Story: The Empty Harbors
The war had ended a few years prior when I heard that the US Army needed men for a new thing going on in Korea. I was a normal little boy, who liked to play games with his friends. Sometimes I was the bad guy, sometimes I was the good guy, but playing war games with my friends was always fun. this would just be an extension, I told myself, except now we get real guns and grenades instead of sticks and stones.
Sixteen at the time, I would have been too young to sign up for the draft. i didn't want to lie to the Army exactly, so instead I took my older brother's birth certificate. No one would notice, and I left my parents a letter letting them know what I was doing.
The men at the desk didn't buy it. They could tell that I was only sixteen, not twenty like I posed with my brother's papers. Luckily, they didn't care because they needed men. In fact, my friend, Charlie, who was only fourteen at the time, was also recruited.
We barely made it through boot camp. The man in charge was really mad at both of us all the time because we couldn't remember anything. I was surprised that he let us go. The Army must've really needed the men.
We were off to Korea. I started getting jittery. So many people never see the world, and I sat on that ship, ready to fight with Koreans.
"We're going to Korea," Charlie leaned in and told me on the boat. "This is so keen, isn't it?"
"Yes, it really is," I agreed, looking at the ocean around me. "Are you scared?" Charlie didn't have a family that cared about him, so I felt like his big brother. Asking him that made me feel like I was a good guy.
"A little. But it'll be fun. We'll go over there, help out the South Koreans, and come back. It's not like they're Japs or anything, they're not crazy!" he laughed. I joined him.
We arrived in Korea during the summer of 1950. In my Army fatigues, I felt like a real man, about to do something manly and helpful for his country. My chest swelled with pride.
Despite all my gaming practice, I knew very little about the actual US Army. All I knew was that we had tanks and guns. A general...? Did we have one in Korea? I was never sure, come to think of it.
I didn't want to fight at all that first battle. So much went on, I becamse horribly confused. We were going across some mountains to get those North Koreans. I wished that those guys weren't so mean. If South Korea wanted democracy, who cared? I told that to Charlie while we ate dinner one night, and he nodded. He didn't talk much when we first arrived in Korea. Like I said, Charlie was fourteen, and you scare easily at that age. I patted his back, trying to comfort him. And then we heard a shot. It's hard to calm down a scared fourteen year-old when you're a terrified sixteen year-old.
"We're going!" a man shouted after the blast. "You two: Sherman! Go!"
Sherman? I didn't know who that was. Neither did Charlie, I could tell by the look of confusion on his face. But I pretended that I did know so he wouldn't be afraid. I walked outside. "We've gotta find Sherman, Charlie," I told him. "Now, where would he be?"
Charlie shrugged, still holding his spoon from dinner. "I don't know, Casey. What does he look like?" his head scanned the men around us.
I didn't know who this Sherman was. Charlie didn't have to know that. "Well, he's tall. And, uh...he's got dark hair."
"Is that him?" he pointed to a group of men rushing into a nearby forest. One of them fit my description of Sherman.
A guy bumped into me and I couldn't respond right away. There were men filtering to tanks like worms in the rain. I missed sitting and catching worms to fish with. It scared me to be in Korea. "Yeah, that's him. Good eyes, Charlie." We followed Sherman and his men.
"Sherman! Wait for us!" Charlie called out. "We're supposed to go with you!"
"Shh, Charlie. You can't just talk to Sherman. He's probably got a lot to think about. You'll bother him."
"Sorry!" Charlie yelled to Sherman.
We followed him and his men, making our way quickly through the forest. We reached a river.
"What now?" Charlie asked me. His green eyes bore a worried look. He didn't seem to be the kind of guy that'd hold up well in war.
Someone in front of us turned around. "Shh!" he commanded. "We're waiting for those Koreans."
Uh-oh, I thought. We're going to kill people. I didn't want to do it. "Come on, Charlie," I whispered. "Follow me."
"We're supposed to stay with Sherman, Casey," he said, blinking his sad eyes.
"Do you want to kill people?" I asked him. I didn't care if I was acting like a baby anymore. I didn't want to kill anyone. I'm not a murderer.
