The Most Important Thing. David Gross
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could not have done better. The argument proved a winner.
“I don’t want to hear of this type of behavior ever again. As punishment I am going to confine you men to the ship for a period of fourteen days! Dismissed.”
Guilty of tardiness, the banditos hustled from the office. Not being penitent in the least, the men laughed at their punishment. Since the ship would be at sea anyway, neither the guilty nor the innocent could leave the ship for fourteen days; unless it sank. Despite being hung over, the men rapidly ran to the barracks and grabbed their gear. Kentuck couldn’t have been less prepared for the twenty-one-day ocean voyage that awaited him.
In Seattle, Kentuck boarded the General Migs, a troop carrier under the American flag. Kentuck, a landlubber, had never sailed before. Five hundred men crammed into a single compartment like cattle. Their bunks were five tiers high. Kentuck found a bunk at the third level. Too late, Kentuck discovered the fifth level was best. The reason was that the landlubbers invariably become sick with the constant rolling of the sea. Following seasickness was vomit. It was difficult to determine who suffered more: those who had been plow jockeys or the streetcar riders. From the first hour after departure for San Francisco until Kentuck landed in Pusan, he was sick as the old dog. Kentuck heaved daily and so did many others. The bottom level of the five-tier bunk was the landing zone for the spray.
Another reason the fifth bunk proved advantageous was that the soldiers climbed to and from their bunks. The guy on the bottom bunk lay with the footprints of four soldiers on his bunk. The foul stench of soldiers’ feet permeated the first bunk, curling the stoutest nose. It is fortunate that my writing and your imagination cannot capture the stench in those cramped quarters after a twenty-one-day puke convention of the U.S. Army’s newest overseas privates.
Kentuck’s seasickness temporarily subsided under the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship docked on the wharf of San Francisco, and no one was permitted to leave the General Migs. Beautiful San Francisco was admired from a distance. For a short time the ship did not toss around like a bubble in the bathtub. In San Francisco, more troops piled on board and the throng sailed away. The ship changed from crowded to jam-packed.
The ship left the harbor, steaming into the Pacific Ocean for the long voyage. The great ocean filled the horizon in all directions with tormenting waves. After several hours on the ocean, Kentuck’s seasickness was worse than ever. Every swell tossed the ship, and the close quarters and general discomfort only increased the misery. The night brought little comfort. Each soldier retired, sleeping in the surreal world inside a metal ship with eerie emergency lamps providing the only light.
Days later, when every moment became unbearable on the high seas, the captain announced a delay due to a naval emergency. A cargo freighter crewmember fell down a flight of stairs, fracturing his skull. The freighter lacked medical staff. The General Migs, with its trained doctors, sailed south to rendezvous with the freighter. The experienced medical staff sought to save the unfortunate accident victim. The seamen, known to the soldiers as “swabbies,” carried this poor fellow aboard. Unfortunately, despite the altruistic efforts, the poor fellow died during his first night on the General Migs. The seamen stowed the body. The green soldiers resumed their undulating voyage, bouncing their way to the Orient.
Kentuck’s seasickness did not kill him, but at times he longed for sweet death. Kentuck lost weight, patience, and, quite often, his temper. The edgy soldiers raged to fight. The Army couldn’t wait to face the flamethrowers, mortars, artillery, and the red devils. Anything seemed preferable to spending another moment on that floating torture chamber.
Unbelievably, the Navy intentionally worsened the trip. The captain decided areas of the ship needed a paint job. As the ship rolled in the ocean, the crew renovated. Sailors manning jackhammers chipped old rust and oxidized paint from the side of the superstructure of the General Migs. This created an agonizing noise for the inhabitants of the metal can in no mood to endure it. It sounded like men beating on a steel helmet with hammers. All the while, the soldiers wore the steel helmet. The soldiers yelled at the swabbies to knock off the noise. The sailors laughed and told the soldiers where to go. Swabbies have no mercy for soldiers.
After several days, the grinding stomachs, the clanging of metal on metal coupled with the unrelenting mirth of the sailors battered the pride of the soldiers. This brought the army to revolt. The soldiers snatched their revenge. While the swabbies dined in the mess hall, a couple of Airborne soldiers repelled down the ropes to the platform hanging on the side of the superstructure of the ship. These rebellious soldiers threw the jackhammers into Davy Jones’s locker. To the annoyance of the swabbies, they couldn’t torture the soldiers any more.
The ship didn’t allow any moment for peace or contemplation. Even the toilets,—”heads” on a ship—were strung along both walls without stalls. Invariably when Kentuck sat on the thunder mug, some sailor would sit opposite of him and converse.
“Wheeeeeeeerrreeee yyaaaaaaa frooooooooooommmmmmmm?” grunted the swabbie while Kentuck would have preferred quiet.
After many miserable days the Nippon Islands appeared at last, and Kentuck’s company docked at Yokohama, Japan. How the afflicted soldiers longed for that day. Then the ugly head of merciless Fate intervened. For some mysterious reason, no one was permitted to leave the ship. Fifteen hundred guys were prohibited from disembarking for fun in Japan. Instead, orders demanded their transportation directly to Korea. The democracy needed brute force now.
This caused a great wave of angry complaints. The married men who promised their wives a life in Japan could no longer provide it. The single men who planned adventure in cosmopolitan Japan would not see any. The severely seasick, like Kentuck, faced an extended stomach-turning cruise. Instead of merrymaking in the Japanese Isles, the scorched earth of Korea awaited these knights of freedom. The only person who stayed in Yokohama was the dead merchant marine. The only reason the Navy even stopped in the promised Japanese Islands was to deposit the corpse. This unfortunate fellow had lengthened the misery of thousands by his untimely accident, but he paid the ultimate price for it. The swabbies carried his dead body into Japan, and the disappointed soldiers returned into the ever-undulating sea.
A short time later, Kentuck’s company steamed into the harbor of Pusan, Korea. The sky was dark and the sea was darker still. Kentuck stood on weak legs as he peered at the crowded, dirty city filled with refugees. He heard the thunder of the big guns many miles away. Something made him think of the story of Icarus and Daedalus. For many years, Kentuck had thought Icarus was supremely stupid. Kentuck was determined to model his life after the wise Daedalus and succeed. Now, Kentuck remembered that he had disobeyed the admonitions of his father. For the first time, he realized that he no longer had his wings and before him was the abyss.
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