Forever 17

This happened five years ago in a neighborhood park where I used to hang out with some guys I grew up with, playing touch football or kicking a soccer ball around. An elderly white-haired retired man came there, too. He told us to call him Old Ben, like Obi Wan Kenobi in “Star Wars.” It seemed to fit.

His erect, square-shouldered posture and keen grey eyes indicated a military bearing. But he didn’t talk much about himself. Mostly he sat on a bench and watched us play, calling out encouragement and coaching tips.

On this occasion we were taking a break from our play at his bench, swigging energy drinks and shooting the breeze the way teen-aged guys always do. It was shortly before my eighteenth birthday and graduation from high school and I was feeling kind of down about leaving my old friends to go off to college. I remarked off-handedly that I was having so much fun being seventeen that I wished I could always stay that age.

“I knew someone who did that,” Old Ben said quietly.

“Did what?” I asked.

“Remained seventeen forever.”

That aroused our attention and we urged him to continue.

“His name was Red Halverson,” Old Ben began. “A lanky freckle-faced kid from Kansas. He came from what today would be called a ‘dysfunctional family.’ His father was an alcoholic and his mother didn’t care much for her only child. So he enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was sixteen, using a fake birth certificate. Recruiting officers weren’t overly particular in wartime.

“I guess he showed the right stuff in boot camp and advanced infantry training, because he seemed pretty squared away when he joined our company as a new replacement inMay of 1952. Our Division was positioned about thirty miles north of Seoul -- the capital of South Korea -- around Panmunjom village, where truce negotiators from both sides were trying to work out a way to stop the shooting. Our opponents in that sector were Chinese Communist troops. Like the North Koreans, they were tough fighters and we came to respect them.

“Most of the major battles had been fought in the first half of the war -- 1950-’51. Then the big-shot politicians got worried about escalading into World War Three and things settled down to trench warfare, like the First World War in France. But for those of us doing the fighting, it was more outpost and patrol warfare. We had a string of outpost hills in No Man’s Land -- what is now called the Demilitarized Zone -- a two-mile wide strip separating North and South Korea. The outposts had two purposes -- to keep an eye on the enemy and serve as buffers to attacks launched against our Main Line of Resistance. Three of them, called the Nevada Complex -- Hills Reno, Vegas and Carson -- were special hot spots and we saw some heavy action on them.

“But the patrols were more intense and nerve-wracking. Small units were out there all on their own, never knowing where the enemy would pop up. We had three basic types -- reconnaissance, ambush and combat. Most of us preferred the last one, since we knew there would be fighting and we were psyched-up for it. The ambushes were like cat-and-mouse games. Sometimes we clobbered them and sometimes they clobbered us -- as I’m about to tell you.

“This time, our squad was assigned a night recon patrol. That meant we were to get as close as we could to the Chinese and try to gather intelligence on any new activities they might be up to, like digging more trenches or bringing up heavy weapons. You can learn a lot just by lying motionless in the darkness and listening.

“Our squad leader, Joe ‘Grape-squeezer’ Gelitti, came from a winery-owning family in Napa Valley. He was a good man, but the Company Commander thought we needed more brainpower. So Second Lieutenant Charles Fuller was given the job of Patrol Commander. He was older and more experienced than most second louies, but you wouldn’t have guessed it by his baby face and wistful smile. He had been an enlisted Marine in the Battle of Okinawa, where he picked up a Silver Star and Purple Heart. After World War Two, he stayed in the Reserves and went to college on the G.I. Bill. So it was easy for him to get through Officer Candidate School when he was recalled to active duty for Korea.

“We moved out from the Line at 2200 hours -- 10 P.M. -- just west of Outpost Reno. I was the first fire team leader and Red was my Browning Automatic Rifle -- BAR -- gunner. I was similarly armed. There was supposed to be only one BAR per fire team, but I preferred the 20-round magazine to the Garand M-1’s 8-round clip. So I carried a BAR whenever I could.

“Red was followed by his best buddy, Pete Remos. I think the only reason Pete regretted going to war was that he had to leave his beloved hot rod -- a supercharged Model-A Ford roadster -- at his parents’ house when he shipped out.

“We don’t hear much about the Hot Rod Culture anymore, but there was a time when many young American males didn’t feel complete without one. Maybe the fact that they attracted girls had something to do with the fascination. On Saturday nights there’d be several of them parked in every lover’s lane with a couple snuggled behind the wheel and another in the rumble seat. You’ve never heard of a rumble seat? Well, never mind.

