132 l Ⅴ. 서울 탈환: 시가전 and try to sleep . . . but they did nothing. They may have been thinking . . . but they still did nothing but stand slumped in their boots . . . and spoke not a word. Men of Captain Bob Barrow's company raised a small American flag over the highest rooftop upon the highest hill—but even as it was tied into place the sound of firing down the hill attracted the attention . . . and the flag-raising became just a statement of fact—a minor incident in another day. The messenger who stopped beside the fence behind which lay the body of a rubber-booted North Korean lieutenant saw the body of a dead man as also just another statement of fact, and another incident of another day . . . then he continued up the hill to deliver his dispatches. So it passed, that free afternoon of nothing to do but eat—or sleep—or do nothing. Because it did not exist. There could be no free afternoons for any of those men while they still had their mornings prowling around loose inside of them . . . and other men of their breed were only one block away living their afternoons for them. There was no free afternoon for the prisoner who sat unmoving, even as a longdreamed-of and now-forgotten cigarette burned his fingers . . . for he too must have had his mornings prowling loose, deep inside. There was no free afternoon for the Marine who leaned against the wall of a Korean house and with twisted brow tried to smother his morning by writing home—of other afternoons he had known, or dreamed—but then, with an angry lurch, he ripped the paper to shreds and fell back against the wall . . . looking straight ahead—at nothing. There was an afternoon for one Marine, and he spent it carefully learning to light and keep alive the warmth of a peasant's charcoal brazier, upon which he heated a single can of beans, and a canteen cup of coffee. And that was victory. The freedom to sprawl loosely upon a city street, heat his coffee and eat a can of beans . . . with no enemy bullets forcing him to toss the can aside while diving behind another wall for momentary survival. This is War!
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