MARINE CORPS RECRUITING STATION SPRINGFIELD CHICOPEE, Mass. -- He needed one tranquilizer, a small breakfast, his wife's company and a relaxed environment before telling his story for the first time. He sat quiet, looking at the floor, taking deep breaths as he began recounting the horrors of how he fought for our freedom as a U.S. Marine in the Korean War.
At first glance, Thomas J. Walsh, looks no different than your ordinary 69-year-old West Springfield retiree; gray hair, thin build, tall and gentle. But after hearing him speak, there is no doubt that his appearance is nothing more than a pleasant-looking shell of a man who is much older and worn than he seems.
The first words Walsh spoke were soft, but direct. He wanted to make clear from the start how he felt as a Marine rifleman in the Korean War. "I always say that the heroes are the ones that died, I am just another Marine who did his job," said Walsh.
As Walsh remembers it, the feeling amongst most Americans as the United States embarked on a war to stop communism in Korea was less than positive. "I did hear many people say it was a war we cannot win," said Walsh. "People knew about war; we had just gotten over World War II. They knew what it was like, and I feel that they did not want to see the Americans going there. Many people, I think, believe it was a political thing ... and the more I think about it today, it was."
Walsh was anxious to do his job as a Marine despite public opinion. "I think we were all anxious because that's what we trained for," said Walsh. "You want to go there but you may not come back. So what? We're doing our duty and that's how we felt."
In June 1951, with only two-days notice, Private First Class Walsh received the news that his company would be going to Korea. Eleven days later Walsh and his company of Marines were sailing off the coast of Korea.
"When we finally got to where we could see the coast of Korea I think the entire ship became like a ghost town," said Walsh. "You saw everybody, but not a word was spoken, it was that quiet. I would hate like heck to think today of what some of these guys thought. My thoughts, personally, was that I was not going to come home. We all thought about doing what we had to do knowing that you may not come home. And yet, we all stood and watched that shore and dreaded going there."
Walsh landed on the east coast of Korea approximately 25 miles from the 38 parallel. There was no resistance as the company of Marines made there way to shore. It was not until nearly a week later when the 1st Marine Regiment was called on to support the Army's 7th Calvary Division on the front lines that Walsh saw his first glance of combat.
"At the time we were called, the 7th Calvary was outnumbered approximately ten to one," said Walsh. "By the time the Marines got up there it was 30 to one outnumbered. But between the 7th Calvary and the 1st Regiment we held the position and the North Koreans did not break through.
"The Marines and the 7th Calvary were in trenches. The North Koreans they would run and get behind trees and bushes, whatever they had there. They were coming up a hill ... that engagement lasted about four hours. By the time we got done that first time, I felt like an old man. I think you get that feeling because of the fear you have of doing what we were doing. It was the first time I ever killed anybody. It was the first time I ever fired a rifle at anybody. And knowing what you were doing; the fear you had of getting hurt or something made an old man out of you and I was only 18 at the time."
Walsh remembers the end of his first conflict with the North Koreans by nothing more than the silence. As he recalls, everything had just stopped and they waited for the next attack by the North Koreans, but it never came.
Roughly ten days later, the Marines had completely taken over the hill and the 7th Calvary had withdrawn. At the same time, the North Koreans were staging their next attack.
"One morning, while my buddy was on watch, it was about six o'clock, he came to the doorway and called me; told me get up and get out here. I got up and grabbed my piece [weapon] and went to the trenches and we waited and listened. We heard an awful racket. We heard North Koreans talking and so forth. They had a bad habit of beating on drums and blowing bugles. The moment you heard that you knew that you were in for a big day. That's how they signaled they were going to attack.
"Of course the Marines were as silent as mice. If we did anything then we would give away our position. They had an idea where we were. Then all of a sudden we heard mortars and rifle shots and we got ourselves ready. They started coming up the hill, bugles were blaring, the drums were beating something fierce. They got within 300 yards of us ... before they got too much closer we opened fire on them. We had our rifles ... our machine guns and they were all blaring. They never got much closer than 200 yards because we held them on the side of the hill."
