7th Draft (Prologue)

    It was early, only about 0630 on a clear, crisp April morning in 1952. A troop ship carrying Marines returning from the war in Korea, slowly approached the Golden Gate Bridge which marked the entrance to the San Francisco Bay and the end of the first leg on the journey home. The sun, just beginning to make its appearance over the low mountains to the east, bathed the bridge and the calm Pacific waters in a soft, orange glow. 

    The ship slowly made its way toward the Golden Gate and Treasure Island, where it would safely deliver its troops, consisting mostly of nineteen and twenty year old combat veterans, into the hands of State-side Marine Corps personnel administrators. In just a few days, after its crew had enjoyed a short shore leave in San Francisco, the ship would sail south to San Diego and pick up more troops — this time eighteen and nineteen year old boys — deliver them to Korea, and, hopefully, bring most of them home again in another year. 

    A young Marine, in his green dress uniform, stood on deck near the bow of the ship. He stood almost alone — less than a dozen others braved the chill morning air in order to get an early glimpse of home — and, like the others, he said nothing, preferring his private thoughts to any meaningless conversation. 

    Brand-new Sergeant stripes, sewn on his sleeve two weeks earlier by a Japanese seamstress in Kobe, Japan, contrasted sharply with the boyish twenty year old face. But the decorations on his chest said that he deserved the stripes. There was the Purple Heart, the Korean Service Ribbon with four battle stars, United Nations service ribbon, National Defense Ribbon, and two Presidential Unit Citations. He was a combat veteran, having spent his year in Korea in a Marine infantry battalion. For more than six months of that year, he carried a Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, in an infantry company. Then for two months, he had served as a member of a 81mm mortar team, and finished his tour as a radio operator at battalion headquarters. 

    In Korea, they called him Deacon. That’s the name we will use for Robert W. Callahan throughout this narrative, even though he didn’t really earn it until his first day with the First Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. Just a year earlier in a similar troop ship had delivered the 7th Replacement Draft, Deacon’s replacement draft, to a harbor in Pusan, Korea. Deacon had celebrated his nineteenth birthday on that ship. He observed his twentieth on this one coming home. 

    As Deacon watched the Golden Gate Bridge appearing ahead of him, a Navy Corpsman, several years Deacon’s senior, leaned on the rail beside him. The corpsman was short, barely five feet, seven inches in height, and weighed no more than a hundred and thirty pounds. His weathered face gave away his years in service. His diminutive size, along with his explosive temper, earned him the name “Short Round” among the marines in Korea. Almost no one knew that his real name was Joseph. 

    Like Deacon, Short Round was dressed in Marine Corps green, signifying his assignment to the Marine Corps as a combat medic. His Navy affiliation was established by the First Class Petty Officer steppes on his left sleeve. While his decorations showed both World War II and Korean service, one ribbon stood alone. It consisted of white stars on a blue background: the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award that a military man could ever earn. Seeing it could take a young Marines breath away for just a moment, lost in the many scenarios and intense battles that would have earned his soldier this distinction.

    After a few moments of silence, Short Round said “It’s a beautiful sight.”

    “I guess so,” Deacon said, quietly. 

    “Hey, what’s wrong?” Short Round asked. “You don’t seem to be in a very good mood for someone who is almost home.”

    “Yeah… I was just thinking,” Deacon said. “The 7th Draft didn’t come home in one piece.” 

    Short Round was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, the ranks are thinner. We all lost a lot of good friends. But there are a lot of familiar faces on this ship. Most of them are coming home with us.”

    “But some pretty special ones are not,” Deacon said. “You were in World War II, so you’ve been through it before. Do you ever get over it?”

    “I don’t know,” Short Round said. “I only had five years to forget before this war came along. I can only say that five years is not enough time. Maybe twenty years is. I don’t know.”

    Both lapsed into silence for a few moments, each lost in his own thoughts. In the distance, a motor launch sped toward the troop ship from the direction of the Golden Gate. “Must be the pilot boat,” Short Round said.         

    Deacon did not respond, so Short Round allowed silence to fill the space between them again. Neither spoke for several minutes as they watched the pilot boat in the distance. Then Deacon said, “Have you ever wondered why some of us lived through it and others died?”

    “Just God’s will, I guess,” Short Round said. 

    “Oh, don’t give me that shit!” Deacon exclaimed. “I would have bought it once, but not any more. The God they taught about in Sunday school could never have been involved in anything like that.”

    “So you aren’t sure that God exists, is that it?” He asked. 

    “Something like that,” Deacon replied quickly. 

    After another long pause, Deacon asked, “Do you hate the Chinese?”

    “No,” Short Round said looking at Deacon right in the eye. “They never did anything to me to make me hate them.”

    “They killed a lot of our friends,” Deacon said. 

    “And we killed a lot of theirs. Remember when they attacked us last April? We killed over a thousand Chinese men that night…”

    “I sure do,” Deacon said. “I shot a man for the first time that night.”

    “Did you hate him?”

    “How could I? He was just a scared rabbit running over the top of a hill, trying to get away. There wasn’t anything to hate.”

    “But you killed him,” Short Round said. “Even though he was trying to run away and wasn’t any direct threat to you.”

    “As long as he was alive, he could have come back,” Deacon said. “Besides, that’s what we were supposed to do: kill the enemy. That’s what we were trained to do.”

    “That’s the standard Marine Corps answer,” Short Round said. 

    “But it’s true,” Deacon replied. “We were there for a reason, and that reason we were given was that we had to destroy the aggressors. They attacked us. It wasn’t the other way around.”

    “That’s true of the North Koreans,” Short Round said. “But the Chinese could argue differently.”

    “Are you defending them?” Deacon asked, very surprised at his friend’s reply. 

    Short Round smiled at his younger friend. “No, I’m not defending them,” he said. It’s just that there is never any clear right and wrong in any war. Face it. You didn’t kill Chinese men for some great cause. You killed Chinese because the Marine Corps told you to.”

    Deacon thought for a while. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s one thing about Marines. We do what we’re told to do. And when you’re a private or corporal, you don’t question the orders from the sergeants and lieutenants.”

    “And that’s the way it should be,” Short Round said. “Remember, I’ve seen the Marines in action in two wars, and that philosophy has never changed. It means that you get the job done, and you bring more people back alive.”

    “But not everyone,” Deacon said softly. “You know, from the way they acted on a few occasions when we ran into them, I think the Chinese could be pretty decent people. Remember when they didn’t shoot at you when you were treating that wounded guy on the patrol in Chunchon? He was lying right out in the open in the middle of a rice paddy. They could have wiped both of you out, but they never fired a shot.”

    “Yeah, I remember,” Short Round said. “I was scared shitless! They could probably have scared me to death just by setting off a firecracker.” Deacon and Short Round smiled at the memory of that day.

    “But they gave us hell later in the day,” Short Round said. “As I recall, I was bandaging you up a couple of hours later.”

    “That’s right,” Deacon said. “And I really appreciate it.”

    The sun was getting higher in the sky. By now, the rails of the ship were lined with returning members of the 7th Draft. The excitement seemed to rise as the ship steamed closer to the famous San Francisco Bridge. 

    “How did you get into this war?” Short Round asked Deacon. Weren’t you studying to be a preacher or something? Couldn’t you have gotten an exemption like a lot of other college boys?”

    “That’s a long story,” Deacon said, thinking back over the events of the last two years. 

    “We have lots of time,” Short Round said. “That pilot boat seems to be taking all day to get here.” 

    “Believe it or not,” Deacon said, “it all started with a rifle match.”