Korea was constantly on the minds of the officers and older enlisted men, most of whom were World War Two veterans.

Rumors abounded and scuttlebutt ran rampant.

“Hey, j’ya hear? We’re goin’ to fuckin’ Korea!”

“Bullshit!”

“Ain’t no bullshit! I heard it from a guy that knows a guy that’s a clerk for Captain Thompson, who’s on Colonel Black’s staff, who’s best friends with General Penston’s valet.”

“Bullshit! We got better’n four-hundred-thousand troops in the regular army and before they’d send this fuckin’, half-assed know-nothin’ greenhorn division they’ll pull some’a them fuckers outta Japan an’ West Germany and send them!”

“Bullshit!”

“Hey, j’ya hear? They’re extendin’ this here trainin’ exercise to fuckin’ three months an’ then they’re shippin’ our asses right over to fuckin’ Korea! I wouldn’t bullshit ya, man!”

“Bullshit!”

“We’re getting’ activated!”

“Hey, dip-shit, even if fuckin’ Eisenhower did activate us, by the time they finish trainin’ this here fuckin’ weekend warrior army, the fuckin’ Marines’n’regulars’ll mop the place up with them fuckin’ gooks, an’ it’ll be over before we even get there.”

“Bullshit!”

“Yeah, man, we’ll bomb the livin’ shit outta them yella, mother-fuckin’, nip bastards an’ never even have’ta step foot in the fuckin’, stinkin’ place.”

“They ain’t no fuckin’ nips, they’re fuckin’ Koreans.”

“Japs, Koreans, same fuckin’ difference; they’re all nips!”

“Hey, I hear ol’ Ike’s gonna drop a A-bomb on them fuckin’, slanty-eyed, commie, gook, sons’a’bitchin’ bastards.”

“Bullshit!”

“G’bye good ol’ U-S-of-A an’ hello fuckin’ South Pacific!”

“Bullshit!”

“How the fuck ya say ‘fuck’ in Korean?”

“Dumb, asshole, shit: fuckee, fuckee, suckee, suckee.”

For the younger troops, the kids who turned the radio dial when the news came on, the punks whose only interest in the newspaper was the sports and movie section, the radio schedule and funnies, Korea and the real concept of war was still a comic book and a movie where the good guys always win and the bad guys always lose and God, God is always on the side of us “good, red-blooded Americans.”

Norman Parminter and Mitchell Lipensky certainly fell within the punk category. They didn’t want to be activated, but if it did happen, “What the fuck can we do about it?” Norman had said. “And really,” Mitchell had replied, “it is the South Pacific, after all! And what could be so terrible? It might even be fun; no more school for a while, and soldiers in uniform always have girls to fuck around with. And when it’s over, say in, oh, about six months on the outside, and we do come home and go back to school, well fuck the football team! You’n’me, pal, we’ll be real heroes.

Oh, yeah!

And once again, a vigorous, emphatic…

Bullshit!