That fight lasted approximately eight minutes according to Walsh. "But the problem with a fight that lasted even that long seemed like an eternity", said Walsh.
The fighting would go on and off approximately every three or four days. And when the conflict did happen, Walsh admits that it was something that was expected because of the bugle playing and the beating of the drums.
Walsh and the 1st Regiment remained on the frontlines for 40 days before they were given a break from the constant fear and stress of combat. During this time the Marines were able to take showers and eat hot meals. Four weeks later, three weeks of which were training, the 1st Regiment was back on the front lines to relieve a company of Marines.
Walsh recalls the first part of his second mission being quiet and without much conflict. During the slow time, the Marines volunteered to string barbed wire 30 feet in front of their position. After setting the barbed wire, the Marines attached empty food cans to the wire to alert them of any incoming enemies.
For three weeks all was silent, according to Walsh. Then one morning the North Koreans began making a tremendous noise, but nothing happened. The following morning, the Marines did not hear a sound until the rattling of the tin cans.
"I remember hearing a couple of shots of rifle fire and it came from the North Koreans," said Walsh. "The North Koreans were attacking a platoon that was to our left. We all got ourselves ready, made sure our weapons were loaded and took the safety off. Right down in front of us we heard talking from the North Koreans. They hit the wire right in front of our positions. We opened fire at them. There were so many of them that we were killing them right at the wire thirty feet away. How many North Koreans I killed I don't know. It's one time that you don't stop to count what you are doing. But they started to come up the hill and there were so many dead North Koreans that they were taking the bodies and throwing them across the wire so that they could cross.
"That morning the platoon I was in, we were outnumbered 20 to one. And in a platoon there were only about 85 men. They got within three or four feet of us. You wanted to see some Marines who were scared -- you should have seen me that morning. That was a morning that I was thankful I paid attention when it came to hand-to-hand combat; I was in it. You don't pay attention to what you are doing, you just do it; it's automatic. And the hand-to-hand combat lasted about 25 minutes and that was a lifetime. If you got a hold of a North Korean you used your bayonet and you stabbed him. Sometimes to get the bayonet out of the North Korean you fired two and three shots into him, just so the recoil would pull the bayonet out of him. You used your rifle like a baseball bat and you would clobber them along side the head, and you would smash their head and their skull. I think that morning I fired about 300 rounds of ammunition myself. I remember my rifle was so hot I could hardly hold it. There were approximately 300 dead North Koreans, and I lost one of my best buddies. But he was not the only one.
"That was the first time I got into combat where everything you learn in boot camp came into effect because it was a matter of survival. I think that day was the scariest, most vicious day in my life."
The next battle the Marines would face was not the North Koreans, it was the winter. During the winter, the conflict between the North Koreans and the Marines slowed, according to Walsh. The new conflict was trying to stay warm. It was due to the extreme cold that Walsh suffered severe frostbite from his toes to his stomach and was taken off the front lines for one week. Walsh's squad leader froze to death one night and nearly every Marine out there had one form of frost bite or cold-related injury.
"The winters were bitter cold," said Walsh. "The winters here in New England were like summer compared to winters over there. The winters over there were nothing to have temperatures at 40 to 50 below zero."
It wasn't until February that the bitter cold of winter began to subside and the North Koreans attempted to advance. On the morning of February 14, Walsh recalls hearing the North Koreans off to the right of the Marines position. They sent out a patrol, which Walsh was a part of, to observe the situation. Shortly after, however, everything went tragically wrong.
"When we got out there we saw the North Koreans. They were still part way down the hill by the valley. We got word that we were going to stop them from coming up, the squad of us. One man got pretty shook up. We didn't know it but some North Koreans were only 50 feet away from us. We were going to try to outflank them and set up an ambush. This one man got so scared that he got up and started to run like hell. He started to scream and holler and gave us away. And instead of us surprising them, we got surprised -- we were ambushed.
