"Call Me Old Jack" continued.
As you may recall, the peninsula of Korea was split in two in 1945, along the 38th Parallel of Latitude and the Sovs occupied the northern half and the U.S. Army ran the southern half. That situation began to change even while Mao and Chou were still fighting the old Generalissimo Chiang’s army. In 1949, Chiang and his Nationalist Army bugged out of China and settled on Formosa, an island once owned by the Japanese, that’s called Taiwan. The Red Army won the war and Mao was set up as the leader, or Chairman of The People’s Republic of China.
Meanwhile, one of them Koreans by the name of Kim Il-Sung, who’d been to Moscow and learned Communism, and then fought in the Red Army went home to Pyongyang and took over as head of the government in North Korea, which he called The Peoples’ Republic of North Korea. So Kim Il-Sung got Chairman Mao to send all of the Koreans who’d fought in China against Generalissimo Chiang back home. Then Kim got his buddy, Uncle Joe to send him a bunch of tanks and burp guns, fuel and ammo and he built himself one mighty army.
Kim’s troops were mostly experienced soldiers. Syngman Rhee’s army in The Republic of Korea, down south of the 38th Parallel, on the other hand were mainly peasants in uniforms with little or no training and though they were reinforced with a regiment of U.S. Army troops and Officers, they were nowhere near as good as Kim’s armies.
So, with permission from Uncle Joe Stalin, the acquiescence of Chairman Mao, and the promise of air support from the Soviet Air Forces in Siberia, Kim Il-Sung invaded South Korea on the 25th of June, 1950. Let me tell you true, Kim’s troops and tanks went through the South Koreans like shit through a tin horn. But like most invaders, Kim made a great mistake; he went too far too fast. By the time his army was down near Pusan, at the Naktong River, he ran out of gas for his tanks, ran out of ammo too. Well, almost out of ammo, but not quite. And he went farther than the Soviet Aircraft could fly and fight and still get back to their bases in Siberia and Manchuria. So Kim’s army was in about the same shape our U.S. Army was that Sunday morning in 1941, when those Jap airplanes hit us on Oahu.
Next thing you know, General MacArthur landed two thirds of a Marine Division and a bunch of soldiers at Inchon and cut off the North Koreans stuck down south. With the remnants of the R.O.K. Army and the First Marine Brigade and some U.S. Army reinforcements whipping them down on the Naktong, in Mason and so many places, there wasn’t too much left of Kim’s army left to fight.
Well, Kim Il-Sung wasn’t the only one to make mistakes. Danged if Macarthur didn’t do the same foolish thing of extending himself too far by pushing the fight clean up to the Yalu River—the boundary between Korea and China—with winter coming on. Some of those old generals were dumb as stones, in spite of all the glory heaped on ‘em.
It was late in November, when the Chinese loaded me up with ammunition and sent me across the river with all those Chinese Volunteers. It must have been the coldest damned winter on record. Damned ice was thick enough to hold a tank, but slick! By then my shoes were worn down so thin they looked like tin foil, no cleats on them at all. I slid on the ice at every bend in the trail, skint my knees, near broke a leg. And Christ knows I wasn’t a young Jack by then. I was Old Jack, and Cold Jack. By the time the Chinese Volunteers chased the Marines out of the Frozen Chosen Reservoir area down to their ships at Hamhung and the U.S. Army well south of Seoul, I was one Hungry Jack. What I would have given for a bag of corn nuts that winter. I must have lost thirty or forty pounds or more.
Then President Truman fired General MacArthur, so I heard, and put another in charge and he counter-attacked and there I was, caught right in the midst of another melee.
Tell you what, by then I’d had ten years of war, damn near continuous war, and I was tired of it. You can call me a coward if you like. But I’d had enough, thank you. I clomped down through the rubble of the Railroad Station in Seoul and hid. That’s what I did.
After the battle was over, a little Korean boy found me hiding in the dark. I reckon he must have thought I was a pony—God knows I’d lost a lot of weight. So the kid, name of Tack Su-Tu, rode me out of the rubble of the Railroad Station and was heading for his daddy’s farm in the Taebak Mountains, when an M.P. stopped us.
The M.P. ran little Tack Su-Tu off and took me prisoner. Before you know it, I was humping ammo up some mountains higher and steeper than any in North Carolina in a place called The Punch Bowl and a hill called Heartbreak Ridge. It was nowhere as rough as the Himalayas, but then I wasn’t the youngster I was back then neither. It was rough, I’ll tell you, and no corn nuts for a reward either.
I was just about worn down to a nubbin when the veterinarian ordered them to give me some R&R and new shoes. I won’t go into all the trouble I got into during those 10 days of freedom down south. Well, there was this little roan Mongolian filly, cute as a button, bangs and tail the color of Tennessee clay—ah me. She couldn’t speak a word of Mule and I hadn’t learned Mongolian, but well, let’s just say we got along and leave it at that.
In 1953, three years and a couple of days from when it started, the Truce was signed in P’anmunjom and I was shipped home on a troop ship, just like one of the boys.
Old Jack was 26 years old by the time the ship docked in Oakland. Had I been a human being, I would have had a bale of back pay coming to me. Being an old mule, however, all I got as a reward for all my service was a small bag of corn nuts when they mustered me out.
When it’s all said and done, I can tell you this: war’s are a bunch of horse shit, and any mule with half a brain would steer clear of armies and wars. Personally, I’d rather pull a stone boat, or skid logs for a living than go to another war. Well, they put me out to pasture in a place called Bright Angel to spend the remains of my days toting people down into the Grand Canyon.
Most of the wranglers I have to deal with at the Grand Canyon Village are experienced with mules. One of them got his experience fighting with the 10th Mountain Division in the mountains of Italy. I enjoyed working with him, whether he was drunk or sober, for he would abuse the tourist before he'd even think of abusing me. The old soldier's name was Day, and I hope he's still alive and well and reads my tale. We are both retired now; I hope they pay him in something besides a monthly ration of Corn Nuts.
