We were in Pusan in Dec. and it was very cold.
Easy Co. was set up in a frozen rice paddy. Two of my tent mates went in
to town and drank a little more than they should . Probably shouldn't have
drank any of the Gook gin. They came staggering back into camp and
Espinosa was helping Guyman walk. I thought Espinosa was pretty sober. He
brought Guyman into the tent and flopped him down on his sack , stood up
and walked outside and passed out falling face forward hitting a tent
stake with his nose. I don't think he felt a thing.- They were machine
gunners!!!!!!
There was a Marine named Recardi in Fox Co, I
believe who received a Silver Star . When he found out Col. Litzenburg,
the Seventh Reg. Commander didn't want to be chummy with him, he got
pissed off. One morning very early, "someone" fired a M-1 round through
the the metal crown on Col. Litzenburgs tent. No one ever found out who
did it . Recardi went home shortly after that.
We had been out in the countryside patroling
and probing for several weeks. The CO told us we were going into reserve.
Everyone was feeling great. About the time we got down off the steep
mountains we came to some supply jeeps and trailers. They were handing out
new socks and a loaf of hot bread to each fireteam. We really loved them,
our officers , and the Marine Corp. We milled around there eating our
bread and putting on our new socks, and then the order came to saddle
up. We were going back up the mountain to fill in a slot where the ROK
troops had bugged out. Everyone was kind of pissed for a while, but the
way I looked at it they didn't have to give us the hot bread and new
socks .
How I learned to sleep with my boots on.
We had taken a hill late in the day, and I was
selected to go back down the hill with a work party to bring up supplies.
When we got back everyone was dug in so the Plt. leader had us dig in on
the reverse slope. Fine with me. I didn't have to stand watch. I took my
boots off, placing them by the side of the foxhole and got in my fart sack
with my rifle and went to sleep. In the wee hours of the morning, I heard
the damnest howling & screaming and fire was coming from every where. The
Gooks had counter attacked and had nearly over run our position.
We finally got things secured , and only then did I realize that I was
running around in the snow in my stocking feet. After that at night I
would put on a dry pair of socks and put my boots back on.
