At the forward positions the ROK enlisted men were casually receiving their evening ration of rice less than one hundred yards from the shadows of the mountaintop and its pillbox. There was no sound but that of eating men. I wondered whether perhaps there had not been something of a “Korean contract” during which both sides ate their dinner. Among all of those men I saw but two canteens I wondered how they survived the midday heat, and was grateful that I had at least had something to offer the wounded when they clutched at my leg as I climbed past them coming up the ridge. Finally, although the entire mountainside was sprinkled with South Korean soldiers, all seemingly complacently awaiting some sort of order from those in authority, I did not see one ROK officer. Perhaps they were off scouting or sitting on a distant log eating their rations by themselves. But their men were apparently quite leaderless, were badly bunched together making them dangerously subject to more mortar fire; none seemed to have intentions of hitting the pillbox again in a dusk attack. They had been ordered to drive as close to the pillbox as they could. They had. Sitting there with them, sharing their rice, I began to see sense in the rumored proposal to integrate one hundred of them into every U.S. Army Infantry company. With the leadership and companionship of the average American soldier I began to believe that those ROKs might get up and fight their way back north. It might also be the beginning of finding the answer to the great social and political problem raised by the violence with which so many of the civilian refugees had been met by the retreating and harassed Americans. It was nearly dusk when I headed down off the Mountain, but not too dark to see the even darker stains that marked the trail all the way into the valley and along the road to the little aid station. But now there were no longer any corpsmen waiting to attend the wounded. The hut was gloomy and empty· Apparently two mortar bombs had fallen in the nearby village which housed the battalion CP. The Commanding Officer immediately ordered the entire area 42 l Ⅲ. Korea 1950 This is War!
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