"No," he replied softly, turning his head away from me. "But we've got to be men, Casey. Not little teenagers. We've got to kill those Koreans. It's for a good cause."
"Well, I don't..."
The guy in front of us fired a shot across the river. I turned my head to the opposite bank and saw a Korean fall over suddenly. Several shots were fired toward us. I heard them fly past me and land into tree trunks with a *thunk*.
"Get down, Casey!" Charlie cried.
He was two years younger than me, but he was still right. I knelt down next to him. "Do you have any guns?"
"Uh...there's this thing. The heavy one."
Our men started firing across the river.
"What's it called?"
Some Koreans fell.
"I don't know, but you have to put water in the front here," he pointed. "See, like that guy."
The guy in front of us was hit. "Augh!" I screamed out. He looked at me, blood pouring out of the hole in his forehead. His breathing slowed and he said, "Kill them fucking Koreans...kill 'em all!" he stopped breathing, his eyes still open. My own closed.
"Casey!" Charlie shook my arm. "Casey! We've gotta start shooting! You don't wanna die like him, do you?"
I woke up from my daze. "You should use that gun Charlie!" I had to scream at him, the shots were so loud. "That's what Sherman's using!"
Charlie nodded and loaded his gun. I had left mine at the camp. It was so heavy, almost a hundred pounds. I didn't know how Charlie could hold such a heavy weapon. But I had grenades.
"Hey, think I can throw these across the river?" I asked Charlie.
He didn't hear me. His own weapon shot piercing bullets across the water.
Back at home, I played baseball with my friends. I pitched no-hitters so many times, almost always. I figured that this was the same thing, and I pulled out the pin. Slowly, I stood up, my arm pulling back, and I threw the damn thing across the river. It landed in the soft bank, right near the water, and then exploded. I heard the sound of screaming from the Koreans. I gulped as a couple of soldiers looked back at me.
"You're crazy to stand up like that, kid!" yelled Sherman. The rest of the men had resumed firing.
There was little else to shoot at. That grenade had done a lot of damage. There weren't too many Koreans, though, so it wasn't a big surprise.
"Let's go!" Sherman commanded once the area had been swept. "We've got contacts to meet on the other side!"
The rest of the summer went the same way. Shooting, meeting contacts, more shooting. We did more shooting than meeting contacts, though. It was usually an ambush, so we gained few men. I picked up a rifle from a dead soldier and claimed it for my own. We didn't even go back to where we ate, so my own gun was pretty much gone. Charlie still had the spoon from that dinner.
"I like to look at it," he told me one night as we rested near some trees. "It reminds me of home. I don't know why. I guess because all these Slopes eat with chopsticks, you know?"
I smiled. I was so grateful to have Charlie with me in Korea. His familiar raven hair with the tell-tale cowlick on the left side reminded me of the time we went swimming and I said: "Hey, not even water can conquer your cowlick, Charlie!" and then we laughed. Sometimes I like to mess it up; he's shorter than me, so it's not hard. And it helps make me feel more like a big brother. My own blonde hair is too curly to play with. My mother said that girls love it, but I didn't leave a girlfriend behind. Charlie did leave a girlfriend, or at least that's what he says. His build is better than mine because I'm really thin. Maybe that's why my brother didn't think I'd ever join the Army.
Then winter came. Oh, it was hell. I used to go skiing back at home, and sometimes it was so hot under all those layers because I sweat so much that I have to take off a layer or two and sit in the snow. Not in Korea. It's so hot during the summer, it's like California, and everyone knows that it doesn't snow in California. So why in Korea?
"It's so fuckin' cold, Casey!" Charlie said, teeth chattering. He had taken to swearing, although I was still against it. All the Army men did it, and Charlie wanted to be a real Army man too.
"Yeah, it is," I started rubbing my arms, hoping to keep them warm. I had gained some weight over the summer, thank goodness. My old body would have frozen up instantly in this frigid weather. I looked over at Wu, one of our Korean soldiers.
"Is never this cold," he said to me. "But is cold sometime like today. But not all time."
