans fall behind, confused and totally out of it. We keep slipping and falling. Mud jams our weapons.

Oh, God, I'm scared. Don't go too fast. Stay in line so we get together. I hear whoever is near. I yell to whoever is near. I know I'm going to die. The knot in my stomach is going to drag me down to the ground. There's the first grenade.

Did it get anybody? Arm mortars have quit. Now they're going to come out of their holes and spray us like bugs. There's one. He's throwing a grenade. Shoot, kill him. My God, look at them.

Fire, fire, fire. Hit the dirt. The only part of the enemy we can see is their arms as they loft grenades up and away from their positions. They throw them as soon as they have armed them. By the time the grenade rolls down the hill,

it explodes among us. Machine gun fire. Hand grenades exploding. I wet myself. Bullets zipping. A thump. The guy on my left is hit. Stay down.

I can't find. most of the squad. Somehow a few of us are way off to the right, separated from the rest of the company. The South Koreans with us are scared worse than we are. They've quit climbing and are laying nearly at the bottom of the hill. They began shooting over our heads. What are those crazy gooks doing? They'll kill us all.

Get up here and fight. Get up here. I shout as I wave my arm. They ignore me. Shrapnel buzzes. Bullets zip. My BAR jams. I've let mud get in the receiver.

I lay on my side kicking the bolt with the side of my foot. Garrity is having to do the same with his M1. Kick the bolt, fire, kick fire. I dig my pouch for a grenade. I have to stand so I can get enough power in my throat to get it past the mound of rocks and dirt that is the enemy's breastwork. We don't want it to come rolling back down on us.

I pull the pin, release the handle, and push myself up on one knee. The grenade has a seven-second delay fuse. After I count four seconds, I put all my strength into the straight arm throw that seems to work best for me. If I don't get it past the breastwork, maybe it'll explode before it gets back to us. It lands behind the North Koreans Bank of Earth.

We crawl toward that spot. A grenade comes rolling down toward our group of GIs to our left. Bam, screaming, another man hit. Garrity is on my right. Sorensen lays behind him. A couple yards farther to the right are Sergeant Finner and Lieutenant Brown. I reach over Garrity and hit Sorensen's leg. Ask Lieutenant, what we should do, I yell.

He's dead, Sorensen screams. I can barely hear it above the noise. I yell even louder. Where's Finner? He's dead, too. Sorensen screams again. I push my voice to the limit. You sure?

He doesn't answer me. I reach over Garrity and shake Sorensen's boot. He doesn't move. I shout again. This time to Garrity. Garrity, tell Sorensen. Garrity is cursing his rifle as he pushes it down towards his foot so he can cook the bolt. You.

I hear a pop in the side of Garrity's head erupts. It erupts all over me. His brains and blood cover my face and glasses. I can't see anything. I pull my glasses off. There are pink and red splotches all over my glasses and my shoulder. I wipe my face with my hand. It's all over me.

Oh, God, no, Gary's dead. I'm next. Lieutenant Brown, Sergeant Finner, Saurin, and all dead. I don't dare raise up to throw another grenade. More North Korean grenades are rolled down the hill. Bam, bam. Kick the bolt. Fire.

Kick fire. Kick fire. Where is everybody? They're bugging out. I can see men to my left running down the hill toward the stream and the trees. I raise up to take one more look around. I know Garrity's dead. No one near me is moving.

I start down the hill angling to the left to find the company. I find Ike and Brown in the woods. Let's go, I yell. They're all dead up there. Now we're going back. Now we're going to get it in the back. Bullets splat, splat, splat near my feet. They're getting our range.

Ike and I are passing on the other side of a man shot through the neck. We don't say a word as we scoop him up and drape his arms over our shoulders into the gully run there's a big drop We jump off a six foot drop and land on the run and keep going toward the creek We hide behind the bank bullets make small eruptions of in the wet earth or sing off rocks in the air Branches fall we run down the stream bed Several GIs stop us under a bridge and relieve us of the wounded man a bridge We we ran all the way to the road we left several days ago to walk into our first firefight. I can't get my breath. My heart's going to pound

out of my chest. My head hurts. I fall into grass growing in the stream bed. I'm too tired to move. I think I'm going to be sick. Oh God, am I still alive? Was I a coward? Would the rest of state if I did? The sun sets behind Hill 174. I sit in a hole in the forward slope of the hill we started from. I don't remember how I got here. I have my B.A.R. and a few grenades my home mate is the old man my mind slows slowly worked through a fog of exhaustion i hope i'm dreaming king company didn't take hill 174 i know of two dead and at least two wounded in our squad of nine three of five close friends are dead everyone in the headquarters section of our platoon is dead casualties are so heavy only the front flanks of our hill are manned most of our new

South Korean fellow soldiers survived. Each GI is paired with a South Korean for the night. My position is at the left end of the forward slope. The hole to my left is empty. All the holes on the backside of the hill are empty. There just aren't enough men to cover the backside of that hill. I think nearly half of the company is gone. If the North Koreans get behind us tonight, we'll just have to fight back to back.

I'm angry and afraid I'm about to lose my mind The men I trusted Have been taken from me I grieve for our men and for myself How many more of my friends are gone I shiver with cold fatigue and fear I don't expect any of us to live through the night

It will be the longest night of my life I think about Laura I have to I said I wouldn't unless I was safe But I must concentrate on her now Or I'll lose my mind fear and despair nearly overcome me there's nothing I can do to save myself shivering with cold and fear I begin shaking all over I'm sure that I'll be dead before morning I don't think I can stay awake and I'm convinced the North Koreans will attack or infiltrate our positions and cut our

throats yeah that's one of those situations where you you really want to you know from a leadership perspective, look at the scenario, and if we sent a company up to take that hill and it didn't work, what are we going to do different? Because it didn't work what we just did. Just doing it again, it doesn't seem like the greatest call. And obviously, it doesn't work out well. And now they've lost even more guys. and now here they are

going back to the book. The night has been so long it has been it has to be near dawn. And by the way the name of this book is waiting for the blessed light of dawn. The way this war went the communists would attack at night and the

Americans would attack in the day. That's the way the war was. I think I actually messed that up when I said we're going to attack the hill tonight. The Americans are doing daytime attack and the enemy is doing nighttime attack. So going back to the book, the night has been so long, it has to be near dawn. I chew tobacco and rub the juice into my eyes. The pain is terrible. I hope it will keep me awake. It won't matter if I ruin my eyes, especially if I'm dead. I spend much of the night figuring out a way

to get off the hill and home. I pray. I make a bargain with God. It's a bargain I repeat over and over again, Lord, please let me live. If you let me live through this night, I'll do anything. I'll be good for the rest of my life. I know I'm praying like a child, but I have nothing else to offer God. Even though I think that the prayer many times, even though I think that prayer many times, I'm convinced I'm going to have to shoot myself in the foot to help God save me. I will claim an accident and be taken away from this forever. Even as I make that decision, I worry that I might cut an artery and not be able to stop the bleeding. There's a little chance for a medic to come to me in the dark, but how old am I going to get

out of here? Other men have done it. I don't know for certain which were accidents and which were deliberate. One of my friends walked into a bayonet. His leg was cut so badly he was sent home. A GI in another platoon shot himself through both legs with his 45 caliber pistol. If that wasn't an accident, he was real stupid. He's going to be a cripple, maybe even an amputee.

Another guy dropped a large rock on his foot. I'm sure he did it on purpose because he told me when we were still aboard the ship on the day I made corporal that as soon as he made corporal, he was going to figure out a way to get home. He made corporal a few days before he crushed his foot. I thought of another person who was a friend. Bergstrom and I had been together since basic training, two years. We were in the same squad. As we lined up in the creek bed, ready to attack Hill 174, he fell on his knees, he cried,

he claimed he couldn't climb, he couldn't even stand. I watched with disgust and fear as Sergeant Finner demanded that he stand to do his duty. Bergstrom hunkered lower and lower. His helmet touched the ground as he cried and rocked on his knees, begging Sergeant Finner not to make him climb the hill. For a few seconds, I thought Sergeant Finner was going to shoot him. The attack was starting. Lieutenant Brown was supposed to lead the platoon and Finner was supposed to push from the rear. Our platoon leader started up the hill. The rest of us, except for Bergstrom, followed him.

In the hell of that afternoon and evening, I forgot Bergstrom. Brown came to my hold just before dark to check if I was all right. He told me that Bergstrom had been taken to Captain Kurfman. He begged the captain not to put him back on the hill. He was sent to work with the mess crew. I hate Bergstrom for his cowardice and betrayal of us. It makes all the fun we had together and all the work we did together seem fake, a show, useless somehow. He wasn't really our buddy. He wasn't even our friend. All that passed between us is no longer has any value.

All those men dead. Every one of them better than Bergstrom. I trusted him. He was included in all of the platoon's activities on due. and off he was one of us trained to fight and taught to protect his buddies but when the chips were down he had failed me and everyone in the platoon he broke the cord that binds us together he broke the cord when it had to be its strongest in combat why can't I do that I'll just tell captain I can't take it anymore I'm going crazy look at the friends

I've lost Bergstrom got away with it maybe I can't ideas race in and out of my head as fast as one forms I reject it another one takes place I point the barrel of my BAR at my foot I know better than to use my 45 it will blow most of my foot away just before I pull the trigger I decide to wait a while until more time is passed and it's closer to dawn I watch and listen old man sleeps on the corner of his the hole occasional shells fall on hill 174 they're meant to harass the North Koreans but they're probably more successful at keeping us keeping me jumping awake. I stand in my hole turning this way and that,

as it sounds real and imagined. I set my BAR in front of me prepared to fight. Then as fear blots out reason, I rested on my foot, determined that I've got to round through my foot, that a round through my foot is my only chance to live. I decide to wait until sunrise when I know I can be evacuated.

Fog comes with the dawn. For some reason, the dawn or the brain-jarring noise or my own inability to hurt myself causing me to forget about deliberately shooting myself. Maybe it's all those dead men. I can't be like Bergstrom. I have to go on like my buddies would have if I were dead and they weren't.

