I hadn’t fired my weapon since leaving Koto-ri.
Warm tents and hot food, and who knows maybe a hot shower awaited us. We’d made it. I wanted to scream, dance, and thank everyone, but first I’d sleep for a week.
But before I rested, there was something I had to do.
Hamhung, South Korea
Dear Mrs. Mattson,
My name is Mick Mackenzie, an eighteen-year-old Marine whom God blessed by putting me in the same platoon as your husband. Gunny Sergeant Mattson, with the exception of my ex-Marine father, was the finest man I’ve ever known. He was like a father to everyone in the platoon, including the lieutenant. He stood between us and fear; a shield, a role model of knowledge and courage, our leader, our hope.
Though he always advised me not to get close to my fellow Marines because it was both painful and dangerous; he did. He was close to all of us and knew all of our names.
He was my best friend.
I would not be writing this letter if I hadn’t met Gunny. He kept me and many others alive.
I was a member of his fire team a few miles south of Hagaru-ri, North Korea, the day I lost my best friend as he was leading us out of hell.
I think he’d want you to know that he didn’t suffer. I sat in the snow on the side of a mountain and held the finest man I’ve ever known until I ran out of tears.
I can’t imagine your grief, but I want you to know Gunny will live on within all of us who knew him.
When I get home, and my chances are good thanks to your husband, I’ll write you. If you ever need anything, please contact me.
Respectfully,
Mick Mackenzie
Chapter Forty-One
My departure from North Korea was hastened by the Chinese. Small groups of the enemy caught our rear guard and tried to delay us so their pursuing armies could catch us. We pushed through, around, and over them. Just as well; I wanted to get off North Korean soil as soon as possible.
After a brief memorial service at the First Marine Division Cemetery, in Hungnam, to honor those Marines who had died since the Wonsan landing, I was hustled on board the USNS General Collins, a military transport ship.
The below decks in the military transport ship were cramped with dirty, stinky, tired, but happy Marines; and I was one of them. Entering the bowels of this ship was like when I was a child and crawled into bed with my parents after a nightmare. I was safe; a word, a feeling I had thought I’d never have again. And I was warm without a coat, without a shirt even.
I had to stand in what seemed to be an endless line to get new clothes. But every second had been worth it just for the clean socks and underwear. I was actually excited about a couple of pairs of BVD’s.
When I finally got to a shower only salt water was left, but it didn’t matter, it was hot. After shaving and dressing in new, warm clothes, I had real eggs, bacon, and toast. Bacon, I actually was eating bacon; as my dad always said, “Bacon makes everything else better.”
Though a little early, the toasty shower, the iron-clad boat, the real food, and abundant warmth, were my best Christmas presents ever. I almost felt human again, almost; for I knew it was an invasion of goodness that wouldn’t be sustained.
The Sea of Japan was choppy, but the pitching and rolling were minor issues compared to the comfort. Shortly after departure, we were invited on deck to watch some fireworks.
Bundled in new, warm clothing, I stood by the rail on the rocking deck and watched Hamhung harbor, with at least if not more capacity than Savannah’s or Charleston’s harbors, blown into a zillion fragments. Row after row of docking, dozens of cranes, and numerous warehouses in an instant became an enormous sky-darkening cloud rising toward the heavens.
Seconds after the blast, both the sound and the shock wave reached us, reverberating against my chest and in my ears.
I had seen a lot of explosions since arriving here, some more close than I cared to recall, but this was by far the largest. Unbelievable, a massive harbor gone in a wink; obliterated. Nothing left but scorched, cratered earth.
Those Marine Corp Engineers were miracle workers. They could both build and destroy just about anything.
I went below deck to the interior warmth. Clumps of Marines were gathered amongst the row after row of tiered bunks. Some played cards or craps, others just talking, some sleeping, many writing. I knew a few of the guys but none well, by choice. There was too much pain associated in knowing people.
Paper and pen in hand, I went to the mess hall. Seated at a table with a cup of coffee, I wrote letters.
I hadn’t felt this human in a long while.
Sea of Japan
Dear Sara,
Thank God, I have left Korea, temporarily at least. I’m on a ship that, other than your kisses, is the closest thing to Heaven I’ve ever known; hot showers, clean clothes, abundant warmth, and great food.
Scuttlebutt is we’re heading to a place called Pusan. I’m not sure when we’ll get there, how long we’ll stay, or what’s there. I’ll write you upon our arrival and tell you more.
How are you? Are you still suffering from morning sickness? Does it hurt to have your stomach stretched? Has the baby kicked you yet?
As you can tell I don’t know much about having a baby. But I think I’ll be a good dad; I want to be.
How’s life with Mom and Dad? Are you sleeping in my old room? I hope Mom got rid of all my stuff.
I wish I was there. I’d love to hold you, kiss you, and just smell you. I often get out your letters to smell them. It’s almost like you were here; if only that could be.