It was the coldest winter I had ever experienced. The Army back home had messed up terribly because they issued us summer uniforms instead of winter ones. So much for military intelligence. Every part of my body felt like it was made of ice. My lips were horribly chapped, but i couldn't lick them. I had tried it earlier, only to find that saliva freezes when it's exposed to the weather.
I watched my breath fog away from me. "What are we waiting for?" I asked Sherman. My teeth chattered so badly I could barely talk.
"North Koreans, you idiot," he retorted, rubbing his hands together.
Sherman didn't like me after I threw that grenade. He said that I could have died because they're really poorly made. He reminded my of my older brother, who always tried to look out for me by being mean.
Everyone was quiet. The trees swayed in the wind, making it even colder.
"Is coldest winter today!" Wu announced to me and Charlie. He was only fifteen, like Charlie, whose birthday was in September. There wasn't much of a celebration for him. I found a nice rock in a stream and gave it to him. He carried it around like a good luck charm.
"Shh," someone said.
I didn't know the names of many people in my platoon.There was Sherman, but he had been around since the river. Most of the men transferred, died, or worse: were captured by those North Koreans.
We sat quietly for three hours. I wanted to move around, to get my blood flowing. My feet hurt so badly.
"My feet are fuckin' aching, Casey," whined Charlie.
"Mine too."
"Yes," Wu agreed.
The snow continued to fall. If it wasn't for such god-awful conditions, Korea was beautiful. But the land hid its beauty in preparation for war. I heard many of the men moaning from the cold. Something called 'frost-bite' had taken over, according to Sherman. He told us to try to stay warm so we wouldn't catch it too. I was really bothered by the moaning because it reminded me of how cold it really was. It eventually stopped after we waited three hours. That bothered my even more. I was so scared for my life. I was only sixteen, for goodness sake. Charlie was only fifteen, and I was scared for him too. I started to talk to Charlie, hoping it might make me warmer somehow.
"Shh," Sherman said. "I heard something."
We all fell quiet, hidden underneath the snow for camouflage. The crunching of ice in the distance, that's what Sherman heard. It crept closer. Then they came into view. Korean skin is a weird, yellowish color, and their hair is very black. The snow tried to hide it, but failed. With their clothes they tried to blend into the cold, but that did no good with their hair showing through the snow.
"Sweep 'em," Sherman commanded in a loud whisper.
It looked like there was only a single line of them, so Sherman was probably right. We swept. they dropped like the A-bomb on Hiroshima.
"Ha ha!" Sherman laughed.
We started congratulating ourselves on a job well done. Most guys got up, relieved to get out of the snow. We were happy. Not a single North Korean shot had been fired.
Then a shot split through the cold air.
It hit Sherman
And he fell.
I was the closest to him, so I looked him over. It didn't look like he was breathing, so I put my hand on his neck to check for a pulse, like they do in the movies. The bullet had plowed to his heart. I could tell by where the wound was and how much the blood poured out from it. His chest started to steam in the cold air, and I put my hand over the wound. The warm, runny blood felt good until it started to thicken in the cold. I took off my hand and looked at it. It shone in the morning light and the blood started to freeze over my skin.
I looked up. "He's dead."
More bullets rang from behind the trees. I flattened to the ground and fished for my gun. Charlie had started firing, Wu as well. In fact, I was the only one without a gun. Did I drop it back somewhere and just forget? No, it had to be here. I was laying on it to keep it warms, so the water inside wouldn't solidify. Sherman didn't want me or Charlie to carry the big guns because they weren't for regular soldiers. I happened to find one and asked him if it was okay for me to keep it. He said that he didn't care. Everyone else who owned one had put anti-freeze in theirs, but there wasn't enough to go around. I looked underneath me. My gun had started to crack. i hate ice sometimes. Or maybe I hate the things that don't expand with it. In either case, I didn't want to use my gun if it was broken.
"I don't have a gun!" I yelled to Charlie.
