Off The Cuff Archive

A version of this column originally appeared in the Nov. 13, 2003, issue of The Calhoun Chronicle. One of my favorites, I have decided to share it with readers again.

My father was a Navy Corpsman, a medic who served with the Marines in the Korean War. On occasion, Daddy would share his favorite war stories with me. Soon enough, I had my favorites too. By the time I was in my twenties, when it came a time to tell “war stories,” I would prompt my father to tell a certain tale.

 “Daddy, tell about the time you put your boots on the bumper of the truck when you slept at night and it flooded and washed your boots away,” I would say, or, “Daddy, tell the story of the time you captured 19 Koreans with only a pistol!” Daddy would tell the story, giving a version edited for the audience and the occasion. You see, very rarely did Daddy ever tell the whole story.

 For example, when he shared the “lost boots” story with others, he sometimes left out that he had to take the boots from a dead man and, to fit his size 13 AAA feet, cut the toes out of them. It wasn’t until a high-ranking officer came to inspect the troops that Daddy got another pair of boots--custom made.

And the captured Koreans? They appeared out of the tall field grasses my father’s ambulance was driving through and surrendered themselves because they were cold and starving. My father didn’t even need the pistol, the only weapon in the medical truck, but the story was told for humor, and he would describe the ambulance returning to camp, stuffed and covered with Koreans, Daddy riding on the hood with the pistol in his lap.

 Only on special, more private occasions did Daddy tell about the time he served as a medic in a battle on a hill. At one point, he looked up during the battle and saw tracer bullets going both ways over his head, something very bad to see. The commanding officer was silent, literally in shock. Daddy, in his fear and panic, yelled out, “Get the (blankety blank) Marines up here, now!” Someone else, in the confusion of battle, assumed it was an order from the commander, and the Marines came to the rescue.

Daddy never told about the men whom he gave only morphine or about those who died at his feet. He never told of his scrambling in the mud when an injured man yelled out, “Medic!” He never spoke of detached limbs, or blood, or wounds, or the death upon death that he witnessed.

 I know his best friend died in his arms, but I never heard that story. I do know the percentage of casualties among medical personnel in Korea was greater than that of the Marines they supported.

Daddy never told me how he received his two Purple Hearts-- he only told where on his body he was wounded by shrapnel. His Purple Heart story was another favorite, complete with physical antics:

While standing inspecting the troops, a general noticed Daddy’s two Purple Hearts.

 “Where were you injured soldier?” the general asked.

“In the cheek, sir!” Daddy, at attention, yelled in response, sharply slapping his right hand to his right back side.

 “And where were you injured the second time?”

This time, Daddy slapped the left back side, yelling out, “In the other cheek, sir!”

 Daddy edited his war stories for us. He presented them to us to share his experiences, but I can only imagine the tales he kept to himself--the stories he would not share with his family and friends. There were signs, and inferences, of things I never want to know.

 For years after returning home, he had nightmares. He hated oranges because in the service he was required to eat oranges daily to get his dose of Vitamin C. Before I was born, my father’s nephew Gary got a toy trumpet for Christmas, which, shortly thereafter, came up missing. Years later, my father confessed he had taken Gary’s trumpet, and thrown it away.

My father has been gone a little more than five years now. I miss the times he shared his stories. I loved watching him laugh, showing his pride in himself and his time in the service, and even watching the brief shadows that crossed his face as he talked--a sign that he was editing the tale.

 I had so many opportunities to get those stories on tape, to record his experiences forever in his own words. I never did though, and now I regret it--often.