My brother Jerry, Arrived at Company A, 34th Infantry Regiment (IR) of the 24th Infantry Division (ID) in South Korea, on August 15, 1950.  The 34th Regiment was then in the thick of a battle known as the Naktong Bulge. They were positioned on a hill overlooking the Naktong river where North Korean troops were sighted crossing the river.  Since the line the 34th formed along the river was very thin it did not take the North Koreans long to chase them off the hill.  However, given a chance to regroup and counterattack, the 34th regained the hill.  But they were being mauled mercilessly.  The 34th was taking heavy casualties.  But they were also inflicting heavy losses on the enemy.  News of the attack reached Headquarters but there were only small units in reserve that could be spared.  Company A, to which my brother was assigned, was one of the reserve units. Their joining the rest of the 34th helped but did not drive the North Koreans back across the river.  Real help was not due until the Marines were due to arrive on the 18th of August.

The hill was held until then and the Marines rescued the 34th and drove the North Koreans back across the river.  American losses were 137 killed, 763 wounded, 564 missing, many of whom were later declared dead.  Additionally there were 161 non-battle casualties.  Our troops buried 1,200 North Korean soldiers.

The battle of Naktong Bulge did not end there.  The North Koreans attacked again and this time they made a foothold on the American side of the river, not to be driven back until the Americans landed at Inchon on September 15th, 1950.  But the North Korean major objectives were never met.

The 34th fought on until, in September 1, 1950.  At this point there were only 184 men left of the original 2,000 they had when they arrived in South Korea on July 1, 1950.  The rest were, killed, wounded, POWs or missing.  Then there were those, like my brother, who were replacements.

The 24th Division struck the colours of the 34th Regiment and deactivated it. 

There is a story here.  When the North Koreans attacked South Korea on June 26th, 1950 it can as a great shock.  The South Korean Army was not well trained and it was badly infiltrated with North Korean spies and saboteurs.  Except for a few American Army training personnel stationed in South Koresa, the nearest U. S. Army units were in Japan pulling very soft occupation duty.  Their combat preparedness left much to be desired.  Although the generals constantly chided the regimental commanders to keep the units combat ready, they did not bake up those demands with money for equipment and well trained trainers.  Congress had pinched every post WWII penny it could from the military budget to pour into development and tax cuts at home.

So when the call came for troops to go immediately to South Korea to stop the North Korean march into South Korea, a small contingent of the 21st IR was flown to Pusan, South Korea, and the whole of the 34 IR was sent over on commandeered Russian ships that were last used to bring Japanese POWs home from Russia after WWII.

They were issued equipment that had come from storage units in Pacific Asia outside of Japan.  Much of the equipment, as it turned out did not work.  Most lower-level officers had been trained after the war when enthusiasm for training was not high.  The same could be said for the troops themselves.  Many had had nothing more than basic training. 

Upon landing in Pusan harbour the 34th boarded trains to travel north toward the city of Taejon.  They were full of confidence that upon seeing American soldiers in front of them the North Korean Army would turn tail and run.  From Taejon the 34th units spread out over a large territory, some felt it was too large and they were spread too thin.  Immediately there was confusion about who was in charge with some non-command officers taking it upon themselves to tell company commanders where to place their troops.  Communications were abysmal since many of the radios were not functional.   Terrible confusion ensued. 

Some smaller units became separated and when the attack came simply melted into the countryside, and were either captured, killed or made their own way back to our lines.  I spoke with one veteran who was a sergeant at the time and said the NKPA (North Korean People’s Army) was very good at probing into the line and finding the weak spot.  They would stream their troops right for that spot and split the American line, then surrounding the smaller units, overrun the American positions. That Sergeant was separated from his unit and hid in a farm yard until, under pressure from the NKPA soldiers, the farmer, who had been feeding him, turned him in.  He was one of the lucky ones who survived captivity for the duration of the war, first under the North Koreans, then the Chinese. 

The weapons that were issued the men of the 34th were old, in bad repair and the men were not well trained to use them.  Many of the ammunition pieces for bazookas, howitzers, artillery, mortars, etc. were duds.  Lower level officers who could see the impossible situation on the front line would give the order to fall back before receiving the order from superiors.  The order was sometimes interpreted as “get rid of your equipment and weapons and run back to battalion headquarters”, instead of falling back to a stronger position.  It was a rout.  Many units of the 34th were repositioned to Taejon where they were to hold the city at all cost.  There was utter confusion in the city which was surrounded and swarming with NKPA tanks and soldiers.  When the commander of the 24th ID, Gen. William F Dean, finally gave the command the pull out of Taejon, the chaos was so bad that even Gen. Dean took a wrong road, became lost and separated from his companions in his jeep and after 36 days of wandering around trying to find the our lines, he was captured.  For the torture he bravely endured during his long years of captivity he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour.  He later said the he deserved to be court marshalled for the way the he handled the defence of Taejon. 

One survivor I talked to, named Jack Caderet, said he was in the back of a truck loaded with other troops trying to get out of Taejon when someone saw a sniper in a window of a multi-storied building.  Jack rose to fire the machine gun mounted on the cab of the truck as the sniper shot him through the mouth.  It knocked him out of the truck.  He was evacuated with the others and that was the end of his war.

