A Military family affair

As long as I can remember we were in the military. My dad started his career in the Marine Reserves on September 4, 1947 while still in High School.  The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 and Mike was transferred to regular Marines.  Two weeks after his 20th birthday, Mike boarded trains in NY with his outfit to go to California to help pack and load ships to go to Korea. September 21, 1950 he landed at Inchon Korea on his way to the Chongjin Reservoir. The battle is part of Marine history where many marines lost their lives. They sailed around the tip of South Korea to the city of Wonsan. They boarded vehicles and began the trip up the road to the reservoir about 75 miles away. Between 27 November and 13 December 30,000 troops, later nicknamed the “Chosin Few” were encircled and attacked by 120,000 Chinese troops. There were fire fights all night in the hills completely around the force.  Mike was in charge of the Message Center in the HQ Area.  He had sent all 8 of his code runners to the Companies. He was finished preparing the code sheets for the day when word came down to HQ that Able Company, on the point of First Battalion, was being overrun and running out of ammo. Mike and a Radioman had nothing to do.  They went down to supply and withdrew as much ammo as they could carry.  They found their way up the hill where Able Company was fighting.  When they reached the top of the hill, he asked a Marine where he wanted the ammo.  He said, “throw it into an empty foxhole”.  As they were doing so, a mortar round (bomb) hit on the edge of the foxhole right in front of them, about 10 feet away.  The concussion of the bomb picked him up and dropped him down the steep side of the hill.  As he was sliding down the hill, he regained his composure and found a small tree stump that stopped a trip to the bottom.  He found that his leg was bleeding and pulled out his medical kit that all marines carried.  He used the tourniquet to stop the bleeding.  A Corpsman worked his way down to him. He saw the wound was not severe, so he left to tend to other wounded.  The Marines on the hill above worked their way down to him and brought him back up the hill.  That night under cover of darkness, the wounded were put on jeeps and ran down the road to get them to the hospital at Wonsan.  He spent 3 weeks in the hospital and 1 week in recuperation.  They were then told “any man who could walk and carry a gun would be flown into the “Trap” to help get the decimated division out of North Korea.  Mike was wounded on November 3, 1950 by shrapnel in his hip, which he always carried with him and never had it removed. He received the Purple Heart for his wounds in this action.