Of nine men in my squad, only four left. I'm still miserable. I still think I'm going to die. In fact, I believe we are all going to die. We'll be sent up Hill 174 again and again until every one of us is dead in the mud. Just that's the level and you know what's interesting is there's a whole section in about face where Hackworth's thinking about doing the same thing like I just want to get out of here I think Hackworth was digging a hole to toss a grenade into so he could partially wound himself and he spends all night digging this hole in his foxhole like a little a little depression that he's carving into his foxhole so he can wound himself

and not kill himself, but get out of there. He spends all night doing it. It's almost the exact same story. Because in the morning when the sun comes up, he's like, all right. It's like the moment of weakness has passed. But where are you at when you're getting ready to shoot yourself with a BAR in the leg?

It's also, I found it very interesting, the way he spends whatever, two paragraphs talking about hating Bergstrom and and he's like well maybe I can do it too that's that's where his mind's at think about where your mind's at when that's going on like you're you're saying you hate this person you're like but I'll do it too maybe I should do that I can just go tell the boss I'm going crazy back to the book sometime during the late afternoon shilling stops and P-51 Mustangs strafe the hill then they napalm it then artillery

strikes takes over again we watch in awe and fear as the pounding continues hour after hour. As night falls, there's no let up. Brown and I have decided to take turn standing guard. He will be awake in his whole at the same time. My homemate is supposed to be on guard. He had trouble keeping his Korean buddy awake too. Every time I wake, I find old man sleeping, hitting or kicking him awake is the routine now. I don't enjoy it a bit. I'm not even angry anymore, but I can't let him or the rest of the Koreans think that they can sleep on guard at any other time like they feel like. I pound him awake again. The Korean soldiers are not doing great.

17 September 1950. The blessed light of dawn has finally come. I pray for the dawn so we can stop killing and dying for a few hours. I'm beginning to have mixed feelings about the rest of the day, though. The North Koreans usually come out us after dark, so the night is a continuous terror even as we wait for them. We attack in the daytime. So that's when we prepare to die.

If we're lucky enough to live through the day, we have to prepare once again for the night with its terror. The shelling of Hill 174 continues. We move around with our heads between our shoulders, waiting for the next explosion. A short round in the valley or on the holes of the forward slope of our hill sends us scrambling for our holes. It's about noon.

We've just been told to pack up. We're moving out. I knew it. We're going to join our dead friends on that steep, bloody hill. item company tried it love company lost half its men on hill 174 we tried it and failed there have been at least seven separate company assaults now king company is going to try again six green kids lay on that cargo hatch a few days from war three weeks and four fire fights later three of the six are dead what chance of the survivors got this attack may finish the rest of the company i close my

combat pack and roll my poncho on top I fill my pockets with essentials candy C rations letters from Laura pipe tobacco most important is a pair of dry socks in my pocket my gas match my gas mask pouch is filled with fragmentation grenades we form up in the creek bed with the rest of King company and get ready to assault Hill 174 again fast forward I climb bathed and sweat while my teeth chatter as if I'm freezing There's no sound or movement from the crest of the hill. All I can hear is our labored breathing and occasional curse from someone losing his footing in the mud. Fifteen minutes later, we're on top of hill at 174. As I climb over the bank of dirt and rock the enemy built, I enter a world of unbelievable slaughter.

Bodies of North Korean soldiers. Most are only parts of bodies are scattered everywhere. Lems have been torn and severed from men and flung in all directions. Torsors are split and their contents strung on the ground over bodies. And it's destroyed weapons heads are crushed or blown apart as if they've exploded Much of the flesh on the body parts is burned the sickly sweet smell of roasted human flesh fills my nostrils The scene is too horrible for words how much more are we going to live through before we go mad? Our brains have trouble accepting the way what our eyes see but we're unable to look away. We stand and stare

I begin to feel light-headed as I get close to the bodies of my friends and our platoon sergeant. I think I'm going to be sick. All three bodies have been stripped of some of their clothing. Their weapons and boots are gone. I take a deep breath and look closer. Maggots are working their wounds. Our platoon leader isn't with the rest of the dead.

Where's Lieutenant Brown? I croak. He was right over there. I point with a shaking finger. He's alive. He was found when they were checking the body. Sergeant Fiske says quietly. Oh no another mistake I was the ranking unwounded man in the area and I panicked I should have crawled over Sorensen and checked Sergeant Finner and Lieutenant Brown I should have checked each man before I bugged out a wounded man was left alive on that hill for two days He'd lived through that terrible bombardment the shells and the flames Had some of the others been alive when I ran down the hill to safety

Sergeant Fisk continues we don't know who these other are who these other are their dog tags are gone my legs feel rubbery so I squat down a few feet uphill from Garrity and Sorensen most of Garrity's face is gone I can tell that the other body is gray the other body with the gray faces sorensen That's sergeant finner I explained patiently pointing to the body on the left that's Sorensen in the middle that's Garrity I point to each body in turn it's hard to breathe something sour and green is rising up deep inside me I feel light-headed again. They all have to be listed as missing. They can't be identified.

Sergeant Fiske turns away. I can identify them, Sergeant. I cry as he turns back and starts up the hill. He turns again, putting his hands on his hips. No, only an officer can identify bodies without dog tags or other ID. I begin pleading as if I'm begging for their lives. I point at the sickening body without a face that had been my friend. Sergeant, I can identify Garrity.

He was talking to me when he got hit. This is his blood. all over my jacket I pull at my brown spouted lapel I want to say brains but it won't come out my voice is rising I'm breathing faster I want to grab first sergeant and shake him I want to make him believe me for my sake as much as theirs I was there when they died sergeant this is pfc garrity we were together a long time we were buddies my voice is nearly burned away by the raw juices that rise from my stomach and spill over into my throat his hands dropped to his side if you can get an officer to identify the bodies

that'll be listed as killed in action. Otherwise, they're missing. He's still having thoughts, obviously, about his wife. When Laura and I married, I thought life was going to be great. We had finished my service in the Army and enjoy being with our friends until I was discharged. Then to Texas and our wonderful future. Now we're separated by a half a world,

and I'm no longer an insecure boy. Now I'm a frightened, tired, filthy, soul-sick killer. who's been seen, who has seen most of his friends die and is convinced that he is going to die too. Even the news of the Marines landing at Inchon doesn't raise my spirit. So I mentioned that, or when we started, that landing at Inchon took place,

and he was obviously in the midst of that and starts hearing rumors of that happening. And they start to move, thankfully, once they take that hill and they've taken all those casualties, they start to move. I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. He says we are now part of a flying column racing towards Seoul to link up with the Marines and the 7th Division pushing south from Seoul A layer of filth is accumulating on my body my skin is dried and cracked

Every crevice is filled with dirt not just dust but black dirt mixed with body oil and sweat I don't shave or wash very often water's too precious Sores have appeared wherever my clothes or equipment rubs against my skin my feet are blistered I change socks as often as I can but I have to use the same two pair over and over. They are stiff and dirty because I can't wash them. When it rains, both pair get wet. Finally, the socks begin to disintegrate.

The ulcer on my right ankle has eaten its way down to the bone. I pack it with toilet paper. Dust now adds to my misery. Yeah, you talked about comfort. I mean, bro, we wash our clothes every day. Yes. Like I have since I retired from the military I have only worn a pair of socks for one day And by the way, when I'm wearing socks, I'm like going to the airport talking to someone

He's got two pairs of socks He's two months deep right now Fast forward during this column, but I'm gonna fast forward a bit the column stops for a break flank guards are sent out both sides of the road Someone finds bodies of 15 or 20 Americans lying in a roadside ditch they've probably been there for two months or more they are nearly reduced to clothes skeletons i walk over to look curiosity and i hope caring bring me and the others to the edge of the ditch none of the bodies have boots or dog tags they are lying close to each other and even on top of one another someone leans down as he realized these are not ordinary casualties my god these

guys have their hands tied behind their backs men soon line the ditch each of the skeletons has communication wire tied around his wrists they've been shot in various places some probably died slowly damn them i'll get an officer brown growls as he turns away as we drive northward many american dead are found there are many there may have been hundreds who surrendered and were shot after being tied we bounce along on our tanks or trucks and curse the enemy how could they do that that's cold-blooded murder they didn't have a chance they must have thought They thought they were safe with their hands tied. It didn't look like any of them even tried to run.

One by one, we offer an opinion and even try to devise reasons for what we've seen. I guess they couldn't decide what to do with our guys. Maybe there was only one gook on guard and he panicked. Sure, sure. Those guys were real dangerous like that, tied up. They don't plan to take prisoners. Well, I'm not taking prisoners either. No prisoners?

Hell no. Classic escalation of war. You execute a bunch of. of our soldiers it's not going to go well for you either 27th september 1950 one day at a time i'm becoming a different person i'm no longer moved by much of anything then today dawned the miracle of miracles it's been a month since we landed at pusson except for a few dips in the creek near the artillery battery we've we have seldom washed ourselves we dismount our trucks in the middle of a regular camp our company mess crew has set up the kitchen huge shower tents are waiting for us we line up

in platoon formation and weight this time we don't mind we lay against our pack smoke right letters nap do nothing and try to believe we don't have to worry about mortars snipers or attacks i can't believe what i'm seeing i'm under a roof for the first time in weeks so what if it's canvas pipes are tied just above head height and shower heads placed at intervals in the pipe i shed all my clothes near the door i look at my body and get the shock of my life i've lost a lot of weight but more frightening is the condition of my skin my feet are covered with blisters my right has a large infected ulcer oozing pus I can see the white of my bone both legs are covered with open ulcers between my ankles and knees the rest of this my skin is

layered with crust of dirt body oils and sweat every crack and crevice is filled with oil filth oily filth there are raw spots wherever my clothes or harness rub against my skin my broken glasses are gouging a hole in my nose the sun has blackened my head neck and hands I wait in line with my fellow scarecrows, clutching my razor and soap standing behind and in front of men, in front of me, are men who look enough like me to be my twin. Once I get used to the sting of soap and water on my skin, I scrub with my rough hands until most of the dirt has flowed from my body and through the pallet floor.

I allow enough hot water, yes, hot water to wash away some of the fatigue, fear, and grief. On leaving the shower tent, we enter another tent where we are. allowed to choose clothes and replace the rotting mess we dropped and we entered clean clothes new clothes two pair of clean socks what more could we ask for before this day of miracles ends we have mail call sick call and two hot meals heading back out into the field they're back out in the field now i'm fast forwarding somehow a few replacements catch up with us so as you're losing guys you're getting replacements these are new guys i have no idea what's going on i'm given fourth squad I'm promoted to sergeant or I'll be promoted to sergeant.

