이것이 전쟁이다! Though it was late summer the sun still reached right down through a man's helmet, grabbed his stomach and tried to yank it up through his brain. The humidity was even worse, especially after the men left the troop trains and trucks and started marching across the roads deep in the western edge of the Perimeter. During the rest intervals, while stretched in the shade of the few trees lining the route, other Marines who had fought in the Chinju Offensive told the newcomers that it had been even worse then—and it was—but it was hard to believe. Brigadier General Edward Craig, commanding the 1st Brigade, found the heat and humidity just other obstacles to be met in the already mountainous task of coordinating all units of his command for the attack. It was General Craig, back in the States just before the Brigade went aboard ship, who had called all of his Marines together and told them where they were going. The men were deadpanned for they already had seen pictures and read reports of soldiers who had been caught wounded by the Communists on the field of battle. Craig reminded them of the Marines' historic role in meeting their country's emergencies. They still were expressionless. Then Craig, with his Brigade Surgeon standing at his side, told his men that as long as there were any Marines alive in Korea who could still fire a rifle, or toss a grenade, no other Marines would be left behind upon the battlefield, either wounded or dead. Over four thousand men shouted in unison as his Leathernecks gleefully slugged each other in the ribs, grinned happily and wanted to know when the hell they were going aboard ship. Now on the road into the Naktong rim of the Perimeter, eating his can of beans and with his Brigade Surgeon still at his side, General Craig was reviewing every foreseeable problem and possible crisis in the coming fight. He also spoke quietly, once again, of the task of treating his men who were to fall wounded . . . and recovering those others who were to die. When gusts of rain swept down upon the slowly advancing files of men, rain announcing the arrival of autumn and its typhoons which already were Ⅳ. The Hill l 79
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