Charlie Company back together for anniversary

REUNION: Members gather to share their memories and their camaraderie.

September 16, 2000

By JOSÉ ALFREDO FLORES
The Orange County Register

SURVIVORS: Orange County residents Sam Gaskell, left, and B.B. Yarborough tour the Korean War Memorial in Washington. Their unit, Charlie Company, fought at Inchon, and Gaskell was wounded. CHUCK KENNEDY//Knight Ridder It was the successful United Nations amphibious troop landing at Inchon on Sept. 15, 1950, that crippled the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Gen. Douglas MacArthur led 13,000 U.S. Marines ashore, and the two-week battle ended with only 21 American deaths. Called Operation Chromite, the daring invasion is credited with turning the tide of battle during the early stages of the Korean War. Inchon is located 100 miles below the 38th parallel, the line that divides North and South Korea, on a line with Seoul. The landing was far north of the main battlefront and succeeded in cutting the North Korean forces' lines. The North Korean army was then totally shattered by the convergence of Allied Forces from north and south, and the Allies captured more than 125,000 prisoners. The Korean War resulted in the deaths of 1.3 million South Koreans, 1 million Chinese, 500,000 North Koreans and about 36,000 Americans, with much smaller casualties among the British, Australian, and Turkish allied forces. - José Alfredo Flores

WASHINGTON -- Sam Gaskell couldn't hold back his tears as an old soldier slowly read the name of each of the 48 Charlie Company soldiers killed in action at Inchon 50 years ago Friday.

"I never experienced anything like this," said Gaskell. "Today we remembered things and people I haven't heard about in a long time. I was bawling my eyes out."

Gaskell and fellow Huntington Beach resident B.B. Yarborough were among the 200 veterans and family members of Charlie Co. 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, attending a reunion this week.

In the hot midmorning sun Friday, two young Marines solemnly laid a wreath at the Iwo Jima Memorial in memory of the dead at Inchon, a turning point in the war.

"Some people say that the Korean War is the forgotten war," said Maj. Gen. Leonard Newbold. "But not by those who served."

The reunion was the largest gathering of veterans from a single company. For three days, they toured the nation's capital -- from the Jefferson Memorial to Arlington Cemetery to the new Korean War Memorial.

"There are all kinds of (veteran) reunions, but none strictly for one company," Gaskell said. "We stick together like glue."

With the reunion came a time to reflect and also a time to relive their battles in Korea. Gaskell recalls a battle just eight days after they arrived.

"It got nasty. We got our butts kicked a little bit," he said. "It didn't take long before I got hit." Gaskell was sent to a Naval hospital in Japan after being shot in the right foot. After treatment and a Bob Hope USO show, he returned to the States.

"I wish I could have stayed with them," he said. "But I couldn't get on my foot."

But Gaskell will always cherish his short time with the machine gun unit of Charlie 1-1.

"The average life expectancy of a machine gunner is four minutes in combat," he said. "That's where all the excitement was. And I did my fair share of surviving."

Yarborough, 75, who was in the rifle unit, will always remember the camaraderie in Charlie Company.

"That's the most gratifying part of being in the Marine Corps," he said. "You always take care of your own men."

And Yarborough made sure one of his own was taken care of when one of the men in his unit suffered a spinal injury. The medical officer refused to send a helicopter to pick him up, but Yarborough, who was platoon leader, took matters into his own hands.

"I threatened bodily harm to that medical officer if he didn't help," he said. "I tend to overreact in situations like this and got a little hot under the collar. But the Marines, they drilled this into you -- that you take care of your wounded first."

That spirit remains alive and well today. "That's what keeps the Marine Corps the same, even though things change."

At Friday's ceremony the former and current members of Charlie 1-1 from Camp Pendleton met for the first time.

"That was a great touch to the ceremony," Yarborough said. "They seem to enjoy meeting their predecessors from 50 years ago."