I'm glad for the promotion, but I'm happy, but I'm not too happy about the added responsibility. I'll miss living with Brown. So he's not talking about Lieutenant Brown. He's talking about his buddy Brown. We were a good team. Brown and I found that we could depend on each other no matter what's happening.

It's going to be tough not to have Brown's strong back and heart to help me through the tough times. And he's also no longer a BAR gunner. I loved my BAR like she was a woman. When possible I cleaned her morning and evening. I kept her muzzle covered and sheltered from hot weather or from the weather. I slept with one hand on her stock or held her in my arms. I can disassemble and assemble her in the dark.

As the most essential things I carry, I have in my pocket small pieces of rag and a can of oil to keep her bright and oiled inside and out. She was always ready to do her duty when I needed her. The only time she failed me was when I allowed mud to get into a receiver. I vowed never again to let any of my weapons malfunction because of dirt Even though my 45 saved my life I never felt the same way I did about my BAR Brown will take good care of her So Brown used to be his assistant gunner now Brown's the the main gunner They do an assault across a river and again a bunch of other really good stuff and Maybe we can get some kind of a situation going with this book to get some copies made or something

So people can read it the rest of it So they do this assault across the river. Boats bump into each other. Men curse. Now and then there's yelling as a boat. Cap sizes. We're wet, cold, and scared. There's nothing to do but keep paddling and praying.

As soon as we feel the boat hit the bank on the other north side of the river, we leap into the water and slam into a bluff. No shooting greets us. We set up the machine gun and wait for dawn. As usual, dawn and ground fog came at the same time. When the fog lifts and we find that platoons and even companies are mixed together. Some GIs never made it to shore. We had no life jackets

Most of the men who were thrown into the water Were pulled down by the weight of their equipment And drowned in the flooding river 9 October 1950 I don't believe it I don't believe it But I know it's true we're in North Korea The first cavalry division has crossed the 38th parallel Just giving you a little and there's more details in the book of exactly where they are

What they're doing 17 October 1950. I spent most of today, my birthday, huddled in the corner of a truck. I'm 19 now, going on 69. If I can stay out of any more firefights, I might make at home. The days are getting shorter and the weather is getting much colder. We roar northward in a single column of tanks and trucks. The cold air is enough that we have to take turns sitting on the floor of the truck out of the full force of the wind. When we rotate to ride the tanks, we take turns riding over the engine in the rear. And again, We always hear about the Korean Colden that's starting to come.

It's now October. Fast forward a little bit more. 25 October 1950. We've been in this war for only two months, but it seems like I've been here all my life. Today, the 3rd Battalion will have a memorial service for all the men who have been killed or are missing. We stand in a block in company formation

as our battalion commander, Colonel Tracy, speaks of the men we have lost. The Mimeographed program for the service has the full names of all the men killed or missing since we went on the line 25 August. We have lost 52 men killed and missing of approximately 900 who boarded the General Pope in early August.

Colonel Tracy reads the name of everyone. I'm glad to hear the names of Gerty, Malul, and Sorensen. At least they are being counted as having been in the fight, but I'm still mad at them listed as missing when I know they're dead. Someone must have identified Sergeant Finner. He is now listed as dead.

At least his wife won't have to spend her years wondering if her husband is dead or a prisoner. King Company has lost 13 killed and three men missing. Just looking around at the company, I guess we have 60 to 80 wounded men. That's 35 to 45% of casualties for King Company alone. That's what two months of war has done to us. The major rumor for a week or so has been Tokyo by Thanksgiving, home by Christmas. We even heard that there were troop ships waiting to take us to Japan.

hand. Yeah. 01, November, 1950. All of our hopes have suddenly come. And by the way, I didn't fast forward at all. It just says, like, today we're getting a rumor that we're going to be home by Christmas, the next day. You have one day of good rumors.

Next day. All of our hopes have suddenly come crashing down. Rumors have made a complete about face. We are hearing that divisions of Chinese troops are hitting the rocks on the right flank. These aren't worn out survivors of the North Korean army or small bands of Chinese people volunteers. These are full divisions of fresh Chinese communist troops, at least one full field army attacking with plenty of artillery and mortar support.

They rolled right over the rock divisions. We have suddenly been rushed to mount trucks for a fast trip to the north. One day you think you're going to be home by Thanksgiving. Next day, you don't even know when the end is coming. Fast forward. So they go, they head up north and they're back in the fight. This is our second night on this hill we've had time to dig in past the frost line our holes are deep we even found rice stocks and some sheds near the road They make good insulation suddenly we hear a few notes from a bugle

It's late enough that we're beginning to feel the cold we're 50% alert some of the men who aren't on guard have crawled into their sacks One of our strict rules that no one fights while he's in a sack. I whisper up and down the perimeter for everyone to crawl out of a sack We hear another bugle call those few notes which we begin to hear from several points of the compass raises the hair on my neck on my neck the call sounds exactly like the first notes of taps the echoes from the surrounding hills don't help they seem to be calling each other i grip my weapon tighter all the trembling of my knees isn't from the cold then we see our new enemy they come on foot over the bridge and on both sides of the road. Some of them wade across the river into the white field below the hill. At first,

there's only one rank. They aren't in a perfect line of skirmishers, but pretty much one line of men. Whistles are used to direct the men in line. Then a second line appears 10 or 15 yards behind the first, as they partially dressed their ranks after scrambling out of the river and crossing the bridge, a third rank appears. There's still only dark shapes moving at a rapid walk across the snow-dusted paddy toward her hill their nomcoms blow whistles and they break into a trot hold your fire lieutenant hopkins yells no fear in his voice will let them know that that we are here we are we are no fear in his voice will let them know where we are this is definitely not a probe or a patrol they are coming for us yeah so you got lieutenant Hopkins like tell him don't fire and he doesn't even care

that they can hear them because they're coming. Some of our squad's holes face the road and some face the field and the river. All the men in my squad can hear me, but I yell for the new men. I yell several times. Hold it. Wait. Sarge, we can't wait. They're almost here.

Wait. Rank after rank of the enemy appears out of the darkness of the river bed. They trot across the bridge and spread out across the road and ditches. Oh, how I wish I had my BAR. How long? How long will we wait? Thank God for the company mortars. Someone has called for an artillery fire mission two.

A few trotting figures fall out of the enemy ranks as shropnel from the first mortar and artillery shells cut the enemy down. As the howitzers and mortars fire for effect, larger gaps appear in their ranks. The recently quiet night erupts into sound. It's impossible not to flinch. Suddenly we're peppered with grenades. The lieutenant let them get too close.

Everyone is yelling. The first rank of Chinese melts into the snow as every gun on the hill fires and they walk into our hand grenade zone. Our machine gun cuts through the second rank. thinning it out whirlwind that's a guy's name whirlwind tries to keep his burst to a few seconds but when he does several of them get close enough to pitch grenades he burst his bursts get longer and longer he has plenty of ammo but i know the machine gun barrel must be getting hot riley's going to have to rub the barrel with snow he'll have to expose himself and i'm sure the snow isn't good for the

temper of the barrel we have a replacement barrel but this is obviously not the time to change it i wish somebody else had these responsibilities i try to match the the rhythm of firing to my to the time of burst between the machine gun it doesn't work i simply have to fire as fast as i can at any upright chink in front of me something strange is happening out on the killing field the survivors in the second rank of chinese stop to pick up grenades still in hands of dead or wounded men in the first rank we are cutting them down even as they pick up grenades they sometimes have to run to two or three of the down chinese to find a grenade most of the men in the second rank have rifles, but it looks like the first rank is armed only with hand grenades.

The enemy soldiers keep coming, yelling, throwing grenades, firing rifles. I can tell you now that most of the third rank is unarmed. At least they don't have rifles. It's crazy. The third rank stops to pick up the rifles and grenades from the dead and wounded in the first two ranks. Scattered in every rank are men with burp guns. These may be non-coms. I make a special effort to kill them.

Maybe it's not a nice thing to do, but we are going to have to use every trick we can to keep from being overrun. Our mortar shells begin to creep up the hill toward us. As our mortar men adjusted their fire as close to our positions as they dare. Every once in a while, shrapnel zings off past me or splats in the dirt around my hole. As our mortar shells begin landing among the fourth and fifth ranks, the enemy breaks. Whistles blow and the surviving Chinese turn and run down the hill through the exploding mortar and artillery shells. We keep firing until our only targets are dark shadows lying on the snow.

The artillery concentrates on the bridge as the enemy survivors are funneled into the road where they make a juicy target. Bodies begin to pile up where the road and bridge meet. A few more minutes and the bridge is jammed full of dead and dying Chinese. I cringe as I watch the slaughter. I pull my gaze away. I have to warn my men to watch the bodies of the chikoms lying in front of us. I want to make sure none of them are shot by wounded Chinese. Suddenly everyone is talking.

Many of our men have just been in their first firefight. They can't shut up as the adrenaline and tension drains from their muscles. And the stiffness and pain hits their joints. I suddenly realize I'm cold. I shiver making my teeth chatter. I want a cigarette, but I've already yelled at Collins to douse that match. And it wouldn't look good if I light up. So that's the first time that he sees the legitimate Chinese army coming in, the red

army and they're coming in with ranks and the first guys don't even they just have grenades and the second guys some of them have machine guns but they're basically just picking up the weapons of the guys in front of them that they know we're going to die which is crazy and I know there's some some language in there he's you know it's used the term gooks so I know I've talked about that term before and you're going to hear the term chinks these are the words that they use to describe the enemy in the book I understand they're not the most place politically correct terminology, but that's what that's the way it's written and that's what I'm reading it 13 November 1950 day after day we move from hill to hill we are thrown into areas where the rock

troops have retreated or have been wiped out levying roads from the west and northwest open all the way night after night we wait for the Chinese to come charging out of the dark frozen mist the Chinese hit us again and again they use the same tactics as they did at the bridge They hit at night with rank after rank of men charging our positions, trying to overwhelm our firepower, leaving bodies that have to be stopped before they get close enough to crush us with their numbers. When their human waves are stopped short of our holes and we are cutting into their fifth, sixth or seventh rank, they retreat into the bitter cold night. Imagine that fifth, sixth or seventh rank. Tonight, probably the coldest so far, we are praying for another human wave attack. I've been preparing like this every night for about two weeks.