He didn't say anything. I kept leaving my other weapons at campsites. The way I figured it, there might be a lonely American soldier that needed it and would find it. It's not the reason I would leave them. I just forgot all the time. They were pretty light, so it was easy for me to forget them because there wasn't a significant weight loss when they were left behind. So I had only that huge gun, and now it was useless. I pulled out a grenade. They had become my favorite weapon in the past few months. Then I lifted an extra from Sherman's body, looking at his face because I couldn't help myself. I pulled the pin and lifted my arm.
"Holy fucking hell!" I cried. Some North Korean shot my wrist and the grenade fell from my hand. I picked it up with my good hand and tried to hurl it as far as I could. It hit a tree and exploded.
"Idiot!" Wu cried. "You almost kill us!" then he yelled at me in Korean.
The hit tree fell over. I heard the North Koreans scream and then the sound of the tree crashing to the ground.
A few were crushed beneath it. They stopped firing for a second to move away.
Wu yelled to the rest of the South Koreans in our platoon and most of them squirmed out from under the snow and started to charge at their Norther counterparts. They yelled war cries. It seemed like a movie. What were tehyd doing? Then I remembered how gung-ho the Japs were about saving their country, to the point of suicide. That's what they were doing.
"Oh my God!" I cried. I saw that they had strapped bombs to their bodies. Most of the remaining North Koreans fired at them. Several of the good Koreans hit the ground, but I watched them crawl closer to their enemies. Wu dodged bullets well, and he had reached a North Korean. He hugged him and detonated the bomb; a human explosive, just like the rest of them. Just like the Japs. I was so confused. Didn't they want democracy? What good did it do them dead? I wasn't aware of it, but tears started forming in my eyes. My vision hazed, making it seem even more like a dream.
Regardless of how much I hated it, the human bombs got the job done. We moved on.
The spring melted the snow quickly, causing horrible humidity, which felt worse once it mixed with the heat. Charlie had become more "manly", taking of his shirt. I wondered why I was still a teenager. He acted like the men here, I still longed for home and baseball. He was still younger than me, but I suppose that we all grow up at different rates.
We happened upon a new commanding officer, on that had a bullet in his leg and was without his men. I remembered the day we met him:
"They were all shot," he told us.
"You'd be dead too then," I replied. "If those Koreans were so crazy about killing off Americans, you'd be dead too."
"I got out."
"So you abandoned your men?"
He looked away. He probably stole the dog tags around his neck.As far as I was concerned, we found a liar or a coward. I didn't complain, I didn't have much reason to. All the other men went along with his lie, and I know that they were all skeptical.
In any case, we had a new CO.
But the spring weather was still really bad. Not as bad as the winter. I didn't want to endure that again. the winder was so cold...coldest winter ever, Wu mentioned before he committed suicide. Now though, it was sticky and uncomfortable and bugs kept landing on me. I wanted to be home so badly. I started to wonder if these Koreans were really worth it. Or if we really needed to be there.
I just wanted to go home.
"Let's go here," the CO said. He told us that his name was Jackson, but I looked as his dog tags and they read differently. Liar.
So we turned left, following Jackson's orders. We had picked up some more South Korean soldiers, thanks be to God. We had run low on men.
"Shh, ya'll hear that?" Jackson said, getting down on one knee. I couldn't stand his Southern drawl.
We nodded and followed his action. The area we almost crossed was a small clearing in the forest. Back at home, I would think of those places as pirate-treasure burial grounds. No one took me seriously. But I don't think any pirates in their right mind buried treasure in that area. Neither would Jackson or the rest of the platoon. We waited in silence.
Something rustled across the clearing. Blood throbbed though my body, making my sore parts ache. My wrist was still in bad shape. There wasn't a MASH for miles, not any that we'd seen anyway. Charlie said that they'd have to cut off my hand, like they did in the Civil War. I hoped he was lying.
With the silence, I heard only the blood rushing through my head. My breathing became heavier.
The rustling started getting louder, and I saw someone walk through. It was a little boy. Then a girl. And another boy. Children seeped from behind the trees.
"Did we stumble upon a kindergarten class or something?"
The guys put their guns back into carrying position and walked into the clearing.
"What 'cha doing here, little guy? Charlie asked, picking up a small Korean boy. Most of the men did the same.
