The Four Deuces: A Korean War Story

by C.S. Crawford

These memoirs are not an attempt to answer, solve, or resolve the problems arising from or about the three-year-long Korean War or the much longer stalemate that followed. This story was written to let you know how one very young, very scared marine saw his very first war and how he reacted to the killing and the mayhem of it. The stories are my view of that war, a war gone to ground in the trench lines. Dig into the stories and you may find something you were not expecting.

I am well aware that my view of the Korean War has no historical importance. Still, it is my view, and I want to share it with you. I do not have a cause to plead or an ax to grind, and that alone ought to count for something. My memoirs are selective and most certainly tainted with time. My recollections are a lot like boot mines, and ought to be approached with caution.

I was a grunt, a Four Deuce forward observer, assigned to duty with a marine infantry company every time the 1st Marine Regiment went back up on line. During the time I was in Korea my boondockers were firmly planted in trench-line mud. When I came home in September 1952, I was proud that I had helped in the attempt to stop Communism in Korea. I was proud of all the men I served, and served with, and I was a little bit proud of myself, too.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story

It’s a great story in a part of history that doesn’t get covered enough, the Korean War, not at Chosin

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! One of the best first person combat books. The author does an amazing job of putting the reader into the hills and bunkers of the Korean War.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow going at first, but author really opens up towards the end. Wish there was another 100 pages.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great record of the last part of the Korean War. Crawford was a gung-ho Marine, and all he wanted was to be put into the war, until he actually was. He left behind his family to fight for the freedom of others. He was a grunt, in short he did all the heavy work. This is a great story from a man who did things many can't.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

True day to day life in Korea. Some funny parts. I learned the life of a FO (forward observer) for an 81mm Mortar Platoon. Being an Mortarman. It gave me insight into what they were putting up with.

[Neversurrender6]

Excellent work of fiction/non-fiction. Its hard to tell where to draw the line. Its chock full of Korean war anecdotes and characters of dubious and often times dangerous nature.

[Scottnshana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember sitting in a theater in San Angelo, Texas almost 20 years ago watching "Saving Private Ryan," thinking to myself that at some point in the near future someone is going to start making such movies about Korea because there are so many great personal stories a scriptwriter could cull in order to do that. I like "The Bridges at Toko Ri" as much as anybody, but I think it's a shame that Hollywood hasn't devoted much attention to the subject since 1954 (and please don't bring up that abysmal Gregory Peck MacArthur movie). I think that "The Four Deuces" might make pretty good script material. If you've ever marched in formation with Marines, you know that they are always superlative on parade; Crawford, however, is candid that he was not a good parade-ground Marine, and those of us who remember polishing boots can identify with the black tint that ended up on his calves during inspection. The corollary to this, though, lay in the fact that the military holds many many people who are good at war even if someone is constantly yelling at them in garrison about haircuts and polished brass. My mind certainly went back to "Saving Private Ryan" when Crawford describes climbing down a big ship's slippery cargo net to a bobbing assault boat, weighed down by half his weight in personal equipment and a big greasy breakfast. But this is only the logistics--the military strives for efficiency when its people hit the chow hall and the supply sergeant--of sending young people to fight. There is also a mental preparation process, and he is again candid in describing it: "...teaching me to call the enemy the tasteless name of 'gook.' You call somebody, anybody, a gook and you dehumanize him. And it is not very hard at all to kill those you have dehumanized. You can live with it... All you can do is whoop it up when your round [calling for fire from the M2 4.2-inch mortar, the 'four-deuce' from which the memoir derives its title] goes off and you are on target and you can see little figures in their padded winter clothing who aren't people, real people, lying all around where you have fired your round." This is--like it or not--one of the standard operating procedures in making killing palatable. But then, so are booby traps designed to cheaply take a trained, fed, and equipped soldier out of the fight--the modern manifestation of which is the improvised explosive device. Like my contemporaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, the men of Crawford's company express their frustration and fear of losing life and limb to these insidious hazards: "'Here we make just two patrols out to that f*ckin' hill, and we ain't yet seen a f*ckin' Chinaman. We ain't losin' any ground, but them f*ckin' gooks are already ahead by three feet.'" The feet--and this reveals Crawford's skill on the page--are those blown off by a large mine cobbled together from a pressure cap, 20 pounds of TNT, and BBs. As the unit confronts not only the mines, but the tortured corpses of comrades they find on the battle-line and evidence that the Chinese are using their own captured weaponry against them, the individual Marines' ties to the laws of armed conflict begin to slip. So does the courage to get up each morning before dawn and sally out into danger. The climax occurs in Chapter 24, when Crawford admits that he's done: "A few minutes ago when the squad was more than halfway up the hill, when Chinese small-arms fire from rifles and burp guns suddenly stuttered, that was when, for me, the Korean war took on a new meaning. That was when the shooting war in Korea had terrified me so badly I could not respond to [the lieutenant] when he had yelled out 'Follow me!'... Try as I might I could not will my legs, my arms, my body to stand up as [he] had done, facing the terror of all the small-arms fire being thrown at us. So I did nothing." In the next paragraph that lieutenant is killed before the rest of the squad; like Crawford, no one else had jumped up either, and he spills some ink confronting the fact that this well-liked and -respected lieutenant thus constituted the lone target for Chinese riflemen. There is also a case to be made that the book's climax occurs when the protagonist is taken out of the fight by an enemy shell. It doesn't matter, though, where the story hits its peak, because there is plenty of death, blood, fear, and pain in this narrative. There is also a certain beauty in the fact that while every awful story you ever heard about Korea is occurring around them, these dirty and tired men keep going over the top into no-man's-land to execute the mission and ensure that none of their comrades is left behind on the desolate landscape. Again, I liked "The Four Deuces" and I think that Master Sergeant Crawford's effort to tell his story is solid. From the sandbags to the hospital ship to the too-short leave in Japan, I think it stands up well and I think it would make a splendid film.