Chris Sarno's memoir - "You'll Be Soorree"

Medford, MA
Korean War Veteran of the United States Marines

"I am left with an indelible memory of a Japanese girl…. Let the world know how a vicious war influenced and touched two young people caught up in events they could not understand."

- Chris Sarno

(Click the girl's picture for a larger view)
 

Chris Sarno is pictured above, thinking of "the girl I should have married." For Chris, this Japanese beauty possessed a "traditional inherent feminine quality known only to Japanese women since time immemorial." Yoshiko and Chris loved each other, but they never married due to racial ideologies that were not compatible in the 1950s.

Chris Sarno is filled with pride in the fact that he served as a combat Marine in a tank company in the Korean War. There is also an interesting twist to his war story. On R&R, he met a beautiful Japanese business girl. Eventually, he fell in love with her. In the wake of war and its aftermath, two post-war (World War II and Korea) young people from different cultures were thrown together. Each needed the other for different reasons. With only immaturity to guide them through social and racial barriers, they could not resolve their differences. The life of one ultimately ended in tragedy. Time marched on with bittersweet memories for the other.

October 2008 Memoir Update!

Since the Korean War Educator originally interviewed Chris Sarno over four years ago and posted his memoir here on the KWE, interesting things have continued to happen in Chris' life... Chris has sent us a most interesting update to his memoir entitled:  Hope Springs Eternal  (Please click HERE to read this update).  Based on his military-related literary works, he has also been listed in the Marquis Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, and The Dictionary of International Biography [Cambridge, England].

Memoir Index

[Editor's Note: *Due to the number of pages contained in this memoir (over 90 pages) it has been broken up in the smaller segments to shorten download time into your browser. Since this memoir is copyright protected, it may not be printed or reproduced in any manner without the expressed permission of The Korean War Educator.]

[Editor’s Note: The above memoir was compiled and written by Lynnita Jean Brown from an interview with Chris Sarno that was conducted at the 1st Marine Division Association Reunion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1999. Additional comments by Chris Sarno were provided for his memoir from a tape recording which he sent to a former Army rifle platoon leader in Korea, Pete Wood. They also came from voluminous correspondences for clarification between Chris and Lynnita while the Question/Answer interview was being transformed into a readable manuscript.  Some photographs of tanks are published in this memoir with the permission and through the courtesy of Donald R. Gagnon, editor of the Marine Corps Tankers Association newsletter.   No portion of this interview may be downloaded or copied without the express permission of the Korean War Educator.  Mr. Sarno died August 06, 2014 from complications associated with diabetes.