"What are we gonna do with them?" I asked Jackson.
He shrugged.
More rustling. Little kids sure like the forest, no matter where you are.
But it wasn't a little kid.
Little kids can't carry such big guns.
Little kids don't shoot at American soldiers.
"It's an ambush!" cried Jackson.
Children in hand, the soldiers headed back for our side of the clearing. The open area was rather small, so they made it back quickly.
I hopped over a dead log and slipped on the slick mud. Just as well that I fell, I needed to hit the ground fast anyway. Hitting my head on a nearby rock, however, was compliments of this Korean forest.
Charlie was not accustomed to running while holding children. His gait looked slow and awkward as he tried to balance the little boy in his arms.
"Drop him! Come on, Charlie! Don't be stupid!" bullets flew past Charlie. He got closer. And closer. I watched his backpack bounce up and down as he ran. "Hurry up!" I yelled, my eyes switching from Charlie to the North Koreans and to Charlie again. It was a wonder that they still hadn't hit him. That kid really weighed him down. He had to step over a loge branch that he would normally hop right over.
"I'm coming, Casey! Here, let me throw you this little boy and..." and that caught my attention. And I wondered how he could throw a kid while running. And...
...he got shot...
...several times.
I watched his body jostle back and forth as if in slow motion. His arms dropped the little kid and were fluidly shaking forward and backward, almost in a floating sense. I stared as blood squirted from his wounds, his eyes wide with disbelief and immense pain. My own eyes felt the same way as he fell to the ground. His head bounced up and then down once before resting on the cold mud.
"CHARLIE!" I screamed in a voice I never heard. My eyes were red, but no tears came. I couldn't speak. I wanted to run to him, but when a bullet his my shoulder, I grabbed it instead.
"Charlie," I cried, my tears flowing now, mixing in my lap with the blood from my new wound. "Oh, God. Charlie, I'm so sorry," I sobbed in an inhumanly mournful tone.
Then I heard a rumbling nearby. It came out of nowhere, maybe God had sent it. The North Koreans didn't hear it in time, and it crushed most of them, the few left scrambling away. Jackson and the rest picked them off.
I was a large tank.
"Sherman!" Jackson announced, as if telling us to watch out. Like we couldn't tell there was a tank there.
So that was a Sherman.
I ran over to Charlie. I tried to hold him, but between my broken right wrist and newly wounded left shoulder, I couldn't do it. "I'm sorry I can't hold you, Charlie," I told him. I knew he was dead so I talked to him calmly. I didn't want to scare away his spirit, which was probably hovering over him. "I...I hate Korea. I hate this war! I'm sorry for asking you to come with me! Oh, God! I'm sorry!" I dropped my head and let my tears soak his chest wounds.
"Hey, son!" a man called out. I didn't look at him. "You need medical help!"
I didn't want to move. I was still in shock, my tears had stopped, and I could barely speak to the guy even if I wanted to. The longing for my dead friend filled my thoughts.
I felt arms around my waist. "What are you doing?" I yelled as I was picked up.
"You need help, son. We're taking you to the MASH."
"Take Charlie too! He needs more help than me!" I reached out my right arm to him, but the man continued to carry me to the tank.
"He's dead, kid. But we can fix you up."
I couldn't think. My mouth hung partially open and my eyes stared at nothing. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear what he had to say. A faint whir was audible in the distance, but I paid no attention to it. It became louder and louder, and the whole place grew suddenly windy. "What's that?"
"It's the helicopter. Did you think that we were going to take you in the tank?" he laughed.
"Kids."
I didn't know. Why should I? I wasn't supposed to be in this stupid war anyway. I was only sixteen. Charlie was fourteen when he came here and died at fifteen. I shouldn't have to know anything about this.
A rope lowered from the helicopter with a stretcher attached to it. Another man in my platoon had been hit, so they started loading him up. His name was Henry, I think, but I never talked to anyone as much as I did to Charlie, so I couldn't be sure. Landing would be easier for the helicopter, I thought, but looked at the clearing and realized that it wasn't large enough.
