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On the last thread, I told you the first half of the story about those four brothers. Uncle Wendell was wounded early in the war, was grounded, and become an Operations Officer. Uncle Milton was eventually shot down and became a POW. Uncle Charlie became a squadron commander, and flew all those missions to come home unscathed. Dad was the youngest of the four.

He lied about his age and signed up when word came that Mel had been shot down. But he didn't have 20/20 vision, so they made him an engine mechanic. He never left the States and never heard a shot fired in anger -- at least not in that war. After all that, the older three brothers got out of the service and Dad stayed in.

In 1950, Dad was putting on his dress blues. It was his wedding day. A jeep pulled up in front of the house and two airmen got out. The North Koreans had just invaded South Korea. They were there to tell Dad to pack his bag and get into the jeep. After a brief discussion, one of them said, "You pack his bag, I'll be his best man." So Dad left for Korea about an hour later than planned, and the honeymoon was put on hold.

A few months later, a Marine outfit was surrounded at a reservoir in the bitter cold. The Red Chinese had captured their airfield. Dad helped put skis on the C-47 transport planes so that they could land and take off on the frozen reservoir. Marines can go hungry for quite awhile. They flew in with blood plasma, bandages, sulfa powder and ammunition, and flew out with the worst of the wounded. Dad stayed at the airfield in Japan, with smoke coming out of his ears.

HQ realized that the Red Chinese were lining up their antiaircraft guns along a gully leading up to the dam, which was the only logical approach route to the "landing field." They were bringing in elite infantry with AK-47s to shoot down the transport planes -- which were completely unarmored, heavily laden, and flying low, slow and straight. There was a trench on the ridge over the gully, but the Marines had been forced to abandon it due to heavy machine gun and mortar fire. There was a minefield in front of it, so the Chinese hadn't occupied the trench.

In a move that became much more popular with helicopter crewmen in Vietnam, HQ decided to mount .50-caliber machine guns in the doors of the transport planes to make those Chinese gunners keep their heads down. They gathered the ground crewmen together and asked for volunteers to man the machine guns. Guess who stepped forward.

He flew six missions. Even in that bitter cold, he had to fire in short bursts to keep the barrel of the gun from overheating and jamming. Also, the gun mount was makeshift and not perfectly balanced, so when he let go of the gun, the barrel swung straight up. Finally, one day a bullet hit him. It made a neat little elliptical entrance wound in the back of his right thigh, glanced off his hip bone and made a big star-shaped exit wound right on his "love handle."

He fell to the deck of the transport plane, and the barrel of the gun swung straight up. The last sound he heard before he passed out was the Red Chinese soldiers cheering.

At that moment, the war became personal for him.

When he woke up, he was in a tent full of wounded Marines. He had been bandaged from his chest to his knee, and he had been shot full of morphine and he had a bottle of plasma dripping into his arm. He could hear a Marine colonel arguing with his pilot outside the tent: "I can't let you take off without somebody to man that gun, and I can't spare one Marine."

"But Colonel! If we don't get these Marines back to a hospital in Japan, some of them are going to die."

Dad swung his leg over the side of the cot, stood up on his good leg, and limped out of the tent carrying his plasma bottle. He was full of morphine and feeling no pain. "Look, I can stand on one leg. I can man the gun. Let's get outta here."

He hid in the doorway and peeked out as the transport plane took off. The .50-caliber gun barrel was sticking straight up. The Chinese soldiers could see it and were climbing out of their trenches to line up better shots with their AK-47s. He could hear bullets start to hit the plane.

Finally, one of the wounded Marines on board yelled, "I'm hit!" He stepped out into the doorway and swung the barrel down. Any thought of short bursts was far behind him. The Chinese were caught standing in the open and he just laid on the trigger bar until it jammed. When I asked him how many of them were killed, he just said, "A lot of 'em. It was like driving a rocket-powered combine through a corn field."

The Marine colonel was a smart old bird. He had used the transport plane as a decoy. While every Chinese eye was glued to that plane, his Marines slithered back over the top of that ridge, dropped into the trench and set up their machine guns. Dad and the Marines had them in a crossfire. The ground was thick with dead Chinese. Eventually the encirclement was broken and the Marines were relieved.

Dad passed away in 1981. Uncle Melvin still eats raw onions as if they were apples. At the family reunion, I asked him how he could stand it. He said, "It's an acquired taste."

This is the first time I've told that story in over two years. The first time was the day after I joined FR. You can find it here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39b254b52264.htm

Thanks for sharing the story of your family with us.

You have an amazing family Bryan. Thank you so much for sharing those stories with all of us.

I am sorry for the loss of your dad, Bryan. What a wonderful story you have to tell about him and his brothers. Thanks to your family for their service! I hope you get to tell that story very often! :)