JMJ

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Seven day Patrol North Korea

Dear Readers..In one part of the story I toned it down..You can read in between the lines..Tell the complete truth it would not sound nice..Phillip Meyer S/sgt Ret
                                                                            JMJ
Kumwah,North Korea
Aug 1951, 5th RCT 24th Div,
Phillip Meyer S/sgt Ret
                                                               Seven day patrol
    We arrived in an area where basically the village had been destroyed.We set up our tents on a small hill near the village,..Our mission patrol a large area,It sounded simple enough but that's not what happened.
As we passed through a quiet little village with there small houses,The ones with straw on top.One soldier
had made a small torch and threw it on the roof, Then another,Any house we came to was burned down.
Oh we went on long patrols with out seeing a house.In one spot where we stopped in front of me a typical Korean house.How peaceful that area looked,,,,Then three things happened..The first I was on the other side of the area we were camping in,There was this house which the roof had caved in,Why?? I took out a
book of matches and set the building on fire,,,,,The next day all that was left were ashes..
The next we had come back from a patrol and we were at the bottom of the hill and we heard a shot,One of the men in our squad shouted "Count your men"..You hear a shot you see if some one was hit,,We went up the hill and soldiers were around the body of a dead black soldier, What had happened? In a tent just a few feet away a Cpl gave a private his .45 Pistol to clean. The private unfamiliar with a .45 and he pulled the trigger pointing away from him.In the tent by them a black soldier was playing cards.The bullet hit him in the side and never came out.He was killed instantly....I never found out what happened to the Private and Cpl who were at fault..
The last day of the patrol we were in a village not burned down yet.The Sgt said to me and another soldier "Go in the house and bring out the people" So I walk in the house there is an old man women children.
And feeling very stupid I pointed my rifle and motion for them to leave the house..Now we had the whole village lined up on a road,A group of children went separately going over a wide stream,,But here I was with my rifle making people leave there homes...I heard a young women cry and look in back of me a soldier was
trying to,,,touch her..that made it even worse...
So why that patrol..why burn down a village,,,later I was told. One they wanted this village stripped so if the enemy did come they would not find anything.The second explanation was that ammunition ect was hidden in that village,,No matter what I heard the whole operation did not make sense...I have pictures of the many children being taken away,,,..............................Phillip Meyer S/sgt Ret