BK>>  You and Hulett and all others who never saw open battle should
 BK>>  feel that way when such as John speaks.

 JM> Exactly where did you see (in person) open battle?

 You really are out of it, aren't you. I have heard of the Lost
 Battalion, the Battle of the Bulge, the "Go for Broke" regiment,
 as have most of you. Have you ever heard of "The Hell Fighters"?

 Yet I had not heard of Heartbreak Ridge. Then John was in a
 discussion with a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, and
 mentioned he is a veteran of the battle of Heartbreak Ridge.

 I looked it up. I now know about Heartbreak Ridge. As much as
 you can by reading about it. I gave a link last time,
 snipurl.comheartbreak2

 I read about it. I am in awe of what they did, and those who
 fought there.

 You trivialize their service.

 Perhaps you shouldn't look it up. You might have to actually
 feel something.

 I don't pretend to be one of them. I at least know enough
 to understand that none of us know anything much at all about
 this.

 **************************************************************************
 I received a letter in 1982 from Seymour "Hoppy" Harris, a
 machine gunner with Company H, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry,
 Second Indianhead Division. The letter, postmarked Macedon, New
 York, was short and to the point. I didn't answer for several
 months. His return letter started a chain of events which drew
 me into the Korean War in a way I never imagined.


      "Dear Hal,

      We were in reserve when we got the word to saddle up. We were
      going back on line. When I reported to the 1st Lieutenant I was to
      go up with as support weapons, I asked him, 'What's the deal,
      Lieutenant? How's it look?'"

      "Nothing to it," he said. "Seems they got a bulge in
the line, we
      will straighten it out. Piece of cake."

 ...

      "The papers called it "Heartbreak Ridge."
 ...

 Harris became a symbol of the Korean War to me. He joined the
 23rd Infantry for the first time at an obscure crossroads town
 called Chip-yong-ni on the morning of February 13, 1951.

 Hoppy Harris, an untried replacement, was on one of two trucks
 full of supplies and replacements. Unknown to Harris, the trucks
 would be the last vehicles into Chip-yong-ni before almost 4500
 American, French and Korean soldiers of the 23rd Regimental
 Combat Team were surrounded by elements of five Chinese
 divisions.


 Harris described his second night of combat.

 ...
      "I admit I must have dozed, because I recall snapping my head up
      and looking up the draw. I see the Chinese coming, but at first it
      doesn't register on me. I look away. I thought, God, they look
      like ghosts! The draw is full of them. They are about 100 yards
      from the wire. They come silently, like little clowns. There is no
      chatter. The night is still as death. On and on they come."

      "The first Chinese hit the wire. Sgt. O'Shell fires, and it is
      like every  weapon is wired together. They all go off at once.
      Tracers like laser beams streak out and I see them cut clean
      through the Chinese. I hear them scream, and they go down like
      stalks of corn before a corn cutter. It is only seconds and the
      mortars start to rain in. Artillery follows, and the draw becomes
      an orange-grey hell. The noise is deafening. Beyond description. I
      am frozen, spellbound by the sight and sound of it. Slowly the
      battle subsides, the Chinese pull back."

      "I really have no idea how many we killed that night. I heard 500
      or more. All I know is that the draw was littered with dead as far
      as I could see."

 ...

 Ryan and I walked through the town at sunrise the next morning.
 School children filled the streets, making long shadows on the
 pavement. Thirty-eight years a go, on these very streets, shells
 exploded in one of the most vicious battles of the Korean War,
 or any war for that matter.

 The siege of Chip-yong-ni was broken on February 15, 1951, when
 tanks of the 5th Cavalry Regiment approached from the southwest
 and entered the perimeter. Thousands of Chinese bodies littered
 the area around the small town. Ammunition was down to a handful
 of rounds for each soldier, and the situation was beyond
 desperate.

 The successful defense of Chip-yong-ni by combined United
 Nations forces under Colonel Paul Freeman broke the back of the
 massive Chinese winter offensive in that sector of central
 Korea.

 ...

                      Return To Heartbreak Ridge

                  Return To Heartbreak Ridge is the story of a sons'
                  search for his fathers' past, and a series of letters
                  received from Korean War Veteran SFC Seymour "Hoppy"
                  Harris, a gunner with Company H, 23d Infantry
                  Regiment, 1951. It is a complex story.

              ...

                  The memories I have of Korea, I will take to my grave
                  with me. The nightmares will no doubt remain until I
                  am older than dirt. No amount of talk or counseling
                  will do any good. Especially if it is by some
                  birdbrain. They have never been where you have been.
                  Never felt what you have felt. Never seen what you
                  have seen. Never heard the terrible scream of a man
                  who has received a fatal wound and knows it. Never
                  seen a man with his guts hanging down around his
                  knees, the streaming down to the ground until he is
                  tripping on them.

                  Or sat in the dark and every few minutes taking the
                  pulse of a gut shot kid laying in the lonely darkness
                  next to you. You feel his body quiver and then feel it
                  go still. Without taking the pulse again, you know he
                  is dead. Dead at 19, and you sit there in the darkness
                  and sob your heart out. You curse the futility of war.
                  You curse the sonofabitches who got you in such a mess.

                 ...

                  I had that experience at Heartbreak Ridge one night,
                  and I wish the bastards asking me questions had been
                  there too. But then what good would that do?

                  Hal, my wife says she know how to fight a war. She
                  ought to, she says. She's heard me doing it enough in
                  my sleep.

                  When I was a patient in Syracuse, all the doctors,
                  nurses, and what-nots were amazed at what a graphic
                  description I could give of something I had seen. They
                  wondered how I was able to do it. They figured after
                  all those years I should have forgotten. But I told
                  them it was simple. The things I told them were burned
                  into my memory.

                  Have the warm blood of a fellow soldier hit you in the
                  face and watch him kick his life out on the frozen
                  ground and see if you forget.

                ...

                  I told one doctor about something that happened to me
                  in Korea, and he went home and had a nightmare. At
                  least he has some idea what it is like.

              ...

                  was the worst war ever. Nam was no worse than Korea,
                  WW-1, or WW-2. They are all just different versions of
                  hell. Men die needlessly, bleed their young lives out
                  onto the ground. Death is a very personal experience.
                  It will never change.

              ...

 Today, Bailey is a retired General Motors automobile worker
 living in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. The day of May 17, 1951, stands
 out forever in his mind. Bailey wrote,

      "The early morning of May 17 seemed different. The relaxed mood
      (of earlier days) was gone. About one hour after daybreak, one of
      our observation planes went over our position and on over Hill
      1051. He was not gone long before he was back over us. He dropped
      us a message. It said, 'Enemy out in front of you in regiment
      strength.'"

      "He flew back over 1051. He was back shortly with another message,

      'Maybe two divisions of enemy.'"

      "He made another trip over 1051. His last message said, 'I can't
      see the end of them.'"
 ...

 Hoppy Harris wrote a long narrative of his experience at the
 battle now know as the "May Massacre." On May 18, all units
 along the Hill 1051 ridgeline mass were overrun, and orders were
 given to fall back to the low ground. During an attempt by the
 23rd Infantry to escape, the main road south was blocked by the
 Chinese. American soldiers blew up the ammo dump, destroyed
 vehicles, and set out on a brutal night march under fire with
 only what could be carried by each man. Wounded were carried on
 improvised stretchers by men stumbling in the dark.

 ...
 **************************************************************************

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn{at}sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

 * Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg]
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a