I think of you almost all the time. But lately something strange has happened. This may sound weird, but I’m having trouble remembering how you look. I can see your face, but your features aren’t clear. It’s crazy, or maybe I’m crazy, but it’s true. I haven’t talked to anyone about it to see if they’ve experienced anything like it. First of all, I don’t know anyone that well, and secondly they would probably send me to the loony farm.
This letter must sound stranger and stranger to you as you read it. I’m surrounded by thousands of guys, and yet I don’t know anyone very well; but that’s just the way it is.
While I’m on the subject, would you please send me another picture of you? The one I have is dog-eared, cracked, and dirty as if it had been through a war.
Before I met you, I never knew that love hurt so much; but it’s a good hurt.
I will come home to you, Sara.
Give Mom, Dad, and Jeffie hugs and write,
Love,
Mick
Just as I finished writing my letter, and mailing it, mail call was held. I received only one letter, from my parents. Odd.
Mick,
We miss you you and love you beyond words.
I’ve got some news for you, so I’ll just get right to it.
Your father and I talked and decided we had to tell you this. I don’t know how to say it delicately or explain it . . . Sara’s gone. She left yesterday and never returned.
We feared you’d write her and then worry since she wasn’t responding to your letters.
It’s best you know the truth.
Your dad went to your Savannah apartment today, thinking she may have gone there. After all you and Sara had paid the rent through the end of the year.
Sara wasn’t there, but all the furniture was. He said the place looked the same as when you two were living in the apartment. There was food in the pantry, and the heat was turned on.
Sara had obviously left in a hurry for a lot of her clothes were still in the closet.
He found an envelope on the night stand in the bedroom addressed to you.
I hope you don’t mind, we opened it. It was a single small piece of paper. Scribbled on it were the words, “I’m sorry.”
That’s all we know for now. But we’ll keep on looking.
Dad’s going to move all the apartment’s contents into our garage for the time being. And we’ll cancel your lease on th
e apartment.
I know this just sounds like Mom talk, but don’t let Sara’s leaving bring you down. If you two are meant to be, it will work out. That’s how life is. You just concentrate on taking care of yourself and coming home safe. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.
Be safe, son.
We miss you and love you so.
Love,
Mom
All of my joy and relief of getting out of Korea alive and in one piece sagged and crumbled away. The clingy words from the mountain climb near Funchilin Pass returned. Were Sara and I ‘startin’ to stop’?
Chapter Forty-Two
The engines’ pulse of the USNS General Collins rumbled through the steel structure of the ship as I cleaned my BAR.
Unfortunately, the task didn’t divert my mind, Sara, Sara, Sara. Fortunately, I could clean my rifle in the dark.
Rifle cleaned and stowed, I stretched out on my bunk. My full stomach and exhausted body finally overcame my concern for Sara, and I slept.
A nameless replacement from the bunk above me shook me awake. We’d arrived at a place called Pusan on the southern coast of South Korea.
At mid-day, I disembarked USNS General Collins in my new uniform, stiff boots, and heavily insulated winter coat. The temperature was just above freezing, and it was raining. If I hadn’t had a stuffed duffle bag on one shoulder and my BAR slung on the other, I would’ve draped the heavy coat over my shoulders versus worn it. If nothing else, the ‘frozen Chosin’ had toughened me to the elements.
Sergeants herded us to trucks, and we were driven through the city. What little I could see of the town out of the back opening of the canvas-covered truck were Korean people. Mobs of stoney-faced civilians lined the street looking at what had to be hundreds of passing trucks and tanks.
I thought about how I would feel if our roles were reversed. Thousands of foreign soldiers rolling through Bluffton, my country divided and engulfed in war, my future in the hands of strangers. I shook off the thought. I had enough to think about.
Just out of the town, the rain turned to snow, slowing our progress.
I spent the long bouncing truck ride thinking about Sara. Why would she leave? I thought she loved me. Where would she go? The only people who may know where she had gone were her husband’s family. And even if they knew where she was, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t tell me.
Sara was gone with my baby, our baby, and I didn’t have a clue how to find her. Had something happened between her and my parents? I doubted that. Mom would’ve told me.
Had her husband’s family somehow forced her to leave? She loved me. Somehow, someway, she’d have written me and told me, if she could.
She loved me, of that I was certain.
Why, why, why?
Ten thousand miles from home and people there were deciding my life, my future without my input.
Hell, the same thing was going on here as well.
I was nothing but a pawn in the uncertain hands of fate.
In the early morning of December Seventeenth, we arrived at a bivouac area north of the city of Masan; eight days before Christmas.
What a Merry fucking Christmas this would be.
Masan, South Korea
Dear Mom and Dad,
Yes, I’m out of North Korea, which I am thankful for, though it doesn’t seem to be that important now.
Any word from Sara?
Any idea why she left?
Did she seem unhappy?
Was she having problems with the pregnancy?
Is something wrong with her parents?
Did she go home to Wilmington, Ohio? This may seem crazy, but I’m not sure if her maiden name is Wiggs or Venturini? It didn’t seem important before.
