Combat Ineffective

by William Peter Grasso

  But if he put that frustration and the reasons behind it into writing, he knew he could kiss what was left of his career goodbye. Nobody—not in MacArthur’s Tokyo headquarters or the halls of government in Washington—was interested in being told their policies for ensuring the safety of South Korea were delusional and headed for disaster.

  He saw the olive green sedan making its way up the winding road to the house. Once it turned into the circular driveway, there was no mistaking where it had come from and who was in it: the Army staff car had a Fort Ord ID tag on the front bumper and flew a small flag with two silver stars from its front fender.

  It’s got to be General Whitelaw, Jock told himself, and he’s showing up unannounced.

  This smells to high heaven already.

  From inside the house, Jock’s wife Jillian saw the car coming, too. Cursing under her breath, she dropped what she was doing and stormed out to the porch. The car was coming to a stop at the front walk as she said to Jock, “That’s Whitelaw, isn’t it? What in bloody hell does he want?”

  “Whatever it is, Jill, I’m pretty sure we’re not going to like it. I doubt he’s just dropping by to say hello.”

  Major General Jarvis Whitelaw didn’t wait for his driver to open the sedan’s rear door for him. He sprang from the car unassisted and strode purposefully up the walk to the porch.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Whitelaw said. “Jillian, I must say you look lovely as ever. Absolutely radiant.” He took her hand and kissed it. Then he added, “I need to steal a few minutes of your husband’s time if you don’t mind, dear.”

  “Very well, General,” she replied, covering her just-kissed hand with the other as if she couldn’t wait to cleanse it. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Coffee would be wonderful, dear. Cream, two sugars.”

  She disappeared into the house.

  Jock and Whitelaw exchanged a perfunctory handshake and settled into deck chairs. The two curious children—five-year-old Jif and his sister, three-year-old Jane—had sidled up to the porch railing close to the men. They were playing a shy game of peek-a-boo through the bars with this stranger wearing the stars on his shoulders.

  Jock told his son, “Jif, take your sister and go help your mom.”

  “Can’t we stay here with you?” the boy asked. His conspicuous Australian accent startled the general.

  “No, mate,” Jock replied. “Be a good soldier and do as you’re told.”

  Reluctantly, Jif took his sister by the hand. Together, they marched into the house, a platoon of two.

  Once they were inside, Whitelaw said, “You are going to teach that boy to speak proper American, aren’t you?”

  “Give him a little time, sir. He was born and raised in Brisbane, remember? With a very Australian mother. And he’s only been in this country a couple of months.”

  “We were all a little afraid you were going Aussie on us, too, Jock. You spent too long down under in that attaché’s post, my boy. The little stint with KMAG you just wrapped up has gone a long way in getting you back into the fold, though.”

  As he said that, Whitelaw was scanning the opulent home and its spacious grounds. His survey done, he said, “Such a lovely house you’ve got here, Colonel.”

  Jock got the implied inquiry immediately: How the hell does a li’l ol’ bird colonel in Uncle Sam’s Army afford a spread like this?

  Before he could reply, Whitelaw answered his own question: “You certainly married well, son. Very well, indeed. But what did you call that young man of yours? Jip?”

  “No, sir, it’s Jif. We named him John Forbes, after Jill’s father. When he first learned to talk, he shortened it all by himself and took to calling himself Jif.”

  The housekeeper appeared and set a tray of coffee on the end table between the men.

  “Thank you, Juanita,” Jock said.

  Once she was gone, Whitelaw observed, “You’ve got beaner help, too. I must say I’m impressed, Colonel. But don’t let on to my wife or she’ll be so jealous.”

  Jock suppressed a pained smile. Then he said, “With all due respect, sir, you didn’t come here to talk about my house or my kids. If it’s got something to do with this after-action report I’m writing—”

  “Oh, hell…no, Colonel. I don’t give a damn about that report. Neither does Washington. Not anymore.”

  Jock looked surprised to hear that.

