Will I Ever Walk On Asphalt Again?
Chorwon Valley, Korea March 1952
The sun had just dipped below a cragged chain of mountains to the west. A bumpy ten-minute ride from battalion headquarters brought us to Company L’s position on the MLR (front line). The rain let up. My body, warming my wet fatigues, itched wherever the cloth chafed my skin.
Sergeant Springer, a World War II veteran, greeted me on the reverse slope of the MLR. I envied the comfort of his dry, worn, soft, faded fatigues. My stiff, dark OD uniform labeled me as a newcomer. He introduced himself as my squad leader. We stepped into a trench line accompanied by the distant chatter of machine gun and rifle fire.
What have I come to? Will I be out there; part of that noise? Will I ever walk on asphalt again? Should I squat as I walk through the trench? Springer isn’t squatting. I’ll need a friend, and he seems like someone who would listen.
Like a calf following its mother, I anxiously followed him to my new home. With moonlight shining on its roof, I could see brittle, pale weeds twisted among scattered rocks and soil. He pulled aside a limp and filthy OD blanket, the door to a 6′ x 8′ hole in the ground called a bunker. We entered. I stepped onto a slick floor of earth tamped down from months of traffic. Jagged earthen walls conspired with the floor to radiate a chilling cold and dampness. Before he left, Springer introduced me to Jesse, who was sitting on three empty, stacked grenade boxes.
Am I expected to sleep here? Will this be home? Until when? I was raised in a humble home in the Bronx. I slept on a convertible couch in the living room whose piercing springs were covered by a thin fabric, over which Ma placed a blanket. This had been my mattress at home. But wrapped in my clammy fatigues, I was totally unprepared for a sleeping bag rolled out over my poncho on a damp, slick floor.
“Welcome home,” said Jesse.
“Welcome home?” I replied. “Don’t tell me you can sleep through the night in this miserable damp box.”
“Through the night, every night. No more of that. You’re not stateside. You’re not in the artillery. You’re not in the tanks. You’re a dogface. We take guard duty every two hours.”
Pointing to his rolled out sleeping bag he said,
“When I’m not on guard or on a patrol, this is my innerspring mattress.” Then he recited lines from a blues song by Brownie McGhee:
Rocks has been my pillow, Cold ground’s been my bed, Blue sky’s been my blanket, And the moonlight’s been my spread.
These words resonated within me for a few days. Soon they became my way of life.
Adapted from: Cold Ground’s Been My Bed: A Korean War Memoir by Daniel Wolfe
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