| Chapter 22 The 'I' Temperature IV Recently, 'Good Morning America' had an half hour segment on the Korean War. My daughter was watching the segment with me, and after it was over, she started asking me questions about the war. As usual, I was reluctant to talk about it. Reflections of the conversation led me into a deeper reflection than I have ever taken on that period in my life, and led to a correlation with my current effort in "In His Image". Why are most veterans, who have been in action, reluctant to talk about their war experiences beyond the unique or humorous experiences? Yes, they dislike remembering the gore, and evidence of man's inhumanity to man, but I believe it goes deeper than that. The inner most feelings I had during the time we were in the harbors of Songin, Hungnam, Chongin, and Wonson, as well as on 'Windshield Patrol', to just below Vladivostok, were far more intense than I experienced on the sidewalks of Colorado Springs, Colorado before the war. One of the fellows on the GMA segment mentioned the cold. Every war has it's cold or heat or incessant rain with mud, combined with substandard food. By substandard food, I mean food that you wouldn't go out of your way to receive at home. What does all of this add up to? Why, personal discomfort of course. Most veterans don't have difficulty talking about these things. They are standard fare for griping, and I have heard it said that a griping army is a good army. I can also testify to the discomfort levels. I have seen the life lines on the bow of our patrol frigate swell to 10 to 12 times their size with ice; formed from green water breaking over our bow. Footing was always uncertain due to spray caused ice under foot, and if a man went overboard we were told the expected survival time was 15 to 30 seconds. A footnote to this is the fact that salt water doesn't freeze at 32 degrees fahrenheit. It was cold! The time between watches was changed from 181 _____________________________________________________________________________ once every eight hours to once every four hours (port and starboard sections). At times, due to a general quarters situation, we wouldn't get to leave our battle stations for extended periods and we would catch cat naps as we could at our stations. In my case this meant waking up with the ridges of the rubber safety mat imprinted in my face where I laid, with the allied discomfort. All of this isn't that difficult to talk about, so why are we reluctant to talk about the war experiences? There must be some thing or some feeling that stirs within us, when we are reminded by old stories of that period in our lives. What is it? What could be so strong as to be such an impediment to our freedom of speech? Looking at my experience, I find one thing that I experienced that I don't like to remember. That one thing was my encounter with fear. Not momentary fear, but fear as a constant companion. The fear is universal. All of us experienced it. Most of us would rather die than admit to having experienced it. To do so somehow reflects on our manliness. Some have succumbed to it. I am talking about that condition, when, it's your time to cross the ship's bridge on the shore side ( the side exposed to cannon fire ) to get to the sound shack ( sonar or sound navigation and ranging compartment ), and the North Koreans are firing their twelve inch cannons at you. You can hear the shells going over top and they sound like the loudened and hollowed sound of the click of freight train wheels passing a crossing. Immediately, on the seaward side a tower of water rises, giving evidence to how far they missed you. ( Our mission was to go spit at the 12 inchers with our 3 inch 50's ). Even the thought that you are too close to shore to be hit isn't comforting. What immediately goes through your mind is the calculation of the distance that they overshot you. My neck always felt at least a foot long. I wanted, in the worst way, to run across the deck, since I had no choice about absenting myself from this threat. I, like all the others didn't run, but walked so that we couldn't be branded a coward. We walked with the short hair on the napes of our necks at attention. 182 ________________________________________________________________________________ |
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