  “We’ve been keeping it out of the news for the time being, Jock, but Korea’s gone to hell in a handbasket in the last forty-eight hours. We’ve got an absolute shambles on our hands. The ROKs have already crumbled. Our own troops—the few we’ve got there—are collapsing right behind them. Give those North Korean commies a couple of weeks more and they’ll swallow us all up. It’s looking like Corregidor all over again.”

  Jock slumped in his chair and let out a disgusted sigh. But he couldn’t say he was surprised. The ROKs might have talked a good game, but he was well aware they didn’t have the training, leadership, or equipment to be more than a parade ground army.

  And it seems that no GI who joined up after the last war believes that the US Army might actually be expected to fight. It’s like they’re all on one big, exotic vacation. You can’t blame them, though…MacArthur’s been too busy playing the king of Japan to worry much about soldiering anymore.

  Jock asked, “Can I speak frankly, sir?”

  “Please do.”

  “Everything I saw over there tells me we’d need a massive infusion of American troops—combat-ready troops, not those tourists in GI uniforms under MacArthur’s flag—to defend Korea. But I’m not sure there’s any stomach for that sort of commitment in Washington.”

  “So what are you saying, Jock? It’s a lost cause?”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  “Well, Colonel, you know damn well we just can’t let that happen. Especially since we let China slip away to the commies.”

  “That was another lost cause, sir. We backed the wrong horse again.”

  Whitelaw pretended he didn’t hear that. Shifting to a fatherly tone, he asked, “How’s that leg of yours doing, Jock?”

  There could only be one reason Whitelaw was asking that question. He wanted to know if Jock was fit enough for a field command again.

  “The leg’s fine, General.”

  As lies go, it was a whopper. The leg that had been injured—and then reinjured—during the New Guinea campaign of the last war, that same leg that had escaped amputation only through the act of one surgeon willing to take a chance and buck the Army’s combat medical protocols, had been flaring up again. Its intermittent dull ache and subversive weakness was something he was trying very hard to mask.

  Not sure who I’m fooling, though.

  Whitelaw said, “I’m glad to hear it, Colonel, because what good is a regimental commander without his legs?”

  “You’re offering me a regiment, sir?”

  “Damn right, Jock. Twenty-Sixth Regiment needs itself a new C.O. The man in the job now just isn’t cutting the mustard.”

  “Isn’t that regiment already in Korea, sir?”

  “Damn right again, Colonel. But if we’re going to turn that mess around, we need our best talent in place.”

  “I’m flattered, sir, but I’m a little surprised. I’ve never exactly been one of MacArthur’s favorites.”

  “Things have changed, my boy. MacArthur’s used to having an emperor for an errand boy nowadays, which in his mind makes him God. So he doesn’t trouble himself with the little things anymore. When it comes to the workings of his own command, he doesn’t get into the nuts and bolts of any organization run by somebody wearing less than three stars. But we’re hurting for experienced combat leaders…and you need a job. Sounds like a match made in Heaven to me.”

  From Jock’s perspective, it sounded more like a match made in Hell.

  But it also sounded like a done deal.

  He asked Whitelaw, “When do I need to
leave, sir?”

  “How about yesterday, Jock?”

  *****

  He didn’t have to break the news to Jillian. The entire conversation with Whitelaw had been heard through the open windows.

  As soon as the general left, she’d retreated to her piano without so much as a word. Jock instantly recognized the piece into which she was pouring her heart: Consolation Number Three by Liszt.

  He knew better than to interrupt her.

  She’ll talk when she’s good and ready.

  She was ready more quickly than he’d expected. Ten minutes later, after playing the piece twice, the second rendition far more melancholy than the first, she found him in the kitchen.

  “Just remind me why you stay in the bloody Army, Jock,” she said. There was no hint of anger in her voice, just the steely composure of a woman who’d survived the journey to Hell and back several times during the last war.

  “Do I really need to say it out loud, Jill?”

