A young American soldier was shot in the head by North Korean troops around August 1950 and jumped into a ditch from the other side of the road, dying instantly, with American troops advancing by his body. The Korean War erupted on June 25, 1950, when North Korean troops raided the Korean Peninsula. With the landing at Incheon on September 15, the tide had turned and the UN forces had the upper hand.
The air of the UN forces on the Korean peninsula around August 1950 was stifling, and American soldiers fighting in the open felt the harsh sun through their brains. It felt like it was grabbing their stomachs and pulling them inside out. The order to get up off their lazy tails and get out came down along the ranks of the American troops. They were only about 90 meters away when two North Korean machine guns exploded from across the rice paddies on their right flank. The American soldiers immediately jumped into the paddy field on the left side, spread out behind the slight cover of the road, and slumped eagle-eyed. It was fortunate that the Korean farmers who were working in the fields did not flood the paddies. But the rice was green and green and too high, and each American soldier was buried deep in the paper grass like a badly sweating doll.
For the next forty-five minutes or so, while bullets whistled overhead, the wind was blocked around the fields where we were hiding, and the sun became very humid and hot. But even more than the heat, I was struck by the thought of North Korean troops re-entering the area occupied by American troops. But this was not the time nor the troops to scout every hill after being raided by a group of North Korean troops. They had to fire their guns, but instead they had to advance to the target area. One young American soldier was shot in the head by the North Koreans, his face blown off, blood spilling, and he jumped into a ditch from the other side of the road and died instantly. The face of the American soldier crawling forward across the side of the corpse captured some of the disgust. North Korean bullets continued to advance as they continued to snipe at the other American soldiers.
