Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
9:35 | When Marine Bob Brockish shipped out for Korea, he had no idea what an experience it would be just getting there. From the indignities suffered when he crossed the International Date Line to dealing with the sketchy black market in Japan, it was an adventure before he even saw the war.
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Bob Brockish decided to become a Marine while he was still in grade school. After his older brother joined, he gave a speech at an assembly extolling the history of the Corps.
When you're young, you don't know what it means to be a Marine, you just want to be one. Bob Brockish could not wait to join, but shortly after arriving at boot camp, he thought, "What have I done?"
After boot camp, the first assignment for Bob Brockish was the Marine Barracks at the Naval Ammunition Depot Hawthorne in the Nevada desert. When he was not on guard duty, he was training as a firefighter.
Every Marine knows about inspections. Bob Brockish prepared well and got duty at the front gate as a reward. That did not last but he got other duty which he liked, something which was preferable to guard duty in the cold desert lookout towers.
Just as the Marine Corps was releasing Bob Brockish from active duty, North Korea invaded the South. Soon he was at a newly bustling Camp Pendleton, training for deployment to the peninsula. His new cold weather gear proved to be a problem on exercises in Southern California.
The first thing he noticed was the smell. Bob Brockish was still on the ship at Pusan when he caught a whiff of the local fertilizer. The Marine's first assignment was driving an ambulance, but before he even got to that, he had two run-ins with the regimental commander.
It was like sandlot baseball. The replacement Marines were divvied up by the platoons and fire teams and Bob Brockish was the last guy to go. He had been driving an ambulance in the rear, but now he would be in a foxhole on the front line.
They knew the Chinese spring offensive was coming. The untrained Communist prisoners would just blab everything they knew. So the Marines hurried to the hill that became known as Horseshoe Ridge and dug in to block the way. It was the first combat for Bob Brockish and he recalls his part in the battle. Part 1 of 3.
When the sun rose after the first night at Horseshoe Ridge, the Marines could see they were surrounded so they prepared to attack back the way they came. Bob Brockish remembers the rolling, leapfrogging battle back to rejoin the regiment, during which he lost friends as well as his weapon. Part 2 of 3.
His memories of the Battle of Horseshoe Ridge are noise, light and smell. There was so much ordnance and so many flares that you didn't need lights. Bob Brockish relates these impressions and remembers the men lost. Decades later, there are still expeditions to locate the remains of the missing. Part 3 of 3.
After the Battle of Horseshoe Ridge, Bob Brockish stayed on the move, taking and retaking hills as both sides jockeyed for position. He lived in foxholes, where the sleeping arrangements could be described as tense.
After the push to get to the Punch Bowl area, Bob Brockish went into reserve with his battalion and it was around this time that he became squad leader. The Marine was nineteen years old and suddenly he was responsible for twelve men.
It was a historic day for the Marines, the first air assault with Marines placed at the front with helicopters. Bob Brockish didn't make that ride but his unit relieved those troops and he couldn't believe what they were complaining about. As he looked around the terrain, he wondered why there was apparent road construction on the top of a ridge.
The Corps put out a call to NCO's in Korea asking for applicants to become commissioned officers. Bob Brockish applied and was interviewed and then heard nothing about it. So it was back to moving hill to hill, dodging enemy mortar fire.
He was pulled from the line and sent to division for Sergeant's School. That was big living after a long line of foxholes. When he finished that and got his stripes, Marine Bob Brockish got even better news. He was going to Quantico as an officer candidate.
His flight home had to circle around after an aborted landing and Bob Brockish thought for a moment, am I going to survive Korea and then die here? He was on his way home for Christmas and then on to Quantico, where hoped to become a commissioned Marine officer.
Even without any college, Bob Brockish passed all the tests at Officer Basic School, where even college graduates were taking remedial courses. He wanted to go to artillery or armor school, but the captain had other ideas, so he decided to go inactive and entered the Marine Reserves.