  “Yes, you do. I need to be reminded why I uprooted our children and moved halfway around the world just so we could watch you leave again.”

  He knew she hadn’t meant to wound him. Still, her words were like a stab from a knife so sharp you didn’t feel it pierce your flesh. He gathered his words and spoke them slowly.

  “I stay because I still haven’t figured out a better way to repay all those men who spilled their blood doing my bidding, Jill.”

  A child’s footsteps broke the silence that had fallen between them. Jif was now standing in the kitchen entryway.

  “Are you going away, Daddy?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, Jif. I’ve been ordered back to Korea.”

  “When will you come home?”

  “As soon as I can, mate. It won’t be long, I’m sure.”

  “But then you’ll leave again, won’t you?”

  Jock thought his heart might break right then and there.

  But his son demanded no answer. Climbing onto a stool, he took an apple from a bowl on the table. Then he walked out without another word, renewing the silence he’d interrupted.

  It was Jillian who broke it this time.

  “They learn so bloody quickly, don’t they, Jock?”

  Wiping away a solitary tear, she added, “Too bloody quickly.”

  Chapter Three

  Seventy-two hours later, Jock stepped off a USAF C-54 from Tokyo at K-2, an airfield near Taegu, South Korea. There was an air of urgency to the operations there but not panic. He’d expected something much worse; from all the loose talk on the flight across the Pacific, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Taegu had already been overrun. But the leading elements of the North Korean Army—the KPA—were still some one hundred miles to the north. He had the choice of waiting around for a courier flight to K-5 at Taejon—whenever that puddle jumper might show up—or be chauffeured in a waiting jeep. He picked the jeep for the eighty-mile trip to 26th Regiment outside Chongju.

  He could tell so much about a combat unit from his first contact with it. A half mile from the regiment’s command post, he encountered its first sentry post. It was occupied by three GIs, none of whom emerged from beneath the ramshackle tarp they’d strung up as cover from the midday sun.

  “Stop the vehicle,” Jock told his driver.

  Approaching the shelter, he asked, “Who’s in charge here?”

  A young PFC stepped forward reluctantly, eyeing the silver eagle on Jock’s collar. He replied with a question of his own: “Aren’t you, sir?”

  “That wasn’t my question, Private. Who is in charge of this outpost?”

  “I guess that’s me, sir.”

  “You guess, Private? You’re not sure?”

  “Nobody’s real sure about anything around here, sir.”

  “Are you sure about what unit you belong to?”

  “Yes, sir. Headquarters Company, Twenty-Sixth Infantry.”

  “Well, that’s a start, Private. Now, why didn’t you challenge me for the password?”

  The GI looked dumbfounded for a moment. Then he replied, “Why, sir? You’re not a gook, are you?”

  “No, I’m not a gook, Private, just your new commanding officer. My name’s Miles. And your name’s going to be at the top of my shit list if you don’t challenge anyone approaching this perimeter, whether they look like a gook or not. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir…but we don’t have the password. Nobody told us one.”

  As first impressions go, Jock thought, this one couldn’t get much worse.

  The second impression didn’t improve things. As the jeep drew closer to the deuce-and-a-half vans that housed the regimental CP, it was apparent that there’d been no serious attempt to conceal most of the vehicles and equipment. As a monument to poor terrain appreciation, a water trailer—adorned with big white stars on all sides—was perched on a hilltop, acting as a marker for the military installation surrounding it. Anyone with a cheap set of binoculars would be able to see it from miles away.

  And if you can see it, you can direct fire on it.

  The capper came as Jock walked into the commander’s van. The colonel he was about to relieve, a much older man, far from physically fit, was sitting in a corner, oblivious to the confusion swirling around him. It was obvious he’d mentally checked out of this command already; the minute his relief arrived, he’d be out the door, straight to the aircraft that would deliver him to the safety of Japan.

