The Far-Away Dream by David A. Crum

Author:David A. Crum [Crum, David A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2018-02-22T05:00:00+00:00

Wine from a Tin Cup by Jill Crum

Back in the fight

Finally, I was given a pair of trousers (as usual, I have no idea where they came from; I’ll leave that to your imagination) and I was sent back to my platoon with my left arm in a sling. Lt. Myers was very pleased to have me back. The first obstacle we faced as we moved out was a wall he wanted us to climb over. Off came the sling, and over the wall I went. He placed me back on point. My team was ready to enter a building. I threw a grenade inside, then we went in, running from one end to the other, shooting our rifles as we went. When we reached the end of a long corridor, I turned around. Lt. Myers was holding two prisoners, one in each hand. He smiled at me and said, “Hey Crum, look what you missed.” Our firing had kept them on the floor, out of sight. We may have missed them, but they had not been able to return our fire.

For the next few days we continued to fight through our sector of the city. One night we were lying in a courtyard. We did our best not to give away our position. There were rats in that courtyard; some were running around and over us. We remained still. The discipline of recruit training was evident in how we could cope with extremely difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. If nothing else, we were disciplined; not very comfortable, but disciplined.

What stands out in my mind about the fighting in Hue is the number of times I heard bullets whizzing by my head. (If you have seen the movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” think about the scene of the beach landing and the sound of bullets all around the men. This captures that sound perfectly.) No wonder there were so many fatalities and casualties in Hue. A few inches left or right, front or back, could prove fatal. It is remarkable that we were not all killed. Any of us could have been killed on numerous occasions. Life and death was often a matter of feet or inches. As a matter of fact, after I had been wounded by the shrapnel from the rocket fired at the Ontos and had been taken off to the Battalion Aid Station, my platoon was able to continue on through the hole in the wall where I had been halted by the sniper. According to an account in The Battle of Hue, the first two men who entered the next building were killed. I would have been the first man in that building. Until I was injured, I was the point.

[While I attribute the fact that I was not killed to the grace of God, I in no way think I deserved to be spared and those who died deserved to die. God preserved me according to His own secret plan for my life. He would still be the same loving, sovereign God if He had not spared my life.

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