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68 / Chapter 5 ended up in Korea to complete their enlistment. I didn’t make a judgment as to which soldier group performed better than the other did. Moreover, I never reviewed any soldier’s 201 file (military personnel record), performance report, or other such documents. Either these records were not available or no one told me where they were located. One of the disadvantages of individual replacement versus unit replacement is that with individual replacement the leadership—at whatever level— doesn’t have an opportunity to know the individual. The advantage of the individual replacement system is that I accepted each soldier on his merits at the time, not based on incidents that had happened before. Each replacement had to prove himself as a soldier. I served with a superb group of men. To my knowledge, while I was with Able Company, 5th RCT, we never had a single charge for a court-martial and rarely any disputes that required company-level action. I couldn’t be more proud and honored than to have served with all of these warriors. By mid-January 1953 I had earned enough time to qualify for R & R (rest and recuperation) in Japan. Upon my return I learned that I had missed an engagement on 24 January in which Able Company engaged three enemy squads cutting wire in front of the MLR. The company had detonated a napalm mine and defended the position with small arms, automatic weapons, and hand grenades . The 555th Field Artillery placed artillery on the enemy as requested. The enemy returned automatic weapon fire but was repulsed as our fire inflicted an estimated fifteen enemy wounded. On 3 February 1953 the 1st Battalion, 5th RCT, including Able Company, was relieved by the 19th Battalion Combat Team (Philippines) and received orders to the reserve position for delousing, showers, and clean clothes.11 After six weeks of living in a bitter cold dirt bunker, a soldier, his clothes, and his possessions tend to become filthy. The grime in his hands and the dirt on his body will take more than one shower to remove. Able Company needed the relief , if only for a few weeks. 6 R & R Seven Days Rest, Then Return to Korea By mid-January 1953, I was eligible for R & R in Japan. My date to leave for R & R was the third week in January. Later I would learn that I had missed the combat that took place on 24 January between Able Company and three enemy squads. I left as scheduled, and my five days in Japan, not counting travel time, gave me a much-needed break from the war. One of the first things I did upon arriving in Tokyo was to purchase a camera, since the one I had been using didn’t work properly. I took some pictures, as did every soldier pretending he was a tourist. The R & R facility I qualified to visit was on Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan. Late in January, just before the 19th Combat Team (Philippines) relieved the 1st Battalion of the 5th RCT on 3 February, I returned from R & R to rejoin the 5th RCT. Much to my surprise, I learned I was no longer a member of Able Company but was now assigned to the Communication Platoon, 1st Battalion , 5th RCT. My new assignment was to be the 1st Battalion communication officer. Wondering why I had been transferred, I learned that the previous communication officer had recently rotated. I was the best-qualified replacement . S-1 (Personnel) had reviewed my personnel records and decided that since I had been a linesman I knew everything about telephones. I explained that I had been an electrical power linesman—handling 2,400- to 13,000-volt lines—not a telephone linesman. But the S-1 didn’t care—my records revealed I was a linesman. Fortunately, I found the communication platoon sergeant to be very knowledgeable. 70 / Chapter 6 The communication bunker was on the Skyline Drive running behind the MLR. The United States had a contract with the South Korean government to provide laborers, known as the Korean Service Corps (KSC), to help the troops build bunkers, carry timbers, work on the roads, and do other manual labor tasks. Near the location where the accompanying photograph was taken (see figure 6), many Chinese People’s Volunteer Army troops had died just a few months earlier in the battle for Heartbreak Ridge. When the Chinese occupied these hills, they had built one- or...

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