이것이 전쟁이다! spilled over the ridge and into the fields around me and was warm. Even the war seemed far away. Then I crossed the brook by which the poplars grew and saw the South Korean artillerymen rooting down through the lush green, deep in the mud, and the dream was gone. They were gun crews of the Republic of Korea's 17th Regiment, the most famous ROK outfit in the war, now digging-in their 75's to bring pointblank fire upon the upper reaches of the Mountain and the enemy pillbox at its crest. On all operations and artillery maps it was shown as just 626, for the meters in which its height was marked. As mountains go, it was not much. As warfare goes, the battle to capture it was not much either, unless you were unfortunate enough to be one of those obedient ROK enlisted men who had been ordered upon its slopes. Long streamers of ammunition-laden peasants winding ever higher into the Mountain, and small clots of the walking wounded stumbling back down belied the illusion of peace in the valley. Two bursts of machine-gun fire, one answering the other, rumbled down from the peak. The top of 626 was the front, and a key pivot in the wavering Pusan Perimeter. Near the crude little farmhouse which served as an aid station for the wounded, I found two young corpsmen bandaging a silent, taut-faced peasant woman who had ignored the Army's warning and stayed upon her land. An exploding Communist shell had driven fragments deep into her head and now she squatted, unflinching and tearless, while the corpsman's probing fingers tried to remove the pieces of steel, and her infant son snuggled up close to her body and nursed for his breakfast. Bandaged and leaning wearily against the wall of the hut, she seemed uncertain of which way to turn. Then a neighbor approached and, over my shoulder, mumbled a few words. Her head flew back and total anguish flamed behind her eyes. Her other son had just died from the same shell burst. Out in the bean field south of the aid station, a familiar figure appeared Ⅲ. Korea 1950 l 37
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