I try to make sure all the men in my squad carry as much ammo as possible. I have always worried about the possibility of running out of ammo. We've heard stories of firefights ending with bayonets and even sticks and rocks. It starts with bugles. They might quite a production as bugles answer bugle over and over. That sounds like freaking scary, right? You start hearing the whistles and the bugles. TAN figures walk onto the ice of the frozen river and trot across the field.

Our mortars don't wait until the enemy is coming up the hill. They hit them as they come out of the river. I don't hear our artillery tonight. Fire missions elsewhere, I guess. Our mortar men drop shells down on the tubes as fast as they can. I hope they have plenty of shells. It sounds as if the entire perimeter is being hit. The chinks are really determined to break through tonight.

We all began screaming. Hard as we try. There aren't enough of us to out scream the Chinese. it's hard not to give in to the impulse to crouch in a corner and cry for someone to save us. There is no let up. As soon as one group or a part of a rank is cut down, another rank takes its place. I get down on my knees, resting my elbows on the snow. I'm shaking from cold, fear, and excitement.

They're coming as so fast we can't get them all. As a clip empties and flies out of the chamber of my M1, I grab a grenade and stand up. I make sure I throw it far enough so there's no chance of it hitting our men. I lean against the back of my hole and push another clip into the chamber. The bolt flies shut. As I lean forward, I see a red, nearly even with the hole on my right. I fire sending him spinning away. He comes within inches of falling into Collins and Harris' hole before he rolls down the hill.

I look back to my left. A Chinese soldier armed with a rifle is already past the machine gun hole and is turning to get behind it. I can't fire. I might hit whirlwind or Riley. I jump up on the seat. I dug in one end of my hole. I'm a good runner and a good jumper.

I can clear fences high as my waist without touching them. It's easy to jump out of my hole. I easily clear the dirt and snow piled around it. I land exactly right. My bayonet is pointed at his back. I have the butt of my M1 braced against my right side, but I'm about two feet short for a full thrust. I want to stab him in the back and dive back into my hole

where I won't be such a good target. It isn't working that way. I make a short hop to be sure I can put the full strength of my arms and shoulders behind my thrust. He is about to shoot Riley at point-blank range. He must have caught my movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns toward me. I hit him just below his breast between the two of us.

We drive the bayonet to the hilt. I step back, but the bayonet doesn't pull free. My feet are slipping in the snow. Teetering on the edge of panic, I lean back as the chikam drops his rifle and reaches for the bayonet with both hands. I pull the trigger. The bayonet comes free with the rifle's recoil.

I dropped to the ground. After looking at him long enough to be sure he's dead, I roll over in the snow and slide into my hole. Whatever rank is being cut down, it must be the one the attackers decide is enough. One more grenade from me, and they're out of my arm range. We keep firing as long as we can see their dark forms moving on the snow.

I no longer have the feeling that it is quite sporting to kill, that it isn't quite sporting to kill the enemy after he breaks off action. The mortars put another curtain of steel between the survivors, and the safety of the riverbed night after night after night 17 November 1950 I receive a letter from Laura She says she is definitely pregnant She has mentioned the possibility before but now she is sure

I've spread the news all through the company I can't stop talking and thinking about it I've got to keep on my toes I'm determined to make it out of this mess I can't let myself get so low I lose the drive to live like when I nearly froze in the rain I can't do some full thing and get shot or let myself be captured, but I know there are so many things I can't control. I've got to keep being as careful as I can. Fast forward. We ride day after day toward the south, leapfrogging through other units. Most nights we stop, set up a perimeter across the road or on one side. Units north of us move through us the next day. We mount up and move again. We make

the refugees stay out of our perimeter, no exception. So again, there's a bunch of stuff in the book where It's kind of explaining where they are. Right now they're heading south. 24 December, 1950. Christmas is truly a time for miracle. Our platoon doesn't have to be on the line tonight. And we have also been given the great luxury of sleeping in a house. Lieutenant Hopkins somehow saved a bottle of whiskey.

The lieutenant proposes a toast. Here is to our mothers and fathers, our wives and children, to those who got him and those who ain't but wish they had. Then he pauses and adds, here's to us. here's to victory. Kind of feels like a feel-good toast, but that's what we're here for. We need some Christmas cheer.

I didn't know if the feel-good toast was a thing back then. To cap off this warm glow of a special evening, Lieutenant Hopkins reads a letter he has from Lieutenant Brown. Hopkins and Brown were classmates at West Point. And again, now this is the lieutenant. This is the guy that he thought was killed on the attack of the hill and left him there. and then it turns out that he had been medevacked.

Lieutenant Brown says he is doing well. Doctors saved his leg. The doctors decided that maggots eating the dead flesh of his wounds almost certainly saved his leg and possibly his life from gangrene. Lieutenant Brown writes that he thought I was KIA on Hill 174. My tears flow as I think about that terrible day and the mistake I made on Hill 174. I can't tell the lieutenant I can't tell lieutenant Hopkins about it then I wonder would either of us have gotten off that hill if I tried to take him with me

There's just too much to think about and too much to be sorry for I don't think any of us can bear to think about all that not now Maybe not ever few days go by 10 days go by fast forward For January 1951 the Chinese started their new year offensive several days ago for some reason unknown to us At the bottom of the regimental information ladder Our battalion was taken lockstock and winter underwear to a mountain pass southeast of Seoul. I don't know what the elevation is, but I'm certain these are the highest mountains we've been on. The evening we arrived at the summit of the pass, the temperature as registered on a long thermometer attached to a Jeep, was minus 42 degrees.

now last year at Christmas I had the luxury of being in Montana and experiencing it was like between negative 30 and negative 40 Fahrenheit yeah so like a very similar to temperature yeah it is so cold yeah like it's freezing

yes it's it's like a next level of cold though yeah you can't really it's a new thing negative 40 and mind you I'm like going outside for seven minutes you know to go and grab something

and come back inside I'm not living in it there's a certain point too when you're not active I don't let me make an estimate here there's a certain level of cold where it doesn't matter what you're wearing

it your body heat's going to run out and it's going to start to like go backwards, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like you're going to negative 40, if you don't have some kind of shelter of some kind. Like if you're just in clothes. Yeah.

If you're just in close. And I guess you could, maybe there's some extreme, you know, but it's going backwards. You're losing the war. Yeah, yeah. Of body temperature in those scenarios. Yeah, fully.

And take it from me, the most, one of the more sensitive people to, for real cold. You know, my standard for coldness is very low. Not temperature-wise, obviously.

So when we went to Big Bear, the, or actually, no, when we went to Utah for FDX long time ago. Leif was like, oh,

yeah, it's going to be 19 degrees. I was like, it wasn't snowy or nothing like that. So I was like, oh, yeah, this is probably, and we're all right.

No factory, you thought? Yeah, you know, we're in the car. You know, and we're going, I think,

up the mountain, slowly, dropping temperature and and then when we got out there clear day 19 degrees I was like cool but that was something I never felt before yeah my point in saying like 19 degrees is a normal temperature like it's a normal thing yeah and you can you can if you put on warm clothes you can probably exist in 19 degree kind of indefinitely yeah yeah like you you can you can win yep yeah fully negative 40 negative 42

I don't and again we're probably going to hear from some experts on this but negative 42 look now if you're moving you can probably keep a temperature but if you're stuck standing or sitting or lying down in a foxhole

and it's negative 42 that you're losing body heat the whole time yeah and your temperature's like the temperature's going down yeah and it's the kind of where you have it's literal pain yeah oh yeah so you have like the discomfort of freezing, oh, I'm cold, you know, that thing.

Sure, of course, that's going to exist. But it's like the pain, actual pain. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, not to mention actual frostbite, actual damage. Yeah. And hey, listen, you might be able to get a layering system on your body with polypropylene and then down and then stealth wool. Oh, like nowadays.

Yeah, like now. Okay. And you go Nylock. Like, there's a bunch of things you can put on. And you might be able to keep your body. but your feet. Like I don't believe there's boots. Yeah.

That are going to be okay at negative 42. And listen, I get it. You can go if you're walking like there's 30. I'm saying if you're sitting standing in a foxhole, you're not allowed to move in as negative 42 is going to be a problem. Yeah. That's my opinion. I don't even know.

Like to me, anything past like 19 degrees. I don't know what happens. Unknown. Well, it's happening psychologically as well going back. the book I find I'm withdrawing into myself more every day I want to lash out someone or something I'm tired cold dirty and sick of war nothing goes right someday we will have to face the

Chinese again there seems to be no way out I have to keep doing the best I can because I have enough brains to know that my best chance to make it back to Laura and our baby she says she is all right but I'm sure the strain on her is getting worse she goes for weeks not knowing if I'm dead or alive the news doesn't help all she hears is that the army is in retreat units are being wiped out and men are freezing to death 18 February 1950 or 1951 we move today to some higher hills of the southeast of the town as we push through the knee-deep snow we find ourselves stumbling over the body of Chinese soldiers butchered in every possible way then gently covered by a what blanket of white they've been bombed

napalmed shot some with tracers others torn apart by artillery shells not a few of the bodies are still burning even under the snow. Fast forward a little bit. They're in another position. Off to our front right. Someone sees a group of men with a machine gun moving towards us up one of the many ridges. Our CEO, who is new to King Company and new to combat, thinks the men are from item company. They are supposed to be on a right side. He thinks they may have secured their sector of the mountain and are trying to make contact with us. No matter what he thinks, the CEO shouldn't have done what he did next. He stands up and shouts into the rain and fog. Are you men from item company? Those guys out there in the fog aren't new to combat. They know what to do. They disappear like ghosts.

If our CO had waited quietly, they would have walked right up to us and we would have bagged enemy machine gun and crew or we would have made contact with item company. A few minutes of waiting wouldn't have made any difference except that the CO might still be alive. In minutes we are receiving heavy fire from the right front. Soon, Several machine guns are firing bullets ricochet off the rocks we have our machine gun set up and firing between bursts we hear the enemy calling back and forth That may be the strangest sound I've heard in combat I guess not being familiar with their language it makes it seem so strange the shouts of the Chinese and the Koreans to each other always end on a high note The thickening fog adds to the eeriness of the situation they're getting ready to mount a serious counter attack

The whole mountain erupts in fire they know where we are but we can't see them except for occasional muzzle blasts it's hard to be play roulette for that long when chips of rock start to sting your cheeks you duck no matter what I try to use my grenades sparingly I throw them where I think I hear several voices I don't know if I make a kill but I do silence the shouting for a while I saw the CEO dropped to the ground after he had shouted and the first rounds came out of the fog suddenly he stands up to full height drawing is 45 he looks up and down the ridge raises his arm and screams, let's get the sons of up.

