headquarters' building MacArthur ordered his car and headed up the almost unscouted road to the front. MacArthur must have been discouraged by what he saw as he drove north toward Seoul. The road was clogged with its refugees still moving south. The same trucks teeming with armed men also were heading south. There was not one defensive position to be seen anywhere along the road, nor any evidence that the soldiers we saw scattered along the route had any intention of fighting. It was not that they were all turning tail and running away. It was more as though they thought that this chaotic disintegration was happening to someone else's army. We were wildly cheered as we churned up the dust and rolled north. Not because the first car contained MacArthur, but solely because we looked grim and dirty and businesslike, and were driving north. After the first few miles the refugees thinned to stragglers, then they too disappeared and we were alone upon the road except for the usual bough-camouflaged trucks bringing their clusters of armed men south. I knew that the order had been given for all South Korean stragglers to regroup at given points where it was hoped that they could be reorganized into new lines of resistance, but I had also heard that there was a holding force securing our front, and that it was just south of the River Han. Nowhere along those twenty-odd miles up to Seoul did I see any evidence of South Korean Army command. No supplies going forward, nothing resembling lines of communication, no evidence of any kind which indicated that if a man stayed behind to fight, he would have received even the crudest medical care if wounded. Perhaps these units did exist, but we were going right up to the front, and I did not see them. I also began giving serious thought to just what did lie between us and the North Koreans. At the crossroads of Yongdungpo where the road branched, one fork turning east into Seoul, we could plainly see northern artillery fire landing upon the south bank of the river less than one mile away. Standing directly at the crossroads, MacArthur was given a hasty briefing on the terrain and known 30 l Ⅲ. Korea 1950 This is War!
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