{"id":2722,"date":"2015-06-08T13:10:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T17:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/?p=2722"},"modified":"2016-01-23T12:32:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T17:32:41","slug":"baptism-and-resurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/?p=2722","title":{"rendered":"Baptism and Resurrection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baptism and Resurrection<\/p>\n

Imjin River, Korea August 1952<\/p>\n

Korea: August 21, 1952. Lt. Theiss, our platoon leader told me to go to Massey, our armorer. He will put a bunkerbomb together, and tell me how to deploy it.<\/p>\n

Our platoon was gong to wade up the Imjin River, cross a sandbar then destroy a bunker at the base of a cliff overlooking the Imjin.<\/p>\n

I was the platoon runner. If I wasn\u2019t needed to communicate between Charlie, our point man and the leader of a raid or patrol, I became the \u201cutility man\u201d. A bunkerbomb?\u00a0 I asked Charlie who had encyclopedic knowledge of anything that exploded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a bunkerbomb, Charlie?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m leading the way up the river, and you will carry it,\u201d was his reply.<\/p>\n

At last, I knew what a bunkerbomb was.<\/p>\n

Massey showed me the bomb. It consisted of a pole about the length of a broomstick. Connected to its end was a white phosphorus grenade adjacent to a machine gun canister half-filled with napalm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou pull the pin like you pull the pin on a fragmentation grenade.\u201d He warned me, \u00a0\u201cGet the hell out of there as fast as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the morning, our reverse slope was occupied by strangers with hot meals; our cooks. Heartburn from C-rations has a place all of its own in the annals of hyperacidity. With three days before our raid my digestive system plastered anything I ate with hydrochloric acid. Even the Lister bag water generated acid reflux.<\/p>\n

Why were we doing this? The bunker is directly opposite I company\u2019s position adjacent to us on our right. Why don\u2019t they blast it with a recoilless rifle or machine-gun fire?<\/p>\n

Who was I, a private, to question an order from our platoon leader?<\/p>\n

It was two days before the raid. In the evening we would go through a reenactment of the actual event with the bunker bomb. \u00a0A day passed. Twilight, it was time for the rehearsal.<\/p>\n

I crawled to the \u201cbunker\u201d. Our men raked it with a BAR and their M1s. I pulled the pin on the phosphorus grenade, placed it inside the “bunker” then ran like an Olympian. A billowing, bright flame set the \u201cbunker\u201d ablaze.<\/p>\n

Another day, another letter from Elaine.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t heard from you in two weeks. I hope you\u2019re alright. Where are you?<\/i><\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t heard from me in two weeks. I haven\u2019t seen the 101 pack (a small wooden crate with toothbrushes, pens, writing paper, soap, etc.) in three weeks, so no letters.<\/p>\n

On stage everybody, it\u2019s opening night!<\/p>\n

We entered ankle-deep water then proceeded east. I rested the bunkerbomb on my shoulders. Wading forward, the water reached knee-length.<\/p>\n

Our platoon moved slowly up the river with Charlie at the point and Lt. Theiss at the center. I’m sure that the soothing, tepid water dissolved some of the flakes I had accumulated on my month old underwear.<\/p>\n

With platoon leader, Lt. Theiss alongside of me, and Charley pointing the way towards the sandbar, a terrifying thought came over me.<\/p>\n

What if the sniper spots us. What if he pierces the canister? Our squad would be reduced to embers floating down the Imjin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not a word was exchanged. Fording through the river I had hoped to see a command of confidence in our platoon leader, but he was as mechanical as the rest of us.<\/p>\n

Our squad was moving like robots. What were they thinking? I was consumed with \u201cwhys<\/em>\u201d and \u201cwhat ifs\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n

As the riverbed began to descend, the water began to rise. I raised the bunker bomb above my shoulders. Charley, leading us was 6\u2019 2\u201d, I was 5\u2019 7\u201d. A few more steps and I would be tasting the Imjin.<\/p>\n

\u201cLieutenant,” shouted Charley, “Some idiot up on the cliff threw a grenade at me! Weren’t they told we were coming?”<\/p>\n

Lt. Theiss felt there may be more grenades if we went further, so he called off the mission.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0I stood, holding the bomb aloft, and getting a slight taste of the Imjin, I was elated.<\/p>\n

Although it was suspected that the Chinese rifleman who killed Sgt. Rutledge and Harry Lapich was in the concealed bunker, it could have been easily destroyed by a recoilless rifle from our side of the river.<\/p>\n

It was not my way, it was not the platoon’s way, it was the army way.<\/p>\n

\".\"<\/a>
.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adapted from:\u00a0Cold Ground’s Been My Bed: A Korean War Memoir\u00a0<\/em>by Daniel Wolfe.<\/p>\n

danielwolfebooks@aol.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baptism and Resurrection Imjin River, Korea August 1952 Korea: August 21, 1952. Lt. Theiss, our platoon leader told me to go to Massey, our armorer. He will put a bunkerbomb together, and tell me how to deploy it. Our platoon was gong to wade up the Imjin River, cross a sandbar then destroy a bunker… Continue reading Baptism and Resurrection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[420,422,423,421],"class_list":["post-2722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bunkerbomb","tag-destroy-a-chinese-bunker","tag-friendly-grenade-thrown-at-us","tag-waded-up-the-imjin-river-korea","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2722"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3318,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions\/3318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}