His words are cut off by the round that hits his forehead just below his helmet. Fast forward. 22 February 1951. Now they're assaulting another hill. When we reach the bunker, someone throws a grenade in, same as yesterday.

Four or five of us are standing around ready to make the final rush to the ridge. We are standing several yards apart. That probably saves our lives. The grenade thrown into the bunker comes flying back out and explodes in the middle of our green. Before I can move something slams into my chest my rifle flies out of my hand as I go on a wild slide on my back through the mud and crash into a tree

Ike slides down the hill to me blood is streaming down his right hand I hear several shots someone is finishing off the chink in the bunker Hoffsister you hit Ike yells I pointed his bloody hand and yell back your hit get out of here He ignores me and begins searching my clothes for a wound. We can't find a hole or any blood my chest hurts must have been a rock I rub my chest as I start up hill to get my M-1 one then I hear puffing behind me I turn around and scream as loud as I can get off this hill find a medic and get out of here tears come to my eyes as I realize I've just screamed in order to my friend it's the first time I've ever given him an order God help me what's happening to me

I can't his bazooka to his assistant I can't think of anything else to say I watch his back as he slides downhill his blood is soaking into the sleeve of his of my jacket I'm tired so tired Now there's only me and Brown The odds are finally catching up with us Brown and I are the last of the six The platoon is ordered to set up a perimeter On the north point of the mountain It's the middle of the afternoon when I start my hole

I put myself just back of And to one side of the machine gun hole like I usually do I hack at about six inches of frozen earth Before I hit rock I keep widening the hole looking for an edge to the rock. The first enemy mortar shell lands below us on the forward slope. After they drop a couple more around us, they fire for effect.

These are big mortars, maybe 120. Several of them are zeroed in on our part of the mountain. There is no way to count the shells. The roar of the explosions and the whiz of flying shrapnel are continuous. I roll over the crest and slide a little way down the reverse slope. I dig some more. I can't run around looking for a whole big enough for me and whoever it is already in it. I can't run and start a bug out.

It's tough chopping at the frozen ground. I crouch in a tight ball, but I try. The fat shell, the shells fall with a steady rhythm of screeches as they approach the ground, a blast as they finally explode, followed by the zip of shrapnel. Finally, I pull my arms and legs under me and make like a turtle. I grip my teeth, ball my hands and a fist, and will the shells to stay away from me. A shell lands a few feet above me, the blast lifts me out of my shallow hole and slams me face down on the ground. I look around.

Several men of our company and mortar squad yelled to me. What did they say? I raised to a kneeling position on one knee, shaking my head to throw off the concussion of the blasts. I look up as someone yells, come on. My helmet. Where's my helmet? My glasses stayed on, but my helmet's gone. Two shells explode.

One to my left, the other to my right. I go down flat as sledge hammers hit both of my legs knocking them out from under me. I scream. All I can do is raise up my hands. Raise up on my hands. Something has burned its way through my gut. My whole insides feel like they're on fire. A warm stream is running down my chest.

I clamp my hand over my neck. In the twilight, I can see blood running through my fingers. I wonder how much of my neck is gone. I scream in pain. I try to stand, both legs crumble. I scream once more. The only answer I get is more blasts of noise and flying shrapnel. I almost pass out from the pain.

I can't see anyone. Everyone who has a hole is in it. There is no one to help me. I figure I'm as good as dead, but until I'm sure, I only have one objective to get to safety. If I'm going to die, it will be trying to get off this mountain. I roll over on my stomach. I turn my legs one at a time.

Another scream burst from my throat. I know they are there, but I dare not look. The pain tells me better than my eyes could. I plant my elbows on either side of my head. I lever my body forward with my arms. I try not to scream. I know I have to save my energy if I'm going to make it off this mountain. The warm blood running down my chest and back is not a good sign.

It would be so easy to lie here. Maybe I could catch up on my sleep. As long as I've got a chance to get off this mountain and back to lower, I've got to try. I reach as far as I can stick my elbows in the mud and pull. I don't know how far I've squirm. Daylight is nearly gone. I raise my head enough to see where I'm going. I figure as long as I'm going downhill, I can't go wrong.

Through the twilight and smoke, I see directly in front of me someone squatting on the ground, leaning over another man. I squirm a little further. Wait up, pal, he yells. His voice is loud but calm. Here in the middle of hell is a medic. He has blood all over him. Obviously, all of it or most of it is from someone else. Shell after shell after shell shakes the ground and bangs on my eardrums.

I'm sure one of those shells is going to hit him and me. Is there a place on this mountain that isn't covered by flying shrapnel? I'll help you in a minute, he yells. He could be squatting in front of campfire, offering me a cup of coffee. His head jerks down to his chest every time a shell lands close. That's the only attention he gives the storm of shrapnel. And the pounding noise like hell. I scream. I'm getting out of here. The gentle pressure of his hand on my back stops me for the moment. I whimper, but wait. He yells something to the wounded man he's working on. He turns to me, rolls me on my back and squats over me. I scream again. It doesn't take him long to open four aid packets and place them over the wounds he can find. I'm grateful for that, especially if I'm going to belly crawl off this all the way to the aid station. It isn't quite dark, but his face inside his helmet is in shadow. I'm not surprised that I don't recognize his voice.

Medics seldom last any longer on the line than a second lieutenant, and they don't last long at all. I can hear his voice and feel his hands as he ties my bandages. He's calm and sure he doesn't seem to be afraid at all. I marvel now with his bravery. Even as I yelled then for him to let me go so I could squirm down the mountain, he tried to calm me by telling me that the stretcher bears would show up soon. As he crawled off to help another man, I turned over on my belly,

screamed as I turned my legs and went back to squirming. That medic well may have saved my life or at least my sanity. I don't know how much time passes. I make some progress. I'm in the trees now, but the shells follow me there. Some trees are still standing. They will soon be shattered by Chinese mortars. The next thing I see is a group of men, each carrying two cases of machine gun ammunition.

At least two of them, I can't stand to see me crawling on my belly. They set their cases down and yell at the other ammunition bearers to come back for them. I don't recognize them either, but there has been quite a turnover in King Company in these last few months. They lift me, put arms around my shoulders, even as Ike and I had done with another GI six months and a lifetime ago on Hill 174. By way of thanks, I scream in their ears. We make more progress this way, but I finally yell for them to stop. Every time either foot brushes against a rock or clod of dirt, it spins around and my friends get another scream in their ears for their trouble. I can't go any further. The pain is.

is costing me more than my life is worth. One man stays with me while the other runs off. In minutes, he's back with a wooden door from a woodcutter's shack. Smart fellas, they lay me on the door and carry me on the trail into the side of the mountain. This is the second time for me to get off this mountain. And both times, I haven't been sure that I'd reached the bottom alive. About halfway down, we meet several medics with a crew of stretcher bearers.

They stop long enough to give me a shot of morphine and transfer me to another stretcher. In total darkness, we wait for a Jeep. I can hear the mortars and see the flashes from exploding shells flickering on the low-hanging clouds. Finally, I hear the whine and rattle of a four-wheel drive and low gear as a Jeep bounces off the Rocky Creek bed. The medic and Jeep driver strap me onto the Jeep and put one other man next to me. He seems to be unconscious. In the flashlight's beam, I can see why. He's riddled with shrapnel from head to foot.

There are wounds in his face and cuts all over his clothes. Blood is oozing for most of them. I can hear him wheezing. He must have punctured a lung. The Jeep winds in low gear as we move down the creek bed. It rocks along, throwing us against the straps. I can't hear the other man wheezing anymore. When we get to the battalion aid station,

medics unstrapped us from the stretchers. I ask, how is he? I don't know my fellow passenger, but we're buddies now, United by the blood we left on the stones of that creek bed and on that mountain He didn't make it a medic continues to unstrap my stretcher I wonder if I'm gonna make it They carry me into a large heated tent

I stare at the bright light overhead until I'm forced to close my eyes I can't understand what the doctor is saying Yeah, you're out there when one of these you know that I went on a little soliloquy talking about getting mortared and sitting in a hole and hoping that it doesn't hit. Sure. And here he is in that exact same situation, except he has no hold to be in.

And he does get hit. And somehow makes it out of there. And what is as devastating and horrifying as indirect fire is, it's also no guarantee. And you can see that because how many times do they do pre-fire, artillery fire and mortar fire

on a target and then when they go get the tart go to actually assault the target there's all kinds of people that are still alive so you can live through these things it's just such a lucky thing can just luck and i mean i had that uh in the in the in the blue on blue that i talked about in the bidding into the book extreme ownership the the army put like 150 rounds of 50 caliber machine gun into the building that my guys were in from 30 yards away. 150 rounds of 50 kel. That is devastating and had one guy catch a little frag in the face. Everyone else was okay.

Like if you would have, if I had to place bets on that and you put, whatever, put eight guys in a building and then you put 150 rounds into the building, especially, you know, if you're probably going to shoot at the real, rooftop of the building or you're gonna concentrate in certain areas it's not like you have spray the whole building you're gonna concentrate where you think someone would be tactically and I thought if you had if I had to make a bet before that happened if I would have had to make a bet 150 rounds into a building I would have said you got a you got maybe one or two guys killed one or two guys badly wounded and now it's like no

yeah same thing with mortar fire get you can get mortared and everyone can be perfectly fine yeah So he got very unlucky and then very, very lucky. Fast forward a little bit. Someday yesterday I was put on a litter bus. The hours all run together. We arrive at the evacuation hospital. I sleep.

I don't know how long I've slept, but I awaken as two men pick up my stretcher. The same nurses walking beside me. They carry me to a helicopter pad. My stretcher set on the brackets of the waiting helicopter. I don't remember much of that flight. The helicopter stands at an airstrip right next to a C-47, a suit. We take off soon after I'm transferred.

to the plane. I landed in Korea, surrounded by almost 200 friends in exactly six months. I lost most of them in that land of hate and killing. So now I'm doing a pretty big, fast forward through the book. We're going all the way to 30 April, 1951. This is two months since he got wounded, or almost two months since he got wounded. And he goes through some of his recovery. It's just suffering.

