On Veterans Day, 2014

Marines withdrawing from the Chosin Reservoir

   A couple of entries ago I posted a poem from "A Rose Blooms Once," a book of poetry by Kester Hearn, who was a U.S. Navy chaplain with the 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division in the Korean War. With the exception of four of the poems, the work is mostly light-hearted, spiritual, amusing, like this paean to a feline:

A Cat and Her Tailor

As I stooped to pet my kitty

   this thought came pouncing upon me

What a lovely coat she's wearing

   it fits her to a T.

It fit her as a kitten

   it fits her now she's grown.

It is a seamless coat of beauty

   her Tailor is well known.

Super Artist with His colors

   no two coats are just the same.

Every coat is flawless fashion

   chic is she with Royalty.

And when I quit my petting
   my pet cat purred to me.

"Don't you wish you had my Tailor?

   You could be

A well dressed cat like me."

   So it seemed terribly incongruous, among Hearn's poems about the Korean War, to see in his comment following one of poems, written 33 years after the war, the use by this longtime Methodist minister of a pejorative word for a fallen enemy soldier.
   In my earlier post I reprinted Hearn's poem "The Home-Coming" along with his comment following the poem. Today I'll present his three other poems about the war, which perhaps illustrate how for so many veterans, the images they've seen never really go away.

War Is Such a Lovely Thing

(My experience as a chaplain in the Korean War -- 1950-52.)

He gazed at me with glassy eye
As my battalion and I passed by. In that clobbered town he sat
With burned legs crossed, and leaning back
Following a napalm bomb attack.
Dead and swollen there he sat
Naked -- roasted -- bloody-- black
His buddies nearby in a stack
A gruesome scene, intense the stink,
Autumn trees lay among the foes
Wisps of smoke still slowly rose.

Somewhere back home this word would go
"It is with regret that we report
Your son -- your husband --,
Daddy Ling his ID says,
Was killed in action ten days ago."
His children do not understand
Why they'll never see their Dad again.
Thirty-three years have passed that day
Yet memory forbids him go away.
Ling still sits there by that tree
His glassy eyes still fixed on me.
To militarism the world must cling
War is such a lovely thing.

Hearn's comment following this poem: "Just after breakfast, August 9, 1985, I was thinking about the Korean War. As the First Battalion, 7th Regiment, First Marine Division, of which I was chaplain (Padre, they called me), was moving north, we came to the third hydro-electric power plant south of the Chosin Reservoir. Here we passed through a devastated town; and here I saw the burned, blackened and swollen North Korean or Chinese soldier sitting on folded legs, slightly leaning back. His glassy eyes were fixed on me and all who passed by. I was thinking of this gruesome scene when the thought came to me, "War is such a lovely thing." And this last line of the poem became its beginning and its title. Finished August 11, 1986. Written 33 years after the War.

Where People Used to Live

How lovely the celestial sight
With all its peaceful spheres so bright,
Except that small terrestrial ball
Where people used to live.

But ever since that mushroom day
When great white clouds blew man away
A shroud enfolds that scorched land
Where people used to live.

No ships arrive; no one's in sight
The traffic's dead, all days are night
Vast heaps of desolation lie
Where people used to live.

The earth still turns, sustains its blow
The tides, twice daily, ebb and flow
When Winter's done and sky is clear
Then joyful Spring will come again.

The earth will heal, life will resume
The birds will sing and roses bloom
On this old scarred and peaceful earth
Where people used to live.


Dumb Smoking Steel Monster

Dumb, smoking, steel monster --
   It's done!
It knows not what's done, nor cares.
The recoil returns, the smoke
   curls down.
Beyond a mountain a flash is seen
Fifteen seconds counted -- three miles away
   It's done!

Words cannot tell but
   It's done!
God's choicest handiwork who breathed
Loved and were loved lie scattered on
   the ground.
Load in charges "six and seven," reach out
Ten thousand yards away the thunder says
   again it's done!

When will God's will reach out and
   be done
Beyond the mountains and every sea?
And the smoke cease curling from this thing's
   unfeeling throat
And men rise above their ancient ways
To Christ -- and loving wisdom in every heart
   be done?

