이것이 전쟁이다!

이것이 전쟁이다! profound admiration for his composure at such a naked moment in his life, but more than that I shall always remember the way he looked down at our booted feet as we stood in the field alongside the strip. With an expression of tenderness he looked up from the earth and said, “But the young soybean sprouts. Our feet are crushing them.” Muccio hurried President Rhee into a waiting car, away from the field, as a precaution against any return visit by the hunting Yak. I had just started to be surprised that General Church hadn't escorted the President over to his headquarters when I glanced up at another C-54 which had landed almost unnoticed on the strip and was taxiing right down upon us. The name painted upon its nose said it all: Bataan. General MacArthur stepped down, corncob pipe, long stem and all, clutched as a weapon between his fingers. MacArthur seemed buoyant. His eyes possessed that same luminous brilliance which I had sometimes seen in the faces of fever patients. The last time I had seen him was when, aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, I watched him sign his name to the Articles of Surrender of the Japanese Empire. He was keyed to almost the same pitch both times. He turned slightly and at the same moment his eyes flicked across my face up to the Marine emblem on my old ball cap and back down to my eyes. So I stepped forward and introduced myself, by name and as the photographer who had taken Carl Mydans' place in covering that part of the world for Life Magazine. When he answered me a strange thing happened. He said that Carl had cabled him two days before that he was en route back to Japan. That he was returning. And as he told me those few words something settled down behind his eyes. I thought to myself that I must remember to tell Carl, for I considered it the greatest compliment I had ever seen paid by one man to another. No time was wasted around the airstrip. MacArthur, Church and a couple of others piled into jeeps and all headed for the headquarters' building back in Suwon town. After a series of lightning briefings and conferences in the old Ⅲ. Korea 1950 l 29

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