It's pain. It's agony. He's in there with all these. I mean, it's wretched. But finally, two months later, 30 April, 1951, this morning the doctor came by to check up on me. He asked me if I would like to go home. It's what I've been praying for.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't get home before our baby was born, but I was still hoping I wouldn't have to go back into fighting. For a few seconds, I feel anger building in me. That's a pretty cruel joke, especially since he should remember that the nurses told him, I was expecting to have a child any day. He smiles broadly and assures me it's no joke.

There's another section in the book where the doctors basically saying like, we're going to get you back, we're going to get you back into the fight. And you know you always hear guys that are saying, hey, I just want to get back with my unit. And in this book, he's like, I don't want to go back. He's thinking that to himself. He doesn't want to be a coward.

But he's like, dude, I'm going to die if I go back 100%. Yeah. Like I said, he's very honest about his feelings. For my final medical chart, the one that will go on top of my hospital records is finished. I weigh 134 pounds. That's after two and a half months of good chow and all the goodies I can eat. I wonder what I weighed when I came off the line. I thank the nurses, medics, and Japanese nurses, AIDS.

10 May, 1951. The flight to the States is long and tiring. He goes to Tokyo. He goes to Midway Islands. He goes to Hawaii. and then finally to Travis Air Force Base Hospital in California within the hours of being put to bed and Travis I'm able to make a telephone call to Laura my heart is about to beat out of my chest as she comes to the phone having despaired of ever hearing her lovely voice again I would like to listen to her for hours but our time is limited I wonder what she thinks after talking to me for the first time in nine months did I sound like the young man she fell in love with or was she talking to you to a stranger our son was born about the time I left Japan Laura and our son Dwayne are well I told her I was set for a flight to San Antonio and Fort Sam Houston Hospital

the very next day at last we said the words we had been waiting to say for months I love you I love you I told her I would be with her as soon as I could fast forward a little bit less than two hours after arriving in Fort Worth where I met my where I met by my sister and brother-in-law I hobble into Laura's arms I set my crutches aside and fold the woman I love in my arms this is the woman who in spirit sat beside me in my foxhole and kept me from losing my courage during the never-ending attacks the woman I thought of when I had to drag myself out of my sleeping bag or freeze to death I remembered the smile of this woman brought with it the strength to climb a hundred mountains and to live in the

ground like an animal without becoming one the lovely image of this woman in my mind gave me the will to crawl off that mountain top when to stop and lie still would have been so easy but would have meant my death our love spanned thousands of miles that separated us and has overcome the terrible odds of six months of combat that destroyed most of the men the original King company the love of this beautiful courageous woman gave me the strength to continue when I was so afraid I wanted to give up and shoot myself when I was so tired that death would have been easier than taking the next step when I was so terrified during mortar

barrages and firefights that I wanted to curl up in the corner of my foxhole and wait to die the worry the fear that I might never see Laura again is past we whisper the words we spoke into the wind a thousand times hoping it would be carried over the world to our soulmate three words written over and over in every letter with tears or sweat or snowflakes for punctuation I love you I love you I love you before I lay down to rest I'm introduced to our son I missed arriving home for his birth by 12 days I worried from the time the Laura had written that we were to have a child that I might be that I might leave my bride as a widow and that my son would be fatherless

before he was born. Instead, God saw fit to allow me to remain alive, though badly battered. To hold my wife and my son is a long-deferred dream come true. Now we can begin to heal. And there's some details in there, and I'm going to close out the book with this, the postscript. He says this, I still have nightmares. and what the psychiatrists call night terrors.

Once in a while, I have a horrible dream. Many of the experiences good and bad will stay with me until I die. Laura and I were blessed with two more boys and two girls. I went to college under the GI Bill, earned a master's degree, had taught fifth and sixth grade children for 13 years. Then I developed, administered an outdoor learning program

to teach the same grade of city children about nature and country life. After seven years of that, I worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 10 years. Laura and I finally got our farm. Neither of us is capable of doing much physical labor anymore, but we enjoy living in the country as we had planned from the very beginning. I've had problems with my right knee and five since the day I was wounded. Over the years, I've had five surgeries on that leg and still experience chronic pain. several pieces of shrapnel migrated close to the surface of my skin and had been removed

Ike got home okay laura and i went to see him in 1951 we had a nice visit with him and his family we didn't see her hear from each other again until 1997 we talked on the phone but we didn't seem to connect with each other as we did in korea ike and i composed a letter to malul's mother soon after he was killed laura wrote her too i'm afraid we were all carrying a pretty heavy load of pain both physical and emotional as with ike and me we quit writing to miss mrs m m lewell several years ago i was contacted by william m garrity in california he said he was the record keeper for the garrity clan in america he had willie's name in the clan book but didn't know he was dead he thanked me for the information he said in an email later that he had tried to contact

the part of his clan that lived in new jersey he wasn't successful just months before sent this book to the printer I found out that corporal Muriel G. Brown listed as KIA on the Korean War Project database. He was killed a week after I was wounded. All these years I had thought, or at least hope, hoped that Brown had baited and had enjoyed a good life. I didn't remember where his home was and had no idea of how to contact him all these years. Wouldn't you think, after all this time I could look at my friend's name on a list without crying I can't perhaps God kept it from me until I could handle it Brown was the best foxhole mate I could have asked for he was always my trusted friend I wish I had told him so waiting for the blessed light of

dawn and that's war and that's one story one story out of millions. And things, we continue to fight each other. And I think oftentimes we do that. Since we look at war from a distance, we look at war through the television, we look at war through the media on the news. But a lot of people forget and don't know.

Maybe they never knew. They don't understand what war is like on the ground. What war is like for the people on the ground? They often times they don't even remember that they're people they don't know that they're people They don't relate to them as people they think of them as a soldier that soldier is a person We either don't know or we forget what it's like for the men that fight For men like Ted Hofsus So I recommend that we use our minds before we use our guns and people fight

Their own egos before they fight each other and if we have to go to war if there's no other choice if we must then train the troops and give them the equipment and the knowledge and the authority and then when they get home and take care of the families of those that don't come home and never forget sacrifice and the gift that they gave yeah it's true where especially when you read these journal types where, you know, especially when they go into those details, like those human details of the, like, the smells. And I was, you know, experiencing this.

And he compares it to, like, you know, the whole size of my fist. It's like, this is like a human. These are little human experiences. It's not like, you know, all this, like, real official military stuff that, you know, maybe you see on whether it be the news or movies or whatever. And just like how you said, like the guys on the movie. movies and the news and stuff. You think, oh, yeah, that's just more of like an action figure almost kind of a thing.

Oh, yeah. Oh, we lost an action figure. Yeah, exactly. Not a human being who experienced moment to moment all these things that we just. Oh, yeah. Just openly pissing yourself, shitting yourself because you're horrified. And that's, by the way, not happening one time. Like, I got scared once.

Right. It's like over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. And then even that, like, I think sometimes. When the people are like, okay, the guy, you know, Korean War vet, he's shell-shocked. You're kind of like, okay, shaw-shock, that's just an official thing that a soldier sort of gets. And, you know, this is the soldier who's shell-shock now.

But really, what is that? It's like, no, that's a human being that went through something so extreme that now, like, they haven't fully recovered from it. Now they're different in this very specific way. That's a person, human thing. Not some military thing. I mean, it's a military thing, but not how we see it is just like, oh, this, This military checkbox, oh, yeah, yeah, shell, shock. Oh, okay, PT, okay, you know.

It's like, no, no, no. Yeah, there's some cool official words describing that, but that's a real thing that I haven't to a real person. Yeah, it's like a shell shock or PTSD is a euphemism for I'm horrified and suffering 24 hours a day right now. This is a nightmare. Yeah. Oh, but you can either say that or you say, oh, that person's got shell shock

Or that person's got PTSD. Yeah. And of course, there's various levels, but someone that has a massive case of post-traumatic stress. Yeah. Like, what are they going through? They're going through that 24 hours a day. And seven days a week.

And there's no relief. Yeah. Until they get help. Because there is relief when people that are in that situation get help. You can get help. You can get better. Yeah. Yeah, it is weird to really understand what.

Because like consider like what would give like a person's stress for a moment, right? I don't know. Like some guy runs a red light and almost like hits you. And you know that maybe five, 10, 15 seconds of recovery, you know, of that elevated state of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this just happened and I'm scared and I'm this and I'm not. What if that feeling never went away? Yeah. Or it went down just to a certain degree, but then stayed there for just years and years and years and years. It's like it's essentially that, but obviously way, way worse, you know.

Yeah, the World War I guys sitting in the trenches, I was the worst because they had no. And I was reading something the other day. It's actually something where I'm probably going to cover on the podcast, but they changed the definition. Like in World War I, they started saying, you're not, you don't have, instead of saying, hey, your brain, for a while, they said, oh, your brain is getting rattled.

And that's why you're acting this way. And then they started saying, no, it's just because you're a coward. Damn. Yeah. They changed it so they could keep more guys in the freaking meat grinder. Oh, damn. These assholes. Sorry about my language.

Yeah, yeah. That's what they did. And this is like, I think it was the German government was like, oh, no, you actually, it doesn't affect you. You're just being, you're just a coward. Right. So get back up there. And there are, you know, from the shell, from the actual literal shock of the shells having your brain. I mean, how did you feel, did you get hit a lot playing football?

Yeah. How often do you get a concussion? I got official concussions. Unofficial concussions Unofficial. Unificial? Yeah. Yeah, where you get your bell wrong

and things aren't right. Yeah. I don't know. Plenty. Like 20? No, maybe not 20. Probably, yeah, maybe 10. Now just imagine how long,

oh, is that over your career? Yeah. So I played wire receiver though. These other guys like. Yeah, but okay, so over your career of, let's say, what, 12 years of football? Yeah.