Hearn's comment: I began this poem, Dumb, Smoking, Steel Monster, while resting in the 121st Army Evacuation Hospital at Hungnam, Korea, on November 7, 1950. It reflects what I saw and experienced on November 4. We had moved a few miles north of the third water power station from the Chosin Reservoir, and spent the night in a G--- mud hut. Our artillery was nearby and fired all night, shaking dirt from the ceiling. The water in our canteens froze solid that night. The "Dumb, Smoking Steel Monsters" were our own 105 Howitzers. After each firing, as the barrel of the 105 slowly slid back to position, the smoke -- lazily -- idiotically -- curled out the muzzle and down the muzzle. It appeared so dumb and unutterably stupid! From flashtime to report time and multiplying by 1,100 feet I roughly knew the distance shot. Charges "six and seven" meant the weight of powder used, and distance shot. This is my first poem; and I worked on it many hours aboard ship while I was coming back to the States.

   Kester Hearn died on Dec. 6, 1997. I don't think it would be a reach for me to assume that he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. Every veteran has his own way of dealing with the after-effects of war. For Kester Hearn, I imagine it was a combination of religion and poetry. The section of his book immediately following the four poems about the Korean War is a group of limericks.

"By George, I'll Wait"

There was an old man named Bumper
He was the world champion jumper
   When he saw the Royal Gorge
   He said, "By George,
I think I'll wait till next summer."

The Big Pitch

A world-famous cowboy named Newt
Rode Midnight out of the chute
   Who pitched him so high
   His head bumped the sky
He returned to earth by parachute

- - -

With that, I'll say thank you to all the veterans who've kept our country safe at so often a terrible cost.

The best $15.69 I ever spent

   Lately I've been thinking about Eric Segal's opening line in "Love Story": "What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died?" I mean, what's the point of reading the book if you know she's going to die? On the other hand, everybody knows 15 minutes can save you 15 percent on car insurance, but who knew Pinocchio was a lousy motivational speaker? I mention this because I've been working on the story of Mathew Caruso, a young Marine sergeant who died saving the life of his chaplain in the Korean War. Everybody knows that, or at least they will before they open the book.
   My research has taken me in many directions. Just the other night on YouTube I watched "Retreat, Hell!" in its entirety. It's a movie about the Chosin Reservoir campaign, made while the war was still in progress, like many of those great and patriotic World War II flicks that were made in 1943 and '44, some of them even in '42.
   "Retreat, Hell!" touched many of the bases I've learned about in my research. It stars a young Russ Tamblyn as a 17 year old whose father gave him permission to enlist but had a heck of a time persuading his mother. He was a character much like Mathew, from a family with deep roots in the Marines. Tamblyn's character had a brother who was killed on Iwo Jima and another brother who was already in Korea. After freezing from fright in his first battle, he doesn't feel as if he's earned the right to visit his brother, who is in a nearby unit. Then he performs heroically in his second battle, and asks permission to visit his brother. Permission granted. He goes to the nearby headquarters and asks a gruff sergeant where his brother is. The sergeant says "Who wants to know?" Then he says the brother is around the corner. Tamblyn goes around the corner and there's a row of body bags.
   The movie also has a scene where the young Marines jubilantly spread the word that they're going to be home by Christmas. And it has the trumpet blowing human wave attacks and the dead bodies of the Communist Chinese piling up on the hillsides just like in the firsthand accounts of the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, perhaps the most epic battle in Marine Corps history.
   The Russ Tamblyn character -- he's best known for his role in "West Side Story" -- reminded me very much of Mathew Caruso. But the movie missed one base which has been pertinent to my research: There was no scene with a chaplain.
   In studying many accounts of the Chosin breakout, I've learned that there were three Navy chaplains attached to the 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. At least there were three at the beginning of the campaign, at Inchon and Wonsan and Sudong-ni, where Mathew's 7th Regiment was the first Marine unit to do battle with the Communist Chinese who had entered the war. Those three chaplains were Father Cornelius "Connie" Griffin, the Catholic chaplain with whom Mathew worked as his clerk and, in combat, his bodyguard; John H. Craven, a Southern Baptist who was the regimental chaplain; and Kester M. Hearn, a Methodist minister. All three of them had been in World War II, although Griffin was not a chaplain then.
   By the time the Marines were breaking out of the Chinese entrapment, at places like Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri, there were only two chaplains with the regiment. And despite numerous accounts including an exhaustive U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps history and a history of the 7th Regiment that I was able to find online, there is no mention of what happened to the third, Kester Hearn.
   And then Mister Google informed me that one Kester M. Hearn had written a book.
   With all the newspaper interviews with Father Griffin and an extensive Chaplain Corps oral history of John Craven, I thought wow, I've hit the trifecta!
   But was Hearn's book in Google Books? No.
   Was it in Amazon's vast "marketplace" of used books? No.
   Was it listed at Alibris?
   Yowza Yowza, there was one copy listed! And it was only $11.70, plus $3.99 shipping. And that was it, except for five copies at various libraries in Texas.
   So for $15.69 I ordered virtually the only copy of this book available anywhere on earth.
   And then the book arrived.
   It was a book of poetry. Children's poetry. Religious poetry. Cat poetry. Limericks. I daresay I was disappointed, and placed it on the back seat of my car.
   A day later, I opened it up again. Maybe I overlooked something. And there it was, on Page 33, a section titled "War -- Absurd! Absurd!"
   Kester M. Hearn -- the M. was for Maurice, which was my father's name; coincidence? I don't think so -- was born in 1908, which would have made him 42 years old in 1950 during the Chosin campaign. He received his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1943 from Southern Methodist University. He served as a Navy chaplain in World War II and as a Navy chaplain with the Marines in the Korean War, after which he spent 32 years as a minister of the United Methodist Church before retiring in Fort Worth, Texas. He published his book of poems in 1993, and passed away in 1996.
   There are four poems in the "War" section of the book. The first one I read was the second in the series. It's titled "The Home-Coming." It isn't for the faint of heart.

