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Endless Survival - Chris Sarno Memoir |
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| Having survived Korea for 11 months, forced to endure the filthy and often frightening conditions on the front
line, Sarno faced one of his biggest challenges just thirty days or so shy of being rotated out. Coming back from
a fire mission, barbed wire tangled in A-41’s right sprocket, which was a weak spot on the suspension system. "I
was in the gunner’s seat," he recalled. "I couldn’t see anything but the turret, and it was hot in there. Captain
Hunter—a warrior, but a very impatient one—was in total command of the situation. He told the driver (Durk) that
he didn’t care what he had to do to get the job done, but "just break that goddamn wire and get us back up on the
road." Sarno said that the enemy knew they were in trouble, and now the tank was under artillery fire. By hook or
crook, Durk finally freed the wire-tangled tank. "But before he got us loose," recalled Sarno, "I was sitting in
that damn gunner’s seat saying, ‘I’m not going to make it this time.’ I knew my time had run out. I saw other guys
get it when they were going home. This was it for me, I thought. ‘I’m just not going home.’ All I could think of
was a round coming through that turret. It didn’t happen, but that’s what I was thinking at the time. ‘All of this
has been for what? I’m gonna get killed.’ I just wanted to go home."
Obviously the big adventure of going to war—that big adventure that Chris Sarno had so yearned for while he was in training at Parris Island, Pendleton, and Del Mar—was now growing wearisome. "Nobody can survive in combat endlessly," Sarno explained. "Your body’s mental capacities eventually break down. That’s why you aren’t put on the line for a whole year with a ‘hope you make it’. They always pulled us off the line after a month or so to ‘let us come back’. Because when you’re up there on the line, survival is all you have on your mind. ‘I’ve got to keep killing more gooks. They’re trying to kill me, so I’ve got to kill more of them.’ It was macabre survival." There was one fire mission after another one--day after day, week after week--and Sarno survived them all. |
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But home was far away at that moment. The closest haven to the tankers was in a defalade position
nearby where they weren’t in danger any more. "But a tank following us did get a direct hit on the engine," Sarno
said. "It was totaled. On the turret, there were some Korean Marines hitching a ride. They got blown to
smithereens. And while we were viewing this, wondering what the officers were going to do about it, one of the
jeep drivers drove out into the impact area and picked up what he thought were live Korean Marines. He brought in
three. One was alive and two were dead. I remember a major jumping all over him for being there. I thought he had
just done a heroic act, and he did subsequently get the bronze star. But he also got his ass chewed out for going
out there."