You had 10 of these. So now imagine getting 10 of those in two hours, 24 hours a day for year like what does that do to your brain it's not good

that's what if that's what a guy in the trenches in World War II was just yeah it's like and that's like kind of not even

the half of it really because you know how like your brain forms this world you know like it understands like I don't go

too deep into it but really in a nutshell it's like you you put something out you get something back you put something out that's really what you're doing

yeah yeah And it's like this weird. Your mind is the perception of the world around you. Yeah. And every action you take, you kind of have this all away from conscious to subconscious, this response, you know, from the outside world. And that can get real weird. It can get real wonky during extreme situations and extended extreme situations.

So now that understanding, even to this on a subcon, all the way down to the subconscious levels is like it's wrong. And it's like there's, I mean, for like, a better way of putting it, it's like it's real toxic. So yeah. And just so it's not even necessarily the world. It's just your relationship with the outside world becomes this weird thing. So I remember when I played football, we'd have a the conditioning was early in the morning and it was very repetitive. So we'd have stations and I'm not going to go into the detail, but it was very repetitive. So there was a lot of like calls, you know, they'd be like ready, set, go and then whistle, ready, set, go. Very repetitive, right?

So no matter of the drill, there would always be a certain repetitive language, whistle, and then, you know, action. Operant conditioning. Yes. Oh, big time. So now after, and it happened pretty quick, but after a while it gets worse and worse and worse, where now when you go to sleep, you just wake yourself up in the middle of the night with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is just from regular conditioning.

That's just freaking football, voluntary football conditioning with a, with like a sweatshirt all. or whatever you know sneakers in Hawaii but no why you know so yeah so you got PTSD basically is what you're saying for freaking whistle drills I don't know about the but that that actually is that is a good comparison what you're saying is this minor thing which is actually a voluntary thing that you enjoy doing right and you're doing it because you want to do it and it it's actually a positive thing because you're getting healthier by doing it that would make you wake up in the middle night startled. So yes.

So yeah, you want to imagine what it's like when you get mortared, when you're freaking sitting in a foxhole in a artillery barrage for hours. And by the way, the artillery barrage, what you know is going to happen is, is what you know.

I don't know if I explain this. When the artillery and the mortar barrage is happening and you're sitting in your foxhole waiting to die, what is also happening that you know is happening is that the enemy is approaching so that when the artillery barrage stops, what you're going to do then is going to have grenades hucked at you and people trying to jump in your fox or will kill you.

That's so there's this. And then if you make it do that, as they try and withdraw, they're going to hit you with mortars again and artillery. So there's no comfort in any of it. And then not to mention, and we could go on and on about this stuff, but then not to mention all the like dead bodies

and body parts and all this stuff that not only did you see and get kind of the initial, what do you call the initial shock of it now you then you get acclimated to it now that's rolling in the back of your head too so this is all just part of this one big horror that just gets burned into you you know so yeah then you come back yeah and and what's awesome is you know Ted and unfortunately Ted passed away but you know what what amazing life had five kids six kids uh did all kinds of cool stuff was a teacher ran an outdoor program worked for the post office like lived an awesome life who stayed married to laura by the way his whole time she passed away as well just uh

pretty amazing that he came back from all that and carried on with the rest of his life there was a few parts that i always like feel one that you know when they're talking repetitively over and over how like cold it is how dirty i am how how's how all this and all that and then when they to like the shower you can kind of feel the relief you know like with it when you're just listening to it's Christmas miracle he's to calling it this is a miracle I felt it I felt it bro what is um fire for effect fire for effect like what is that what's a different so you remember how I was talking about bracketing yeah so my first one went long yeah my second one went short my third shot hits you so now things are dialed in so now I'm gonna pass the word fire for effect so if I'm the

forward observer. And so I can see where the things are impacting and the mortar team can't. So the mortar team, he sends one long. I tell them short 350 or short 300. And then they hit one short and I say add 150. Now it's going to hit. They add 150. Now it hits the target.

And now I say like on target fire for effect. And now you just start dropping on that. Okay. So what does the for effect mean as opposed to? You're hitting the target. You're hitting the target. Okay. Effect, yep, you're hitting the target.

You're firing for the effect that we want, which is that we want the target to be destroyed. Oh, okay. Because there's like... Because the first fire is like a rate. You don't call it this, but essentially it's... I give you the coordinates and I tell you to fire. I just want to see where it's going to land.

Oh, it went long. Drop 300. So you, the mortar team drops 300. Now it falls 300 or 150 meters short. Cool. Add 150. Boom. Hits where I want.

On target. fire for effect yeah so these little additional kind of terms kind of designate or indicate what the role of the fire is you know because there's like suppressive fire there's cover fire there's what else fire and cover fire kind of the same yeah that's what it feels like interchangeably somewhat and then what else there's you know all the difference there's freaking fire for effect yeah fire effect add it to your add it to your notes so so like where you might use that in everyday terminology is let's say you were arguing with someone and you find that little that

little chink in their armor fire for effect you know what I'm saying yes I do know what you're saying so you like try something oh this one didn't really land oh you get that look on their face fire for effect yes exactly okay yeah I like it yeah I mean I understand so yeah so even you know in advertising too right you do you oh yeah I mean not to get kind of more real boring no we went from Super boring, yeah. But still it's the same thing, where it's like you try this ad, yeah, not that much of a lot. And then you try, oh, wait, this one had a big response.

And so you just fly that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the way it works. I understand. Yeah. Okay. Fire for effect. Yeah.

So there you go. Thank you. Thanks once again to Nina that sent me this book. And maybe Mary Lou, Ted Huffis's daughter perhaps gave her the book. But thank you very much. It was an honor to be able to be able to do. to read and share that story and just amazing amazing family and awesome to be able to read it so thank you with that uh hey if you want to support the podcast and you want to support yourself at the same time

in a in a kind of a big way and look there's luxuries in life yes there's luxuries in life there's times where you don't want to wash the ulcers on your legs because you don't want to waste any water sure and then there's drinking them all like the other into the spectrum. Just imagine it. Imagine what it'd be like if you just got to crack open it, like you're in Korea. And you just get to crack open a mulk. Oh, yeah.

So good. We got a bunch of stuff, joccofuel.com. Go and get some supplements. Go and get some hydration. Get some greens. Have you been doing the greens creatine combo? No. I have not pulled the trigger.

Let me highly recommend that. Yeah. Still. Okay. And you know, K dog. Yeah. He's been on the creatine. Yeah.

He's on creatine train in kind of a big way. Yeah, yeah. And he's really helping him out. He got the three wheels up. Three dogs. Yep. So it's fun. So that and I don't know if he was downplaying it.

I don't know how much because he, you know, said that. Okay, so he benched just for everyone doesn't know, 315. If you lift weights and you say 315, we all know what that is. 315, a.k.a, three wheels, three plates. Yeah. Now, technically it's six plates. Yeah, yeah, but no one says that. Exactly.

That would mean you're 12. Exactly. So 315 pounds on the bench. That's usually what it means. Even if someone just rolls in, say, I got 315, no context at all, you know he got 315 on the bench. You don't know how many times or whatever, but usually it's the first time you got it for whatever the reps usually want. That's it. This happened for KDog for the first time.

First time ever, by the way. That's a massive, massive deal. I didn't know that. Yeah. So, yeah, good on him. But he definitely is crediting. I mean, obviously you credit discipline, you credit hard work. But he's throwing some at the creatine.

Yeah. That's what you said. It's a real thing, man. Creatine is real. It's one of them, I think it's actually not one of, I think it's the most tested supplements there is. Yeah. And it's, it's not just good for your muscle recovery too. It's like, it's good for your cognitive capacity.

It's good for everything. So get yourself some creatine. I mix it with greens in the morning. That's what I've been doing. Yeah. Mulk. Hey, the Mulk coffee scenario. Yeah.

People are way into that. Like, it's, Awesome. Yeah. Cause we put, what we did was we put protein into a delicious coffee protein drink. Yeah. So you get 95 milligrams of caffeine and 30 milligrams of, or sorry, 30 grams of protein. It's kind of a game changer for a lot of people.

And I'm talking about coffee lovers. I'm talking about people like Laif Babin. You know what I mean? Laif Babin's like, he's a coffee dude. You know dudes in the Navy drink coffee? Yeah. I mean, dudes in all services, but in the Navy, the reason you drink a lot of coffee in the Navy's because you have access to it like you're on a ship you're not in the field oh for

so if you're the regular Navy dude they got you got you're getting coffee yeah if you're in the Army or the Marine Corps you might be in the field you're not getting coffee that's just the way it is true so cops like coffee too cops like coffee too but Laif coffee all there and the reason you you'll be with Laif like doing something and he'll do all stop getting coffee you know what I mean like hey we got this thing we're doing yeah cool I'm going to get coffee right now you could be needing to a flight or something yeah we only got this much amount of time okay I'm gonna get coffee yeah he's getting coffee so he's a coffee from kind of a connoisseur yeah

yeah and he tried that malt coffee and he was just down for the cause everyone's everyone is my my wife actually yeah oddly I technically so my wife's from England so she's technically a tea drinker but the coffee that she likes she likes kind of the Americanized kind of yeah the delicious coffee yeah fully this is one of those like you know what I'm the opposite Oddly, my daughter's opposite of me, which was like your wife, who likes the deliciousness. She likes the coffee flavor, but she's not down for that coffee beef. So like, you know when you drink, I drink black coffee or like a little bit of chocolate, like flavor or whatever?

But I'm like down for that. So I don't drink as much of the milk coffee. I drink the banana and the chocolate. But when I taste it, I'm like, yeah, I dig it, man. This is it. This is what everyone has been looking for. If you look at a bell curve. Yeah.

I think if you look at a bell curve, the one side of the bell curve is extreme coffee. Like black coffee just I just want love coffee flavor other end the bell curve is I hate coffee I think we landed as good as you can possibly land on the flavor Yeah where people in the maximum amount of that spectrum Mm-hmm are gonna be down for the cost oh yeah this is basically what it is Most people I think I think most people like coffee flavor but don't like coffee Like kind of like we all love chocolate, but bro you ever tasted real chocolate like without the sugar in the milk if you get Even if you get 95 plus percent chocolate, it's rough.

Yeah, Trey tastes the powder. I'm not talking about like the powder for hot chocolate. I'm saying the baking chocolate. Oh, yeah, taste that, bro. It's like, bro. It's almost like. I just got three bros out of you with nothing. You're like, br, br, bro, that's how much it impacts.