The Home-Coming

Ed's orders read, "You will report
   for active duty on August four."
He kissed his wife, his daughter, son
   and held them tightly one by one.
When time ran out he waved "Goodbye"
   as long and far as he could see.
His family's future was rosy, bright
   big things they'd planned after the fight.
With pack on back he boarded ship
   and sailed on his far distant trip

He disembarked on day sixteen
   in a foreign land he'd never seen.
He never had hunted or owned a gun
   now over his shoulder an M-1 slung.
He saddled up for the front line
   ignorant of all the hell he'd find.
Ed's hopes were high that Autumn day
   the War, he thought, would go his way
And very soon he would return
   to his family, his first concern.

Short hours before sunset that day
   on bloody soil the soldier lay
A shrapnel slug had zeroed in
   and blew away his face and brain.
From empty skull I hid my face
   savage, brutal, mankind's disgrace.
The patriots who ordered him to fight,
   ten thousand miles from this sight,
Dined in the Congressional Dining Hall
   on gourmet food before their Ball.

By dog-tag Ed was identified
   and by two pictures at his side
A picture of his precious Three
   the other, where he longed to be.
He returned home in a sealed casket
   with his headless body neatly in it.
Ed was met by broken hearts and streams
   of tears and shattered dreams.
A Chaplain prayed, then taps was heard
   "He gave his life??" Absurd! Absurd!

   The poem, as are some others in the book, is followed by a comment: "This poem comes from another gruesome personal experience of mine while I was serving as chaplain of the First Battalion of the 7th Regiment of the First Division of the U.S. Marines in the Korean War, 1950-52. I came upon this Marine (Ed) soon after he had been killed. All but a little of the back of his skull had been blown away. That sight still hurts me to this day. As chaplain it was my job to write to the next of kin. A sad job. I began this poem November 17, 1985; completed it April 15, 1988. No, he did not give his life. He wanted to live as much as anyone. It was violently taken from him."

Thank you, Chaplain Hearn.