Sgt Grit,
Hello from the holy land in the desert. Man it sucks here but we are making the best of a bad situation. Food is good and water is plentiful. No booze though unless you really have a hankering for some near beer.
Just wanted to send you some pictures of a couple of dedicated Marine along with a story. We had just taken over for the preceding MALS and the preceding unit had been flying the Marine Corps colors everyday. Well to say the least, one of our gunny’s noticed they were not out there. So being the inquisitive one he asked where they were. Well these old colors were well worn from all the wind and dust in this place.
I took three photos late April 1953, which developed into quite a story. I was with Dog Company 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. While we boarded old Japanese built rail cars coupled up to a steam engine, I named the old ?Honey bucket Express? while we were boarding the rail cars old Korean men worked up and down the tracks, oiling all of the moving parts of the engine. Then opening the packing lids on the rail car wheels, and adding oil, letting them close with a loud clang. A tank filled to provide water for the boilers and the coal hopper was shoved full. When that was over one of them swung a signal lantern and we left on a 4 to 6 hour 55-mile ride to the port of Inchon Korea. Where a convoy of ships laid waiting to take us on a MarLEX = Marine Landing EXersizes. She never attained a top speed of over 40-m.p.h. Shortly after we were underway, we ate rations for chow, previously loaded by the service battalion, along with fruit, and treated potable water in five-gallon cans used to refilled canteens. The railcars had rows of wooden seats back to back, bolted down to a bare wooden floor on either side of a center isle there were no toilets, or running water, so we made a number of stops along the way for head calls^, military traffic animal crossings, and other trains. As we traveled through the countryside, Korean people working out in rice fields carried wooden yokes on their shoulders with two buckets hung either side using a gourd dipper, dipping from ?honey buckets?, and pouring it down the rows, it was human excrement.
In 1950, the north Koreans were almost successful in using their military to secure the Korean peninsula. A number of strategic-level events stopped them short, such as the rapid build-up of U.S. forces, the overextension of north Korean supply lines, and the cumulative losses the north Koreans suffered after so many days of combat. The surprise American attack through Inchon and into Seoul severed the north’s supply lines and sent them fleeing. American, Republic of Korea (ROK), and UN forces drove them all the way to the Yalu River. That’s when the Chinese intervened. 