“Pete was as short and thick as Red was tall and lean. We called them ’Mutt and Jeff, after two comic strip characters. They had little in common except that both of them were car crazy. They could talk for hours about every kind of motor vehicle under the sun and the mechanic’s garage they planned to open with their mustering out pay. I didn’t give much thought to postwar plans, myself. Staying alive long enough to go home in one piece was my main concern.

“The patrol’s point man was the fourth member of my fire team, Frank Truxton. I liked having him up front because he moved so quietly that his nickname was ‘The Ghost Who Walks.’ Lt. Fuller was behind me with the radioman, Rick Bailey, carrying a bulky S300 with vacuum tubes. Transistor sets didn’t come out until a few years later.

“Next came our corpsman ’Doc’ George Hawley. In the Army they’re called medics. I guess you know that the Marines don’t have a medical corps, so they have to rely on the Navy’s. But Doc Hawley was as brave as any Marine and we were always glad to have him with us in a tight spot. The other two fire teams and Grape-squeezer brought up the rear.

“It was a moonless night -- darker than the Devil’s hip pocket, to overuse an old saying. Off to our left a single searchlight beam aimed straight up at a low cloudbank over Panmunjom, marking the truce village’s no-fire zone. In daylight hours tethered barrage blimps served the same purpose. We made use of them as handy guideposts when it was difficult to find other landmarks.

“The terrain was fairly rugged -- deserted rice paddies in narrow valleys and low hills slashed by stream-cut gullies. But we were accustomed to it and we made slow but steady progress. I was beginning to think that we might get away with another dull routine night’s work when we came to a dry streambed between two brushy slopes. Truxton did a good scouting job, but I doubt if anyone could have discerned the well-laid ambush before the burp gun opened fire.

“That’s a Russian-made submachine gun with a rapid rate of fire that sounds like a loud belch. The Chinese were very good and if they had waited another minute or so they would have had us in a nice little trap. But the impatient burp gunner gave their game away and we were instantly flat on the deck returning fire as their machine gun and rifles erupted from the hillside. I cranked off two BAR magazines, aiming at muzzle flashes. I think I made a couple of hits, but it was impossible to be sure in the darkness and confusion.

“Lt. Fuller ordered us to withdraw -- the only sensible thing to do under the circumstances. We crawled backwards, using standard fire and maneuver tactics. When we were out of the gully, but still within enemy range, the Lt. got on the radio and called for covering mortar fire. I was still firing but I thought I heard the first 60mm rounds pop out of the mortar tubes just behind our Line. I paused to change magazines and looked around.

"‘Where’s Remos?’ I called.

“’I dunno,’ Truxton said. ‘I think I saw him layin’ up there when I pulled back.’

“’He must be hit!’ Red said, and leaped up and ran forward.

“Lt. Fuller yelled at him to come back.

“Maybe Red couldn’t hear the order over the gunfire and exploding grenades. But I doubt if he would have stopped anyway, when he thought his buddy needed his help. Ironically, Pete Remos had only been briefly knocked unconscious by a concussion grenade. When he recovered he was able to crawl back to join us.

“But nothing could have saved Red from the mortar round that landed at his feet. His armored vest protected his body, but his helmet was blown off and shrapnel tore into his skull. He was still breathing when Doc Hawley reached him, under the covering fire we gave him. By some miracle the corpsman kept Red alive while we carried him back to our Line. But when the helicopter ambulance arrived, there was only a K.I.A. to be evacuated.

“The loss of Red hit all of us pretty hard, especially Remos. But you can’t dwell on the past in combat. The present and immediate future are too pressing.

“In time, each of us was rotated back to the States and we tried to put the war behind us. Pete bought the garage he and Red had dreamed of, got married and had a long happy family life.

“So,” Old Ben concluded, “while most of us lived on to know the pains of old age, Red Halverson remained forever seventeen.”

We stood around the park bench, absorbing the story. Without thinking, I blurted:

“That’s not what I meant. Red died. I want to stay alive and always be young.”

Old Ben shook his head slowly. “No one is really dead, as long as people who love him remember him. I remember Red. And now so do you.”

That was five years ago. Since then I’ve been through college where I learned many things. But of all that I’ve ever learned or ever will learn, I don’t think anything will be more true than what Old Ben told us.

The End