INTRODUCTION

UNREMEMBERED VICTORY,
THE 2ND KOREAN WAR AS IT HAPPENED
ALONG THE AMERICAN SECTOR OF THE
KOREAN DIMILITARIZED ZONE

[NOTE: Every Chapter Starts with a Euphemism and ends with a popular ’68 Song]

Unremembered Victory is a war story about four thousand nobody accidental unknown heroes of an unreported war along the Korean DMZ, never acknowledged for saving the world from a nuclear ending in 1968. All the events in it are, or are accepted as, true. Sources are of three types. 1) Interpretation of official records. 2) Hearsay of eyewitness accounts. 3) Primarily real-time eye-witness recollections of two main characters. One is an officer who was on the Line by day but slept south of the DMZ at night. The other is a Sergeant (Non-Commissioned Officer) who was on the Line, night and day. IF you are not versed about this period of American history, you are urged to first read a brief official account of the DMZ War in ‘Fighting Brush Fires on Korea’s DMZ’ by Richard K. Kolb at the permission of VFW Magazine, APPENDIX A

How are so many details so clear to the author after 50 years? Spend enough time in the DMZ north of the Anti-Infiltration Fence in ’68, essentially a free-fire zone, and you never really leave. Accounts of what happened out there just get more intense and sweeter when compared to the rest of your life. Though the author met GIs who were later killed or wounded, they were fortunately only faces in the crowd to him. None were close enough to cause ‘survivor’s remorse’, a root cause of PTSD suffered by many DMZ War vets to this day. This is further complicated by these ‘officially ordinary’ GIs having never been thanked or acknowledged for not letting the world go nuclear so our children could be born. Though the author faced the fire many times, to assure eye-witness validity of lethal combat, contributions from the above mentioned Sargent ‘who was there’ has been stitched into the overall thread of events. The Acknowledgements Section tells more about the service of this contributor, a member of the most forwardmost infantry unit in the DMZ during the same time as the author was on the Line.

All characters are based on people who the author served with during his 21-month tour of Korea. Poetic license is everywhere. Many speeches are fabricated as accurately as possible from official records. Words said by one are put into the mouths of another. Timelines are adjusted to create drama. Overall, this book is intended to be the most accurate portrayal as possible of what happened out there. Read about the 4000 hapless US GIs who were all that stood in the way of oblivion.

A most interesting aspect of this victory is that of the 4,000 on the Line, all were selected by the Pentagon out of the US Army ranks using a Monte Carlo computer routine that randomly chose from among the millions in service only those in the middle of the bell curve of capability. This filtered out the high-end, all in Vietnam to make rank, and the low-end who only went to Nam. If it was an experiment, it was a success. Hence if any randomly selected 4,000 ‘qualified’ Vietnam GIs were swapped in for the 4,000 GIs on the DMZ, the result would have been the same. The ordinary among us is enough because that’s who we are.

Read about the 4,000 and come to believe in the 4000. Read some more and realize that since the whole lot of them were officially ordinary, know that you too could be, at least, one of them. Learn how, this being a ‘right fight’ you would gladly face the fire and even be ready to take the hit for all the right reasons. This book was written to give back to everyone a modicum of the unifying force of an honorable military history, something to hold on to adrift in a manufactured sea of dread and distrust spawned by fifty years of shameful wars starting with Vietnam. Unremembered Victory offers up to you the oh so ordinary 4,000 on the Line in the Winter of ’68 compelling evidence that WE ARE ALL A WHOLE LOT BETTER THAN WE ARE TOLD

12
NURTHURING YOUR PASSIONS IS RELENTLESS PRESERVATION OF TRADITIONS
NURTHURING YOUR TASTE IS TAKING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, EVERTHING IN IT FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END, NOTHING LEFT OUR, NOT EVEN YOURSELF

The next day, after spending most of the day flagging the new road, Daniel was just stuck at Guard Post Bravo with a need to check up on his assigned surveyors at Guard Post Charlie, about two miles away as the crow flies. The road trip from Charlie to Bravo was over an hour and Daniel had to wait for Simpson to return with the jeep from an errand that would take at least an hour more. Daniel had two choices. Hang out at the guard post, wait for the Simpson and by the time they were back out to the Barrier Road, it would be too late to take the long road to GP Charlie. There was a bit of urgency in meeting up with the surveyors since he was to give them new op orders for the coming week. It could wait, but better they knew about it now. So, there was a second choice—cut cross country between the two guard posts.

Plan B started to wear on Dan. “Hell!” he thought, “What’s this Imjim Scout business all about anyways. If I do not make this run, I may never know what it’s like to be on patrol in the DMZ.” Then he thought, “Hey! I can be my own point. What’s it matter if that’s all there is if the point gets through. Besides, thought Dan, “I have my trusty 45 with which I cannot hit anything.” Dan left word at the guard post to tell Simpson to pick him up at GP Charlie and set off across country.

