1 The Red Quest It was only a few months after I arrived in Tongyeong when an envelope from overseas was delivered to my school. It had been postmarked in South Dakota. Inside were two letters. One was a sheaf of photocopied papers: a handwritten letter. The other was a handwritten letter that had been written recently, with a yellowed newspaper clipping. The photocopied letter was to my grandfather, my grandmother, and my mother. It was dated December 15, 1951. Dear Verna, Eldo, Cheryl, I can''t start this letter off without saying thanks for the letter you sent as I haven''t got any mail since I left Japan but in about a week or two, I should get some mail.

Until then I''ll just keep reading the ones I got in Japan. Well, I''m no longer in the pipeline status in the service I''m now a member of the headquarters and in service of the 65th Engineers of the 25th Tropic Yellow Lightning Division. Our shoulder patch is red with a yellow border and a jagged line of yellow. As of yet I don''t know what I will be doing but they all say I''ll be in the maintenance shops and they are tents but that''s the same in my line. We are about eight miles back of the lines and all we hear now is the artillery. Otherwise, it''s pretty quiet around here. I got to keep the m1 rifle they gave me at the replacement center and one of the guys looked at it when I was cleaning it and he said it was like new. It sure works smoother than before we left the replacement center.

They gave us two clips of ammo and we rode in on open tracks and we thought it was terrible until the driver said when you are that close a plane can stray over and if it''s not friendly, you don''t want anything in the way of getting out and I agreed. We sure do eat good here, three meals a day and all you want to eat so boy we won''t be hungry. The way it started on the train--getting c-rations--we all thought that is what it would be living on but we sure were mistaken. I''ve got two bandoliers of ammo I found under my bunk and there is plenty everywhere you go. Everyone is very well equipped as much as clothing and personal needs. We get a px ration every night. It''s for a pack of cigarettes or pipe tobacco, candy bars, gum, soap, razor blades, and tooth powder or paste so you see the guys are well taken care of but of course you only take what you want or need but it''s all free. The country here is all hilly like the cactus hills back home--only the hills get bigger and bigger as you move north.

Most all the people here are farmers. They have rice paddies in the hollows and terraces on the slants of the hills where they grow other things. They either walk or ride bicycles. Mostly they walk and then to get stuff to town, if they have an ox, they haul it on a four or two wheeled wagon. Otherwise, they carry it on their heads in great big bundles and they walk along fast and never hold the bundles with their hands. They live in shacks about like the rabbit houses Grandpa used to have. On the way up here we seen Seoul, the capital city, and boy it is a mess. The buildings are all blown up and you can sure see that Uncle''s boys have been through here.

The funniest thing I saw was one big stone building with only the front of it left standing. The doors to it were closed and no windows were in it. I sure thought it looked odd. The guys I''m with seem to be very nice and the old guy who I got acquainted with at the replacement center is with me in the hq but he''s in the next bunker. Our bunkers are in the hillside and made of logs and then covered with dirt so it''s nice and warm as there are no drafts. We have a stove, electric lights, and a radio set up so you can hear through ear phones--I''m listening to it now. The sergeant in our bunker says I won''t be given a job until after we get to where we are going as this outfit is going into reserve for a while. I don''t know for how long but we are moving out in a day or so.

It''s sort of cool now in the early part of the day--otherwise it''s not too bad. I sent Cheryl a hankie in mom''s one letter but it wasn''t much but we aren''t in a position right now where we can send anything but when we can I''m going to send some more stuff. Hope this finds you all well and happy. I''m feeling fine and I''m getting along nicely so don''t worry about me as I''ve got the good keeper on my side to take care of me and I''m sure going to help him do his job. So bye now. Lots of love and kisses, Uncle Clayton I unfolded the second letter and set aside the newspaper clipping. Dear Jim, I''ve been going to write to you for a long time and now finally Grandma found the paper with your address on it so here goes. Your Grandma called and asked Marty if I ever wrote to you about the places I was at and that really got her looking.

To start off: "My friends and neighbors have selected you to serve in the U.S. Army." I was sworn in on the 26th of April 1951. I went to Fort Lewis, Washington, then across the country to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds and six weeks of basic training and then to Atlanta, Georgia to the ordnance training school and of course they made a welder out of this farm boy. The school lasted ten weeks, then fifteen days of furlough time at home and I was on my way to Seattle, Washington and Pier 91. We sailed out to Japan and to Korea on the Marine Adder. We were in Japan for thirty-six hours and were assigned to our units in Korea.

Back on our ships and more big waves and bobbing up and down. We had to anchor way out in Inchon Harbor as the tide was out, so we got one more cooked meal on the boat and got in closer to shore and climbed down the side of the ship on a net into the landing barges. They ran aground and dropped the end down and everyone sloshed out through the mud and water. We marched in rank and loaded into narrow-gauge box cars that had wood bunks, or more like shelves to lay on when all the guys were loaded, we went to the replacement depot. There we slept in an old hospital building if my memory is right, it was like four stories tall, just the four walls and window holes and the bottom cement floor was like sleeping on ice. They said no lights of any kind flashlights or lighters or smoking. Then we got a can of c-rations to eat--hot on the outside, still froze in the middle (I''ve got my plastic spoon I ate that with). Grandma took a map somebody sent me out of the Sioux Falls paper and is getting a copy made of it.

I drew lines with arrows of where I went and the places we were stationed at and worked from are circled. There are lots of areas that had names that aren''t on the map like The Fingers (hills like a hand), the Iron Triangle, Jane Russell, Sandbag Castle and the Punchbowl. We did a lot of work and war there. We built supply roads and bridges in two directions out of the Punchbowl, both to the front lines and out from there. My sidekick on these bridges was Jensen, a Swede from Iron Mountain, Michigan. He''d always weld "Red Jensen" on one end of the bridge and the date of completing it. One of these, C Company 65th combat engineers built when it was minus ten below zero when we welded it together in open water in the middle of the river, the name of it I don''t remember. Along the ridgelines of the Punchbowl was a road called Skyline Drive.

It was a bad road to travel as some of it you had to drive on top in plain sight and it wasn''t good enough to drive fast on so you always got some "stones" thrown at you in those spots = boom! and dirt and rocks raining down on you and your welding truck. It was always said if you hear the noise and feel the rocks you are lucky. The coldest temperature I seen there was minus thirty-five below zero. It froze our diesel fuel we used in our tractors and tent stoves solid. I got ours burning by mixing gas in it--very dangerous to do. In times like that a tent with one small stove