There has to be a reason. We’re in love. We’re having a baby. We have plans for when I come home, family plans, a life together. There has to be some reason.
God help me, I have no clue as to how to find her. And being here . . . well what can I do?
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how often the hope of a family life with Sara and my baby kept me alive in this insanity. I need that purpose, a family to come home to; I’m sure Dad understands. He had to have the same drive, the same resolve.
Please. Please help me.
Love,
Mick
Chapter Forty-Three
The next day, what was left of my old platoon was mustered, again sized to forty-eight men thanks to replacements. We were being sent east on patrol, toward a town called Sapajong-ni. We had been briefed there were enemy guerrillas in the area.
Although the last thing I wanted was an engagement with guerrillas, I needed something to refocus my mind on before I went crazy worrying about Sara.
As I eyed the young faces in our platoon, my eyes were drawn to a Marine waving at me. I had to blink several times because the man looked like Tony Sculini. He was Tony. Tony was alive. Joy forced its way through my depression. Skinny little Tony, my friend, had made it out of North Korea.
I smiled and waved back. I’d have to wait until we had a rest break to talk to him and find out what happened. What a refreshing occurrence; someone I cared about finally came back into my life in this hell-hole versus leaving permanently.
Though the snow had stopped, the ground and surrounding hills were white. We divided into four sixteen-men squads, one leading, two flanking, and one in the rear, a pseudo-Roman square. Unlike the Romans, we were single-file with three or four-step spacing, walking down the center of a road in case of mines. Our flanks were on either side of the two-wheel-tracks road.
Tony and I were again separated.
We were on the lookout for the enemy or any traces thereof, such as footprints in the snow of large groups of men.
I trudged along in the lead group, BAR held at ready, my head swiveling from one side to the other, like some kind of wind-up doll. But I was seeing nothing but a memory, a car-ride with Sara and maybe the making of our baby.
Her sneaky departure made no sense. Her last letter said things had changed, and she may have to leave. But what had changed?
All the hours we had spent together talking, planning, loving. Her leaving was beyond comprehension.
But I’d always found Sara level headed. She was driven more by logic than emotion. She had to have had a damned good reason for bailing out with no word, no goodbye to anyone; particularly me. I know she loved me enough not to treat me this way. She—something changed around me, I glanced forward, and I was just a step from colliding with the guy in front of me. The platoon had stopped. We were on the outskirts of a small village tucked in a valley near a frozen stream.
“Mackenzie, front and center,” someone yelled.
The gunny sergeant motioned me to the head of the column.
I shook off my thoughts and trotted to the front.
“Mackenzie, you and these other three men,” a young lieutenant said, nodding at three recruits, “check out the village. Word is it’s a guerilla refuge. So be on your toes. Just don’t be shooting any civilians.”
I think his name was Powers or Habers, or something like that. I didn’t know, nor cared. But I doubted if he’d ever fired his weapon at a person.
My fingers found my talisman, Dad’s lucky shell, in my pants pocket.
Just what I needed in my state of mind; some wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant selected me to go into a possible death trap with three greenies.
Fuck.
Chapter Forty-Four
As the four of us walked beside a sloping tracked, dirt road to the small village, I found myself re-checking the magazine in my BAR. The same magazine that I already knew was full.
This was not good. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for investigating a known hostile village. I was mentally wounded. My focus was skewed. The once overpowering, adrenaline-spewing need to survive was low on fluids, and leaking. And my nerves were very much aware of my vulnerability.
We stopped a few hundred yards from the
hamlet. At my count there were twenty huts of varying shapes and sizes made from mud, stone, tree limbs, and anything else that might keep out the cold.
All twenty huts had smoke coming out of their make-shift chimneys. All were apparently occupied. How in the hell were we supposed to know a civilian from a guerilla? A concern that jacked my nerves up five or six notches; approaching the turn around and run level.
“What are we supposed to do?” asked a big eyed kid next to me. The steam from his voice shook like his words.
“We’ve got to check out each hut and make sure there are no surprises in them,” I said.
“Surprises?” another kid with bad acne asked.
“Yeah, like enemy guerrillas, you dumb ass,” said the third kid.
“Oh,” the kid replied. “Okay, Mister Know-It-All, how will I know which ones are the bad guys?”
“That’s easy,” said the third kid. “The bad guys will try to kill you.”
I blew out a deep breath. “We’ll split up, two on each side of the road. As one pair checks out a hut, the other pair will cover them. Then we’ll switch roles. Got it?”
They nodded, but with no eye contact.
“You,” I motioned at the big-eyed kid, “you come with me. You two take the first hut on the left. Let’s go. And remember what the Lieutenant said, don’t be shooting any non-hostiles. And if there is someone suspicious, don’t start blasting away unless absolutely necessary. I’m sure there are kids in most of these homes.”
The kid with acne kicked the snow. “Why the fuck did I—”
“Can it, Carter,” said the third recruit, the obvious tougher of the three. “You’re a Marine. Time to act like one.”
Mickey's Wars Page 14
