Soldier

Here is a passage from memoirs of an American soldier Anthony Hebert from his book “Soldier” he gets separated from his team and stuck with a Turkish company during The Korean War.

“The Turks were of about a company size. We established a perimeter on our hill and sat back to wait for some further word. I didn’t speak their language and nobody in their group spoke English, so we spent a cold, quiet night and the next morning found ourselves surrounded by Chinese.

I was nervous. There I was with a unit that had never been in combat before, we were surrounded and I couldn’t even talk to them. They couldn’t have been happier. They were having a picnic. Every way they looked, it was the front. They could fire in any direction and kill Chinese. They used up most of the morning doing just that, while I sat around trying to figure out how I could get the hell out of there.

By the time the sun was high, everybody’s ammo was low, but the Turks were calm as hell about it. They formed a skirmish line, fixed their bayonets and faced north with grins on their faces. I saw the direction they were facing and knew instantly it wasn’t where I wanted to go. I jumped up and jammed my fist to the south. Their line whirled, and I suddenly found myself swept along in one of the most successful, old fashioned bayonet charges of the entire Korean War.

I learned a lesson from that. The Turks are never trapped. It’s the people who surround them who are in trouble. Watching them use their bayonets that day was a revelation They were dervishes. They had a peculiar style–one I hadn’t learned back at Beginning. They lunged, drove the bayonet into the abdomen, whirled, struck down hard on top of the rifle with their with their left hand and consequently disembowel their victims.

My most vivid memory of that charge is of my gratitude to God or the United Nations or whoever was responsible for putting the Turks on our side.”