My body became limp as lethargy took over my mind. I didn't care if I was taken to a MASH anymore. Let them cut off my stupid hand. As for Charlie...he didn't look like he'd wake up anytime soon. My eyes watered up again and I started to cry. The man put me down and I sat in the grassy my and cried my respects for my friend.
Metal against metal, it was distinct. I didn't know what caused it, but then the man pulled me away quickly. I looked back at him, but his face was fixed on the helicopter. I turned to the sky and saw it spiraling downward, another loss that day.
"Get out!" screamed the man behind me.
I watched the rescuers try to undo the man in the stretcher, but they ran out from the falling 'copter once it got too close. The guy in the stretcher screamed and, in fear, I screamed too. The entire unit burst into flames, and all I could do was say, "Get him out of there! He'll die!"
Someone said something about the flames being too much to try to help him. I saw my friend die, and I didn't want to see another death that day or for the rest of my life, especially one that could be prevented. I struggled to my feet but the man held me down. "Now, don't be a hero, Sonny Jim. There's not way you can save this guy. You're too badly injured."
"Your men aren't going to do it, so I am," I told him, attempting another stand. He knew I was right or maybe he felt sorry for my loss of Charlie and thought that it would somehow make me feel better to save someone. It didn't matter what he thought. I had to get in before that thing exploded.
Withing ten feet of the wreck, I could feel the flames. I didn't know if I could do it, and all the Army guys were watching me. "Come on, Charlie. You can help me through this," I whispered.The pain from the heat actually diminished that from my wounds, and I felt almost energized.
It took me six attempts to get the guy out. Before my fourth, someone told me to just shoot the guy in the head so he wasn't in pain anymore. I ignored him and tried again. When I succeeded, I looked into the man's blackened face and asked how he felt. He said that he was hurting so badly that he wanted to die, but pain was better than death, no matter how intense. And then he added: "Sorry 'bout your friend."
I sat next to him and cried as we waited for a new helicopter.
After I was fixed up at the MASH, I went back to the field. Two more years had passed, each one the same as the last, only without my best friend. The war over, we boarded an old cargo ship bound for the States.
"We're going home, Ed," I said to Edward, a guy who had merged with our platoon.
"Yeah. I've got my wife at home, you know?" he leaned back and looked out the porthole of the ship.
I couldn't help but miss Charlie. I left dead Koreans, both North and South because I couldn't tell the difference. And I left Sherman. But Charlie...God, I left Charlie.
"Sounds good," I told him. I wanted to get home. I remembered that the survivors of the other war were given scholarships to go to college for free. I hoped they'd do the same for us.
"Yeah. I left her when she was pregnant, so I've got a kid now," he smiled.
"I'm just so glad this is over," I leaned back and stretched. "It's like I went straight to hell...and now I'm being reborn."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. But like all the Lazarus's from the other wars, we'll be remembered. And they'll throw a huge party at the dock. You just know it. We'll get drunk and get back to life, eh Casey?"
I smiled. After all the death and hell and fuckin' madness I had seen in the past three years, I was ready to get drunk at a Hero's Welcome.
A few days later, we pulled into the harbor. No one was there. No parents. No lovers. No friends. All that we fought for, all those we lost, and no one even cared. They were all too busy with their own lives to remember that they had loved ones fighting a war. I remembered that my mother had said, "We don't need another war," when she heard about Korea. I guess the rest of these Americans felt the same way. I fought for a country who didn't know who I was, and returned to one who didn't care about what we did or those we lost. For some reason, my thoughts turned to Charlie and what he would've said, had he seen this. Something like, "Aww man. America can just go and fuck herself." He always knew just what to say.
After looking around once more, I called a cab and went home.
(I wrote this 18 March 2001 for a short fiction class. I was inspired by a Korean War documentary where one of the veterans explained that no one wanted to enlist, so the recruiters were actually allowing underage boys to do so. He stated he was told to take a walk when he announced he was 16, so he went around the block, came back to the same recruiter, reported that he was 18, and was accepted. Many veterans in the documentary explained they came home to empty harbors. I wasn't too sure of what military training entailed, and there's enough naivety to go around. I decided to leave it as-is, though)
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