"One heck of a fight started ... the noise was horrific. The yelling, the screaming, the hollering, between the Marines trying to keep us together and the North Koreans you couldn't hear yourself think. The fight lasted about five minutes; I got clobbered. I don't know if it was a hand grenade I don't know if it was a mortar or what ... I wound up with a piece of shrapnel in my left knee that was so bad I could not walk. And the North Koreans, they were all over us. Out of 18 men, I was one of three men to live."
With no way out, Walsh and the other two men hid in the bushes for the next three days without water or food. They remained back-to-back to guard each other. North Koreans were all around them, but Walsh and the two other Marines were well camouflaged.
On the third day, the Marines sent out a search party where they found Walsh and the other two Marines. Walsh's injury was so bad they transported him to the ship hospital where the doctors removed 70 pieces of shrapnel from his left leg, his hip and his side. He remained in the hospital for six weeks until he was transported back to Korea.
They were going to transfer Walsh to Battalion Headquarters, about a mile behind the front lines to keep him out of harms way, but Walsh wanted no part of it. "And I asked could I please go back with the men I served with, the men I knew, the men that I trusted with all my heart and soul and life," said Walsh. "They gave me permission."
When he returned to his Company he was awarded the Purple Heart.
On June 28 a squad of 22 Marines, including Walsh, walked out to an out post about a half-mile from the front line. This was a routine patrol where for the past few weeks the situation had been relatively quiet. But on that particular day the North Koreans were waiting. "It seemed as if the North Koreans were overwhelming us with fire power," said Walsh.
Walsh took two Marines on the left flank in an attempt to fool the North Koreans into thinking the Marines had more people than they actually did. They had to climb a hill in order to position themselves for attack. But, the minute they stood up a couple of machine guns opened up on them.
"My two buddies were killed outright," said Walsh. "I got hit a second time, I was shot in the right side. I went down. The sergeant saw it and he came and he had three men with him. And they laid down next to me to protect me. I told the sergeant, lets get to the top of the hill before we are all dead. One of them took me by the arm and I managed to make it to the top the hill ... and between the five of us we managed to outflank the North Koreans ... We started firing at the North Koreans that we could see there. We fought on the side of the hill and we wound up in the trenches. Anything in front of you that wasn't growing we killed it right then and there."
After 20 minutes the fighting had stopped, and the North Koreans had pulled back. Out of the 22 men that went on patrol that morning, only six walked back. Walsh remembers that the Marines killed about 150 North Koreans.
Walsh was taken off the front lines and placed in the battalion medical center where they removed the bullet. While in the rear, recovering from his injuries, Walsh encountered a Marine Corps colonel who listened to Walsh's experiences in Korea and then forbid him to return to the front lines.
"I told him I want to be with my buddies," said Walsh. "The men I fell in love with and trusted with my life, and he said no way."
Shortly after being told that he would never return to the front lines, Walsh was approached by the battalion commander who attempted to award him his second Purple Heart, but Walsh refused to take it.
"I said I don' t want it, I got one," said Walsh. "He said you are entitled to this one. I said, sir I have lost many buddies; since I have been here [recovering] I have lost three that I have known for almost 14 months we were together. I don't want it. You give it to those who earned it who are not here. He couldn't believe what I was saying to him. He said you know, many men have gotten two purple hearts ... he said would you take a hand shake and I said yes sir I would."
Walsh left Korea from Battalion Headquarters. He was there for 16 months four days and four hours. "I was 18 when I left and 118 when I came home," said Walsh.
To this day, Walsh still suffers countless nightmares from his experiences in Korea, but admits that if anything ever happened here he would be the first to go volunteer his services and knowledge of combat to protect this beautiful country -- the United States of America.