As often happens in life the blame for the rout was laid squarely on the soldiers in the foxholes, not the equipment, lack of training, lack of leadership, lack of planning and lack of cooperation between units.  The men of the 34th were branded cowards.  After Taejon the commanders of the 24th never regained their faith in the 34th IR.  The long time commander of the 24th for much of the rest of the war, until he was killed in a jeep accident, was Gen. “Johnnie” Walker.  He had a very low opinion of the 34th because they “bugged out” time and time again.  The experience at Taejon where they men of the 34th suddenly realized that they had been sent not to slow the enemy down in a fair fight, even against a superior force, but they were merely cannon fodder with no way to defend themselves and no leadership or skilled lower level officers to maintain discipline.  Any general worth his salt knows that discipline and pride are taught and earned by good support and training.  The betrayal of these men by the commanders was not forgivable by the men and the feeling of betrayal was passed down from veteran to replacement.  Out pof frustration Gen. Walker ordered them to literally “Stand and die”, which under ordinary circumstances might have been a noble thing to do but to “Stand and die” defenceless without the benefit of slowing down the enemy is a pointless loss of many lives.  Those who “bugged out” and survived did the Generals a favour by living to fight again under survivable circumstances. 

Taejon was a terrible tragedy and cost thousands of lives of good men.  Responsibility for it started right with the president and congress and went all the way down to the lieutenant on the line.

Equipment got much better fairly quickly and the men began to show their metal in later battles.  But they had been called cowards while, with the notable exception of Gen. Dean, the higher command never took any responsibility for their mistakes in deploying these troops with bad and inadequate equipment, bad leadership and little training. If Gen. Dean deserved the Congressional Medal of Honour for the torture he endured, perhaps he deserved another one for his admission of guilt for his part in the fiasco of Taejon.

Much damage was done in terms of American morale and in making the enemy feel absolutely invincible by seeing the American Army turn tail and run. More lives were lost than necessary in the weeks to follow as the confident NKPA pushed the American Army into the Pusan perimeter, where my brother found them on August 13th.

My brother, Jerry, and the men of his company were transferred to the 19th IR of the 24th ID after the 34th was deactivated on September 1st.  Jerry was wounded twice by mortar fire, the second, on September 24, 1950, being serious enough to take him out of the war.  It took months in Walter Reed Hospital to heal the physical wounds.  The emotional wounds were deeper and festered in his head his whole life.  The PTSD that plagued him contributed to the poor mental health that cost him his marriage, family and, ultimately, because he eventually stopped taking his heart medicine that kept him alive, his life.

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He took the letter everywhere with him. He had spent the last few weeks stuffing it in his boot when he wore his uniform and under his bed as he slept. The letter had a power all its own that stabbed at his heart when he felt it against him. He knew the letter held a secret he couldn’t bear to hear. The clean black flap was missing the usual lipstick kiss from his wife Veronica. The gentle red calligraphy that spelled out his name was replaced with cold black type. Even her fragrance that she gently sprayed was lost in the nothingness of business class stationary.  A part of him wanted to run back to his “rack” and sleep till the ship arrived home.  Debating what he should do about his impending feeling of doom he found himself walking off the ship with everybody else.

Gaston forgot about Baxter till he heard his loud mouth a few yards away. “Yeah its gonna be cool  man…and the girls man…phew… it was a miracle I made it back to the ship last time!,” Baxter boasted to another sailor.  Gaston slowed his pace so he could meet up with his friend.  Baxter flashed his “we’re gonna get laid” smile and the men continued to walk out the gates toward town.

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Baxter walked the streets of Korea like a giant. His stride was confident and he flashed his toothy grin to every female that came within eye contact. Gaston felt small, the letter burned in his pocket and through his soul.  His heart grew heavier as he thought of his Veronica and home. He tried to push those thoughts away. Baxter told a joke and Gaston forced himself to laugh and then laugh some more. Baxter had no idea how Gaston was dying inside, he was on his own mission.  Gaston smiled and laughed like a mad man laughing at his own insanity.

Then suddenly the street got louder. Loud music and fluorescent light engulfed them as they entered Pusan’s red light district. Baxter walked faster as Gaston started to wish he never came. Before they knew it they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at a flashing partially burned out crown.  “We have arrived! The King Louis Club has the best ass in town!” Baxter announced.  

They made their way into the smoke filled club and were halfway through their first beers when a  Korean girl approached Baxter with a smile. Baxter had money in one hand and his beer in another as he followed her upstairs. Gaston already tired of his yammering welcomed the solitude and ordered another two beers. He slipped his hand in his pocket to verify the letter was still there. He knew it was. As he ran his fingertips across the top of the letter he thought about opening it.  He knew once it was opened everything would change.  He chugged another two beers and ordered two more.   He took a look around the room and found a set of eyes staring back.

She was beautiful. Her short black hair that hugged her face reminded him of how Veronica wore it.  “My name is Mai,” she said over the loud music. She was wearing perfume. It was a strong flowery scent but nice enough. “Come on! Lets go up,” Gaston said as he showed her some money in his palm. They went into a room the size of a walk-in closet with a mattress on the floor. She shut the door behind him. He closed his eyes tight and let her kiss him on the mouth. As he caressed her back he kissed her too.  He smelled her perfume and got lost in her body.  For awhile he was home and it felt good.

It was then time to open his eyes. Mai was collecting her clothes. He reached over and handed her the money and picked the letter off the floor. He tore it open and read.  Gaston read the last line as Mai shut the door. He quietly began to sob for he had lost his Veronica forever.