The Last Stand of Fox Company by Bob Drury & Tom Calvin

Author:Bob Drury & Tom Calvin [Drury, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2010-01-30T07:00:00+00:00

7

As Captain Barber directed the fight to retake the crest of Fox Hill, he had little idea that the battle was about to enter a second phase on his left flank. A fresh company of Chinese had climbed the West Hill from its back slope, and these men were now entrenched on the ridgeline and in the crenulated folds opposite Peterson's Second Platoon. Staccato incoming fire ensued. "Slow-motion firefights," one Marine called it. These firefights were no less deadly than any others.

Midway up the west slope, Roger Gonzales was frightened and alone. He had no idea where Warren McClure had disappeared to, but he intended to find out. Shortly after 3 a.m. Gonzales jumped from his foxhole, trotted up the hill, and spotted a familiar, if sullen, face: Bob Kirchner was emerging from the trees. He waved to Kirchner. Kirchner barely nodded back.

Kirchner was returning from the command post, where he'd just finished the grim task of identifying the body of his friend Corporal John Farley—by his belt buckle. Farley's face had been blown off during the firefight. A week earlier Farley had shared a delightful secret with his squad, a sort of Thanksgiving surprise. His wife had sent him a mason jar of olives along with a separate letter that read, "For God's sake, Johnny, don't throw away the juice." Of course it was gin, and Farley and his buddies, including Bob Kirchner, had toasted their holiday meal with "Korean martinis." Now his brains were spread about somewhere down in the west valley.

Gonzales knew none of this as he weaved along the edge of the pine tree plantation toward Kirchner. He had nearly reached his position when a sniper's bullet tore through his neck. Kirchner hit the ground and crawled to Gonzales. Gouts of blood spurted from his carotid artery. Kirchner pulled him into his foxhole, cradled him on his lap, and applied snow to the wound. Roger Gonzales asked for water, cried for his mother, and died in Bob Kirchner's arms.

From his position ten feet down the slope Kirchner's fire team leader, Corporal Walt Hiskett, had watched Gonzales drop like six feet of chain. Already stung by his dear friend Johnny Farley's death, now he was enraged.

Hiskett, a twenty-year-old from Chicago, was in the Marines because he had nowhere else to go. When he was six, in the depths of the Depression, his father had walked out on the family. Nine years later, when Hiskett was fifteen, his mother died at age forty-five. He went to live at a YMCA and dropped out of school. Joining the Marines at seventeen was a step up. Hiskett was nearly finished with his three-year commitment when war broke out in Korea. He was sent to Camp Pendleton and assigned to a "spare parts" company, which is where Marines were put until the officers figured out what to do with them. From there he moved to Fox Company, eventually becoming a fire team leader in the Second Platoon. His two best friends in the company were John Farley and Charlie Parker.

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