It has been almost exactly 70 years since my father was assigned to a two-man bunker overlooking an anonymous ridge on the 38th Parallel in Korea. The purpose of these outposts was to act as a trip-wire in the event of a mass attack of Chinese troops. Several weeks prior to June 1951, members of Dad’s battalion had been ambushed while patrolling the front, an ambush that cost the lives of several Army soldiers. But they served their purpose: to alert the battalion bivouacked a quarter-mile behind the line.
