Heartbreak Ridge in South Korea, as seen from the north.

September 26th, 1951. 7th Infantry Division.

"I heard Colonel Adams tell General Young that it would be suicide to continue with the original plan," Jimin says handing me his ration of tea.

"It's been two weeks of relentless pounding against the KPA's defenses and we are getting nowhere," I say bitterly as I sip on the hot liquid.

"We've lost some good men..." Jimin sits beside me leaning against my shoulder as the cold starts to set in.

"The Americans have too much vigor. At least General Young had some sense," another soldier trudges through the mud and stops in front of me offering me his scarf.

I gladly take it to warm up and he smiles mumbling how he can't wait to hear my song for the night.

I offer Jimin my ration of rum, I never cared for rum, so I always passed it on to someone else to keep the others warm if only for a moment. Life in the trenches was, well, it wasn't the best...

Dug along the base of the mountain, six feet deep and three feet wide, filled with mud and water on the bottom. We would lay in trenches on the side to sleep. It doesn't matter if it is wet, muddy, hot, or cold, we are here for as long as they need us and we have to stick to it.

If any man tells you he went to the front line and he wasn't scared, he's a fucking liar. We were all scared from the moment we got here. You never know what could happen, well I mean, in the trench you were all right.

But if you were dumb enough to show above the trench, you never knew what would happen. If u kept down, a sniper couldn't get you, but if the artillery had a shell that burst above you and you caught the shrapnel, that could be the end.

"They shot, Kim," Jimin's mouth turns down in a frown at the loss of our friend.

"I was there, Jin couldn't move," I mumble more angry than sad at his death.

We had to keep an eye on the northern front line, we didn't dare to leave and those who did were shot as cowards.

Shell shock is something I've never experienced but I've seen it. The soldier who stands at the bottom of the ladder not moving, shell shock taking all the nervous power out of him, often an officer would come down and shoot them. That man was no more a coward than you or I, he just couldn't move.

Jin was no coward, the loss of Nam in front of his eyes is what did him in.

"Can you sing already? I'm ready to sleep," Jimin pulls his jacket tighter around himself trying to fight off the cold.

This has become a routine the last few nights. Both sides tried to recoup in the late hours of the night no sounds were made as each side listened in case someone tried to go across No Man's Land. With a nod of my head, I clear my throat and begin my song, letting my voice and keeping my words clear.

"Here we stand or here we fall. History won't care at all, make the bed, light the light, Lady mercy won't be home tonight. You don't waste no time at all, don't hear the bell, but you answer the call. It comes to you as to us all, we're just waiting for the hammer to fall."

• - - - ╾━╤デ╦︻

I'll never forget it...

I held Yoongi in my arms as he took his last breaths. He was ripped from his shoulder to his waist... shrapnel.

A bullet wound is clean whereas shrapnel will tear a person to pieces. He was laying there in a pool of blood, some his own, some of others who are bleeding out around us.

"Taehyung, shoot me," his voice croaked out.

He was beyond saving, nothing but pain and agony awaited him. Before I could pull out my revolver to shoot him, he had died.

I'd lost more friends than I could count as the war went on. My unit went from 30 men to five. Hoseok was the only person I had left, the days were long, the night cold.

We missed home and those we loved. I had gotten word that my mother and sisters had passed when the city was bombed, I had nothing and no one to return home to.

It's not worth it, no war is worth it.

My only solace lately had been the soldier who sang late at night about the hardships of war. It was nice to know someone else could relay the pain I was also feeling. We were told the southerners were ignorant and cruel but this man sang the same thoughts I was having.

It had been a few nights since he had sung and the fighting has come to a stalemate so there's no way he's been injured. Ignoring Hoseok's protests, I looked above the trench through the field of grass to see a couple of strays fighting for a biscuit.

They were fighting for their lives and that's when it hit me. There they are two animals fighting for a small biscuit, the same biscuit we receive to keep us alive, and here we are two civilized countries, and what are we doing? We are in a lousy, filthy trench fighting for our lives, and for what?

That's when I decided I didn't care anymore. We were all just people and this war was no longer important. I quickly scribbled a note attaching it to a rock with some medicine. I crept to the ladder and pulled myself up to the ground level. Not daring to stand up, I kept my body pressed firmly to the ground and used my forearms to pull me across No Man's Land. When I could just make out the edge of their trench, I gathered all of my remaining strength and hurled the stone into their pit.

I start to crawl back to my side and then there was a flash, it sent me down. I never heard the bullet or saw the shell that hit me, I saw the blood leaking from under my ribs as I gasped for air. How long I lay there I don't know, but just as my eyes were about to close a figure I've been longing to see appears to welcome me home.

"Mother..."

• - - - ╾━╤デ╦︻

The night medicine was thrown into my trench was the same night a young man was shot. He lost his life, crawling across the land to deliver medicine to me, his enemy.

I only heard one-word escape that young man's mouth 'mother.' It wasn't a cry of despair it was filled with surprise and joy. I did not see another person out in that field, but I have no doubt his mother was in the next world there to welcome him.

The note he threw I've kept to this day tucked into my wallet. It was scribbled with crude writing and only a few words.

Is the singer okay? Here's medicine, no poison.

He lost his life for me, a stranger, so I took the medicine despite Jimin's protests. If it was my time to go, I would go willingly, but true to the soldier's word, it was medicine, and days later I was feeling much better.

That night I sang a song for the man who gave up his life for mine.

"Us and them, and after all, we're only ordinary men.

Me and you. God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear And the front rank died, And the general sat, And the lines on the map moved from side to side.

Black and blue.

And who knows which is which and who is who.

Up and down and in the end, it's only round 'n round."

• - - - ╾━╤デ╦︻

October 15th, 1951, we had taken the KPA's front line and the KPA's support line. Jimin and I were coming back from the old front line. We had had to cross what was old No Man's Land and in the middle of crossing, a rocket burst amongst us. It killed Jimin instantly and wounded me.

The next thing I know, I'm in the dressing station. My wound had been cleaned and a bandage was put on it. The doctor came in pointing to my wound.

"You can see the shrapnel, it must have been a ricochet. Would you like me to take it out? Before you answer yes, there is no anesthetic in the camp at all, we've used it all on the more seriously wounded. If I take that shrapnel out it will be as you are now."

The pain was terrifying, four men held me down, one on each arm and leg and I could feel every cut of the scalpel as he went through and pulled it out.

Hours later the doctor came back offering me the shrapnel as a souvenir. Furious I told him to throw it away and never saw it again. I was out on the Red Cross truck the next day to go home.

For eighty years I've never watched a war film, I've never spoken of the war, not to my wife, my friends, or my children.

I've been in this nursing home for the past five years, opposite my bedroom there is a window with a light over the top of it. When the staff goes into that room they turn on the light and in my half-asleep state tonight, the flash of the light turning on became the flash of a bomb and brought it all back.

Half-past ten at night, that's when I lost Jimin. Zero o'clock is when that young man who gave me the medicine died. Those are my Remembrance Days.

I'm nearly 100 years old and I will always remember. I've got memories that go back 80 years and I believe that memories go with you when you die, that's my opinion.

Death is not the end.

• - - - ╾━╤デ╦︻