Ha Jin - War Trash

One afternoon in the "airing grievances" session, the medic said something almost incredible, though there must have been some truth in the story. He told us: "When our former division suffered heavy casualties near Wonsan, we rushed over to evacuate the wounded men. There were hundreds of them lying on a hillside. I was naive and just went ahead bandaging those crying for help. But our director told us to check the insides of the men's jackets first. If the insignia of a hammer crossed by a sickle was there, that man must be shipped back immediately and given all medical help. So we followed his orders. All those men who had the secret sign in their jackets were Party members. We left behind lots of ordinary men like ourselves."

The audience remained silent for a good minute after he finished speaking. I knew the medic and didn't think he had made up the story. Wang Yong broke the silence: "The Reds used us like ammo. Look at the GIs, they all wear flak vests on the battleground. The U.S. government cares about their lives. How about us? What else were we wearing besides a cotton jacket? How many of our brothers could've survived if they'd put on the vests like the GIs? Recently I came across an article. It reports that General Ridgway says the U.S. forces could absolutely push the Communist armies all the way back to the Yalu, but he won't do that because he doesn't want to sacrifice thousands of his men. Just imagine: what if the People's Volunteer Army could drive the Americans down to the Pacific Ocean? Wouldn't Mao Zedong sacrifice every one of the Volunteers to accomplish that goal? You bet he would. Didn't he already send us here to be wasted like manure to fertilize Korean soil?"

"Down with Communism!" shouted a man.

The audience followed in one voice and thrust up their fists.

"Reseize the mainland!"

Hundreds of men roared in unison again.

Wang's analogy of us as human fertilizer revived thoughts I had been thinking for a long time. True enough, as Chinese, we genuinely felt that our lives were misused here, but as I have observed earlier, no matter how abysmal our situation was there were always others who had it worse. By now I understood why occasionally some Korean civilians were hostile to us. To them we had come here only to protect China 's interests – by so doing, we couldn't help but ruin their homes, fields, and livelihoods. From their standpoint, if the Chinese army hadn't crossed the Yalu, millions of lives, both civilian and military, would have been saved. Of course, the United States would then have occupied all of Korea, forcing China to build defenses in Manchuria, which would have been much more costly than sending troops to fight in our neighboring country. As it was, the Koreans had taken the brunt of the destruction of this war, whereas we Chinese were here mainly to keep its flames away from our border. Or, as most of the POWs believed, perhaps rightly, we had served as cannon fodder for the Russians. It was true that the Koreans had started the war themselves, but a small country like theirs could only end up being a battleground for bigger powers. Whoever won this war, Korea would be a loser.

I also realized why some Koreans, especially those living south of the Thirty-eighth Parallel, seemed to prefer the American army to us. Not having enough food supplies or money, we had to press them for rice, sweet potatoes, any edibles, and sometimes we stole dried fish and chilies from under their eaves, grabbed crops from their fields and orchards, and even dug out their grain seeds to eat. By contrast, the Americans had everything they needed and didn't go to the civilians for necessities. Whenever the U.S. troops decamped, the local folks would rush to the site to pick up stuff discarded by them, such as telephone wires, shell boxes, cartridge cases, half-eaten bread, cans, soggy cigarettes, ruptured tires, used batteries. We thought we had come all the way to help the Koreans, but some of us had willy-nilly ended up their despoilers.

A big-boned man jumped up and declared, "I have lots of bitterness too." The prisoners had nicknamed him the Capitalist, because he raised a hen, for which, when it was a chick, he had exchanged four packs of cigarettes with a Korean peddler. He tethered the chicken to the back of his shed and fed it grass mainly. In the spring the hen began to lay, but it was so underfed that it could produce only one puny egg every other day. Its owner bartered the eggs for food with the cooks.

"Speak," Wang Yong ordered him.

"In Manchuria our company was detailed to load trains. We worked for a whole week carrying sacks of soybeans and peanuts into cargo wagons. I asked our company commander, 'Where's all this stuff going?' He said, ' Russia.' I asked, 'Why? Do they give us something in return?' He said, 'This is a way we show our affection for our Russian big brothers. They'll send us lots of machines in the future.' From then on we worked at the train station on and off for almost a year, but I never saw anything from Russia, not even a nail. Instead, we always shipped stuff to them. From this I reckon the Commies are just a bunch of traitors selling out our country."

After him, another man began talking about how he had been misled into a battle. He said huskily, "I'm a Chinese; but I'm no Volunteer. Before we came to Korea, our leaders told us the Americans were just paper tigers. They were afraid of night fighting. Their weapons were more advanced, but they didn't know how to do hand-to-hand combat. Compared with us, they were just pushovers. So we all wrote our pledges. One fellow promised he'd wipe out twenty GIs, another said he'd catch an officer alive, a colonel, and I said I'd blow up three tanks, because I was good at handling explosive satchels and bangalore torpedoes. Then when we came to Korea and got to the battlefields, all the men who'd written pledges were ordered to charge first. Our company commander said to me, 'Comrade Fan Long-yan, before the battle you volunteered to destroy three American tanks. Now it's time to honor your word.' I had no choice but to charge. That's how I lost my arm."

"Screw the Reds," Wang Yong said. "They always brag. Mao Zedong said the whole U.S. Seventh Fleet was a paper tiger. If that's true, how come the Reds don't dare to cross Taiwan Strait? Everybody can see that they're scared by the aircraft carriers stationed there."

"Yes, there's no way they can break the U.S. naval blockade," responded a man with a swarthy face.

"You can count on the fingers of one hand how many warships the Reds have," added another voice.

"And all those are as obsolete as their mothers' underpants," said a broad-cheeked fellow.

Laughter exploded from the audience. I couldn't help but laugh with them.

In these sessions I also spoke about the horror I had seen in the Red Army. Most of the time I talked about how the Communists valued equipment more than human lives. This sort of endless condemnation was rather crude compared with the way the Communists conducted their political education, in which they always managed to associate people's personal sufferings with the oppression of foreign imperialism, Chinese feudalism, and capitalism so as to amplify the hatred. Once the inmates here got on the track of voicing their grievances, they could no longer hold themselves back. All kinds of accusations were brought up, some of which were true, some groundless. By rule you had to say something, or you might be suspected of sympathizing with the Communists.

I always took care not to speak when a tape recorder was on, because some of the speeches were recorded for propaganda purposes. Deep inside, I felt the Communist government had been more responsible than the old regime; it had done some good things for the common citizens and made China a stronger country. At the same time, though, I dreaded the Communists and the way they controlled people's lives and minds.