Within minutes, Daniel found himself deep into the stunted oak forest prevalent along this part of the DMZ. To make the trek required traversing a series of low ridges and large swales with lots of sight distance to get off a round at an opponent, blocked by only sporadic tree trunks. The many oak trees presented a dense canopy of dead oak leaves still hanging onto every branch. In early March, there were still many expansive patches of old icy snow too big to walkaround that emanated loud popping sounds with you-did-not know-which next step. The rest of the ground was covered in a carpet of fallen leaves, still crispy after months on the ground, giving every move quite a crunch crunch soundtrack. All that noise did not matter all that much since most of the time it was masked by wind rustling the dead brown leaves still clinging to thousands of branches on the trees that sounded like a low drum roll that masked out all other sound.

No question, as soon as Daniel was away from the GP, he could bump into an enemy patrol either on the move or stationery, as in an ambush. Since they were on our side of the Demarcation Line, their only interest was to hunt and kill GIs with handheld weapons and grenades. On the other hand, on our side of the Demarcation Line, we were allowed platoons of halftracks and tanks as backup. These were the DMZ rules stuck to by both sides, sans occasional unsanctioned use of machine guns on either side of the Line. They had AK47s. We fortunately were issued M14s, not M16s. Don’t let that wooden stock fool you. Every man a sniper, and unlike the M16s in Vietnam, every gun never jammed.

Though not trained in these matters, not being an Imjin Scout, Daniel still had the good sense to stand motionless whenever the wind died down to hide his movement and listen for sounds made by the enemy. After proceeding patiently like that for a while, THERE! Dan was sure he heard something. The wind came up and the white noise of the crinkly leaves hid the sound of his feet and that of a possible enemy, again. Daniel moved on. The wind stopped. The ubiquitous vibration of the small brown oakleaves finally almost flatlined and Daniel was certain he had heard enough to feel he was being followed. Alone, with only his 45, what to do?

Daniel’s mind raced around his head. What he learned in Basic; what he learned in OCS; none of that meant jack about what to do here. Daniel suddenly remembered the not widely known ‘Bill Steinberg Which-Eye Negotiation’. He learned it from a close down-on-his-luck acquaintance, William Steinberg. Despite an excellent UCLA education and all the entitlements of a rich Westwood doctor’s son, Bill found himself in a real-time George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London story. Working as a cab driver in Compton, Bill was having his ride taken from him by a large, very large person. Bill once explained to Daniel that having failed at every endeavor, he could not fail at being a cab driver, his next step for putting his life back together, or not. Instead of allowing the very big cab driver to usher his fare into the big guy’s cab, Bill just lost it. He got out of his cab and stepped between the fare and the rear door of the big guy’s cab and screamed,

“That is my fare and you will have to fight me to take it away from me.”

At this point, Bill said, he was on a death wish as he screamed,

 “But here are the rules. At the end of the fight I will be dead! No question you are way too good for me. However, you must ask yourself just one question. WHICH EYE are you going to lose before it’s over?”

Much more to Bills’ joy than surprise, the big cabby backed off bellowing that Bill was clearly CRAZY, out of his mind and while repeatedly reminding some corner of the cosmos that he did not fight crazy people, got in his cab and drove away.

Remembering this protocol, Daniel knew what to do. He waited for the wind to die down and took his 45 pistols out of its holster, inspected the clip in the handle and reinserted it, turned the safety off and readied the weapon to be cocked, chambering a round. Spring-loaded, the resulting sound is guaranteed the same every time. Daniel waited and waited until that rare moment when there was no wind at all, when it all died away, just when the enemy would be listening most attentively for his next step. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it until the absolute quietest moment… Hold it. Daniel rapidly chambered a round evoking a CLASTATERCHNAPPPkhaaah!!! sound that could be heard for miles. Whether the sound was lost on the trees or fell on the ears of his would be assailants, Daniel had what he needed most. He had given off the most important signal you can share with an opponent.

I AM NOT GOING TO BE EASY! 

Daniel felt that he had regained enough control to decisively continue all the way to GP Charlie, which he did, in just over an hour as planned. Once he got clear of the sheer obsession of just staying alive, the beauty all around him once again brought to mind how untouched wilderness is like holy ground, where every tree and shrub is like a burning bush on a sunny day after a rain when all the leaves shimmer.  

There was a little hassle when approaching the ranks in positions around GP Charlie. Only Imjin Scouts were assigned radios. Combat Engineers could do just fine with face to face verbal exchanges like “Hey! I’m a friendly.” Sure enough, despite how cautiously Dan took his next step, how intently Dan looked in every direction, he walked right in front of a GI ambush detail kneeling in the bushes not 30 feet away. “Hey!” one of them shouted, “Get a load of John Wayne lost in the woods”. Dan’s embarrassment just fed the feeling of how grateful he was he DID GET through with obviously too little experience. This would be the one and only time Dan ventured out without five infantry rifle security which would be many many more times.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Bob Dylan

Oh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block
I’d ask him what the matter was
But I know that he don’t talk
And the ladies treat me kindly
And they furnish me with tape
But deep inside my heart
I know I can’t escape
Oh, Mama
Can this really be the end?
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again