  As if that wasn’t plain enough, his seat was a large civilian suitcase, not a GI duffel, travel bag, or field pack like Jock was carrying. It was no different than what someone might pack for a pleasure trip with the wife and kids. This one had been used for such trips, too; it still bore the stickers from an assortment of resort locales. In a combat zone, the suitcase stuck out like a square peg in a round hole.

  “You’re Miles, right?” the colonel said as he struggled to his feet. “Really glad to see you.” Pointing to a harried officer with a telephone in each ear, he added, “Colonel Lewis here can fill you in on whatever you need to know.”

  And then he hurried out of the van to the waiting jeep, lugging that incongruous suitcase. Jock was right on his heels.

  “Before you run off, Ed…it is Ed, right?...how about you fill me in on your estimate of the situation?”

  The departing colonel had already made himself comfortable in the jeep. He replied, “My estimate? It’s simple. We’re fucked. There are a million gooks streaming south who’re going to push us right into the Sea of Japan…unless MacArthur convinces that idiot Truman to drop the A-bomb on them.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a solution, Ed, considering dropping that bomb just might kill us and a whole bunch of friendlies, too. If that’s what you’re waiting for, you’ve been singing from the wrong hymnal.”

  “Not my problem anymore, Miles. But where the hell did you come from, anyway? You’re not one of those pinheads from Washington, are you?”

  Jock laughed. “Hardly. Except for a few days home with my family, I’ve been right here in lovely Korea for the better part of a year.”

  The departing colonel shook his head. “Then you should know better, Miles. A lot better.”

  As the jeep drove off, Jock told himself, Let’s hope I do know better…at least better than you, you over-the-hill sack of shit.

  Back in the command van, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis—the regimental XO—gave Jock a bleak picture of what was confronting the regiment. “The KPA just keep pushing us back down this highway toward Taejon. We don’t have enough armor to stop them. Hell, we hardly have any armor, and the little we’ve got—mostly Chaffees—don’t have the punch to stop a T-34. We pulled back to this position two days ago to gain a little breathing space. In all likelihood, they’ll hit us again tonight.”

  Jock asked, “How’s our artillery support?”

  “Spotty, sir. Their accuracy is pathetic. And they’re chronically short of ammunition, too.”

  “Air support?”

  “Fair
to middling in daylight and clear weather, sir. Nonexistent at night, of course, when the gooks usually attack.”

  Jock was no stranger to this rugged terrain; he’d traveled it during ROK training exercises a number of times while with KMAG. On the flight from Tokyo, he’d been able to read a folder full of after-action reports from the regiment. In each case, it seemed an armored force advancing along a narrow, confining road wasn’t the main problem; enemy infantry enveloping the Americans over mountains and through passes was the real reason for the retreats. From what he could tell on Lewis’ situation map, they were setting themselves up to be enveloped again.

  Jock touched his pencil to several points on the map, each point a gap between the high ground on their flanks. He asked, “Who’s covering these passes, Colonel?”

  “Those areas are the responsibility of Second Battalion, sir.”

  “Wait a minute…you’ve split a battalion to cover our flanks? And if I’m reading this map correctly, the two halves of that battalion are over five miles away from each other.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s true.”

  “Doesn’t that make command and control a little difficult, Colonel?”

  “We do have the radios, sir, and—”

  Jock cut him off. “Radios don’t see, Colonel. That poor battalion commander is blind to what at least half his unit is doing. We’re going to fix that right now, while we’ve still got enough daylight to pull it off.”

  “But we’ll have to move all three of the battalions, sir. That’ll be chaos.”

  “From the looks of things,” Jock replied, “you’ve already got nothing but chaos going on here. It would be pretty hard to make it much worse. And you won’t have to slide all your battalions—just one. Pull Second Battalion back as the regimental reserve. First and Third Battalions will adjust to cover their own flanks.”

  “A reserve, sir? In defense?”

  “Damn right, Colonel Lewis. We’re going to need one to plug holes in this shaky line of ours while providing an all-around defense of the position. From what I’ve seen so far, this regiment seems to be forgetting the enemy can come at you from behind, too.”