Bro, what do you guys even do it? But at the same time, it's same thing as coffee where, you know, you taste it. You're like, you know what? I taste some good flavor. there I wish it didn't taste like this. I wish it tasted how I can kind of sense that it could taste like and then they made chocolate, uh, milk chocolate. Yeah, sugar and milk. Oh yeah. So they did that with coffee. Same exact thing, right? Sugar and milk. Same idea. We'll say. Same thing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. So can so can basically the milk is the healthy version of that.

So I see what you did. You're like this would be this would be delicious if it wasn't so not delicious. You see what I'm saying, but the flavor is in there. So Pumi just kind of brought it out. Go to joccofuel.com and get this. Get some joint warfare. Get what you need. Get what you need. You can also go to Wawa. The mulk showing up in Wawa, by the way.

Vitamin Shop, G&C, military commissaries, Afees, Haniford, Dash, Marital, Wake Fern, Chop, Right, H.E.B. Down in Tejas. Tejas are in the game. Meyer, same thing in the game. Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields. Small gyms everywhere. And by the way, if you got a gym,

Jiu-Jitsu gym, maybe a CrossFit gym, maybe just a powerlifting gym, gym, an Olympic lifting gym, a yoga gym. I don't know what kind of gym you got. But if you go to a gym, tell your people there to email JFsales at joccofuel.com so we can get you hooked up and you can take care of your customers. If you're a customer, you can get taken care of by having the goods, joccofuel.com, get it. Also, you might need clothing, right?

You might need more than one pair of socks that you're rotating. And it's bloody, right? Sure. You don't have to live that way. You don't have to live that way. You have to live that way with your pants with your t-shirts, with your jih T-suit-Gi. Dude, there's times, hey, look, back in the day,

having a jih-tis-tig was kind of like, having more than one jih-tih T-tis-a-gis a little bit of a luxury. Oh, yeah. Big time. So it doesn't have to be that way. And the other thing is, when you, back in the day, if you had one of those old, crappy jih-tugi-gees, washing it was an evolution.

Yeah. It was like an event. Like, the way it was going to take, You had to put the freaking thing on a heavy load. It was going to take nine hours to dry. It just suck. Sometimes we were just off. You know on the washing machines,

they have like unbalanced load. Yeah. You had a 50% chance of having unbalanced load with the ghee. Doesn't have to be like that because now you can get an origin gea. Origin ghee. You get origin jeans. You can get origin pants, just regular pants. We got these Moab pants just came out.

Yeah. You probably didn't get it. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, actually John from or, uh, John, so he was texting me. He was like, hey, your wife's going to be kind of mad with how big this load of origin stuff I just sent me. I was like, yes. She's just going to have to be mad.

OriginUSA.com. Get yourself some stuff. American made. Hey, look, by the way, American Made. Here we are. We just read a book about fighting the Chinese communists. And go look at North Korea compared to South Korea. And you tell me that freedom is not what we should strive for and what we should protect

and what we should embrace. And yet if you buy most clothing items right now, you know where they're made? They're made in communist China by slave labor. So don't support that. Don't support that system. Instead, support freedom. Support America. Support freedom and democracy around the world.

How do you do that? You support that economy. OriginUSA.com. Fight the war against the communists through purchasing American-made products. manufactured here. The material is from here. The whole, it's as American as American can get. A pair of origin

jeans cannot be any more American. It's the most American thing. American genes. By origin. It's true. The most American thing that you can own. I'm trying to think if there's anything more. There's probably not. Hey, it's definitely, it's definitely

even with whatever other things might be at the top level. You can't get, you can't get above it. No. You can't get Because genes are American. And then these are American cotton. American brass on the on the rivets. American zipper. American thread and American hands.

So there's no more American that you could get. So basically if Origin made an actual American flag, then maybe. That would be the same deal, right? That might be one level up because it's an American flag. But let's face it. When you see jeans, do you not think America? Yeah, it's kind of on the line of synonymous. OriginUSA.com gets off.

It's true. Also, Jock has a store called JoccoStore. JoccoStore.com. Representing discipline equals freedom. Look, a lot of us like to do that from time to time. I'm doing it right now. That's true. This is where you can get your stuff.

Jocco store.com. Shirts, hats, hoodies, you know, you know the deal. Also, there is the shirt locker. If you don't know what that is, some people, they don't know. Here's what it is. It's a subscription scenario. You get a new shirt and new design, we'll say, every month. You know, you got that consistency.

the designs are a little bit different still on the path but a little bit different kind of a different way to fly the flag right it's a different flag but yeah it's it's definitely one worth line the discipline yeah yeah so you know okay so you know the idea of I'm give you gonna put what do you call it put you on game I think it's okay or wait put out word okay okay yeah word okay put out word okay to you to us to the people too so you know the idea of sugar coated lies right I was real struggling with like how could that look kind of cool you know you figured it I think I figured it out what is it I can't do you can't tell you can't have to see but I think

that's gonna be the March shirt okay and I think it works because you can't just put a donut on there you know a donut sugarwood lies I mean cool maybe maybe but I think you know you won up it it didn't feel right yeah actually a couple of levels I think couple levels I think so but are there layers there are layers to it yes of course okay it's a good one anyway drugstore dot com so we can get also get yourself some steak you don't have to eat sea rations No you have to eat spoiled sea rations I even read that part of the book part of the book

He's they get done with this big Battle yeah And he's it's over and now he's like great now I can freaking break into my sea ratins His sea ratins rations rations can was hit by shrapnel and was just gone Just like horrible day You don't have to go through that Don't have to be like get yourself some steak go to Colorado craftbeef.com or go to primalbeef.com and get yourself some American steak that's what we're doing awesome companies awesome people support America primal beef

com Colorado craft beef dot com do you make your own step I forget if you said you do or don't do you make your own steak I do sometimes but mostly it's either my wife my daughter my son and not me most of the time most time not you yeah oh yeah actually I do remember that night yeah and we're bro about how Laif is like oh layf if he's making steak that's like a three day or deal yeah three day That he loves every second of it. Right, right. That's the same.

I'm a thosome. You know, like he's into it for three days, by the way. Hey, look, Sean Glass has the technique, you know, for it's what is it? I think my wife might have modified it a little bit. But basically it's you make your hot pan. This is for a pan cooked. Yeah, yeah. Cast iron pan, hopefully.

But three minutes, one side, three minutes the other side, two, two, one one. Okay. Okay, so that's like a technique. but Laf will be like so for me that's like too much effort what is that thing what's three and three is six plus two and two is is is four so now we're talking 10 and then one and one we're talking 12 minutes yeah that to me is kind of excessive effort for me and I'm like I'd rather just open up a can of get a tin chicken is just mix it with mayonnaise in one minute and 30 seconds and I'm going to move it yeah it's true but even then that's like yeah you got to be into it it's an art to it for sure it's an artisan kind of scenario where yeah if you're going three what it's three three two two then you now you got to regulate heat now you got to know like hey how hot is this pan oh because there's all kinds of stuff you can't just turn it on and be like okay the pan's like hot and be like two two one time we're

gonna this is a while ago and like we were gonna layf was in town and we were gonna cook he's gonna cook steak and I said cool and then he he looked at my grue's like why don't I get you a new grill like my grill like my grill like this is pre-trager times you know this is back in the day. He's like, well, I can just run down and pick up. I'm like, bro, you've got to get a freaking new grill for me. But that's, that's what he's thinking. Yeah. He's like, hey, we're going to do this. Let me just get you. I think I don't remember. He may have actually literally gotten me a new grill. Yeah. I don't remember. I mean, it wasn't, I probably

was just like the Home Depot gig that you can get for whatever, 200 bucks or something. Or maybe you got one of those charcoal ones or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's how all right, Texas, Texas barbecue. That's like part of the culture. Obviously he's into it. I dig it, man. I'm with, I mean, probably not to that depth, but for sure, I'm down. Well, listen, one thing that's going to make your stakes taste good, Primalbeef.com, Colorado Craftby.com. Check them out. Also, subscribe to the podcast.

Also, jocco underground.com. We're about to record a new one of those. Also, YouTube, subscribe to the channels. Also, psychological warfare. Also, Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. Written a bunch of books. This book, like I said, waiting for the blessed light of dawn. I looked on the internet.

There was, I found one copy on Amazon. I found one copy on eBay. I didn't buy either one of them. So here's this first. Go get it. Otherwise, you know, who knows what will happen there. But also I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've also written a bunch of kids books.

Check those books out if you want to. Eschleonfront. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com. If you want to learn about leadership, you want to gain those skills. We also have an online training protocol. You can go to Extreme Ownership.com and you can learn how to go through life in a better way. Just have advantages at every turn.

That's what we're teaching that. Advantage is at every turn. I don't care what you're doing. We got you. Go to Extreme Ownership.com. Check that out. If you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their family's gold star family check out.

Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization really, truly helping out veterans. And, you know, I said that during the podcast. We should make sure we're taking care of our veterans. Mama Lee does just that. She gives them. Medical help that they're not going to get otherwise. So if you want to help out that organization

or you want to volunteer or you want to donate, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org. Also, don't forget about Micah. He is up there with Heroes and Horses.org, taking vets up into the mountains so they can find their soul again. He does an awesome job with it. Also, Jimmy May's organization,

beyond the brotherhood.org. Check that one out as well. If you want to connect with us, I'm at Jocko. Echo is at Echo Charles. Just watch out. for the algorithm, which is, by the way, a psychotic evil thing, watch out for it. Don't let it get you. And to those of us, to those of us that have served, but more importantly, to those of people who have served, are serving.

If you were a vet, thank you. And especially today, this day, a special deep thank you to those of you that fought in the Korean War. so-called forgotten war, we will not forget. Thanks once again to the Hoff-Sys family for allowing me to get this book. Nina, thank you for sending it to me. And thanks to those veterans of that war. Thanks also to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and all other first responders, thank you for your service here at home, and to everyone else out there. Be thankful. Be thankful. Be thankful for a warm bed or be thankful for your air conditioning.

Be thankful for a hot shower. Be thankful for a hot meal. Be thankful for clean socks. Be thankful for the opportunities that we have. Opportunities that were bestowed upon us through suffering and sacrifice. Be thankful for those that gave us this gift. Thankful for men like Ted. Hofsus, be thankful for your freedom and do not squander it.

And until next time, Zekko and Jocko.