I want to admit, first of all, that up to several months ago I didn't give much thought to the war in Korea. When I did think of it, I'd sometimes get a faint feeling of guilt, but could overcome it without too much trouble. I was too young to worry about things that didn't touch me personally. Then, last January, when I was actually in Korea on a ten day entertainment tour of the camps, that guilty feeling came to me again. But this time I didn't try to dismiss it. I don't think I could have. I did something, instead, and out of that came a strengthening of my spiritual devotion, where there had perhaps been weakness.
After our group has given its show on the evening of our fifth day in Korea I was talking to a Protestant chaplain, Lt. Mason E. Bondurunt, who seemed to be preparing for a trip. It was very cold, in fact, a temperature of 20 below was predicted for the early morning hours.
"Where are you going on a night like this?" I asked. He smiled. "All the nights are like this. I'm holding prayer service up in the front line in a few hours. "The front line!: I exclaimed. "How near are we?" "Twenty miles" he replied. "I think I'd like to go along," I said.
I wasn't serious when I spoke. I knew the army frowned on that sort of thing so I was just making talk. And the chaplain knew it, too. He just looked at me and shook his head. I felt a sharp sense of self-importance.
It was as if I had taken for granted that I was a sort of privileged person who must not be subjected to personal risk, and I didn't like myself for that. In a few days I would be back in the U.S.A., safe and warm. But these kids up in the line, most of them no older than me, and just as fond of life as I was- they would still be there sweating, or rather freezing out whether they were going to live or die. And they were doing if for me. What better thing could I do than share their discomforts and danger for a few hours and what sort of creature was I to pretend I wanted to do it but not really mean it?
It was a slight feeling of guilt that bothered me now, but a strong one, and there was only one way to square it. "Please take me along." I told the chaplain. "I must go."
He said he couldn't do that. He was traveling alone in an open jeep (open so you can jump out and take to a ditch in a hurry in case of a plane or sniper attack) without lights and over a route that was more on an icy, rocky trail than a road. I stood a good chance of being frozen, bumped out, hurt in a crash, shot, or as he put it, "all four, maybe." But by now I had to go
I put on six suits of long, woolen underwear, tops and bottoms. Over this I wore two pairs of GI trousers, two sweaters, a shirt, two jackets and over all a fur-lined parka that reached to the knees. I pulled on four pairs of socks and stuck them along with my trouser bottoms into shu-packs - big, army overshoes. I wrapped two woolen bandannas around my head and after I'd pulled up the hood of the parka I wrapped another woolen scarf around my face, almost to the eyes, so that I could see only through a narrow slit between bandanna and scarf. In each of my woolen gloves was a chemical hand warmer which I held in my fingers.
When I was ready I went out and found two other figures similarly bundled up. They turned out to be Mala Powers and Johny Grant who were members of our troupe. They'd heard part of my conversation with Lt. Bondurant and had decided to go along. A moment later the chaplain got into the car and asked a question which made me gulp. Did we have our identification cards? They would be needed, I knew, if we were captured by the enemy, to prove we were non-combatants and also (which was hardly a comfort) to earn us officer's treatment as prisoners of war. We all nodded soberly and the chaplain started off. I turned my head to look back. Headquarters was disappearing behind us and with it I had lost whatever feeling of safety I'd had up to then. I was scared...so scared I called myself crazy for ever getting the idea of going. I began to count the minutes; each one that went by made me think, "well, just another one like that, and another one after that, and before I know it we'll be there."
In the back of my mind a phrase began to put itself together, a phrase I had heard often about the war. And then I knew what it was- "loose front." GI's would tell us that there was no exact fighting line, especially at night. Soldiers from both sides were slipping through, raiding, making surprise attacks, ambushing carss on the road. That's why we didn't use our lights; not so we could sneak by undetected but so as not to give them an easy, illuminated target. I tried not to think of this and a phrase came to my mind, one my mother was always saying..."God is with you." Crouched deep in my seat, my head pulled down as far as it would go between my shoulders as we jounced along. I kept wondering, "Was He...?" I tried to prove myself that He was, that He always had been. But there was no proof for me out there in the freezing darkness.
"God is with you," my mother would cry out when I fell as a toddler and I would pick myself up unhurt and believe. He had been. "But God will be with you," my mother had said when she told me my toenail operation would hurt, and I just believed her with the faith of a six-year-old. When I was 14 and frightened about taking my first plane ride, when the pilot of a speeding motorboat I was in, seemed to go crazy and was missing the dockside by inches as he roared by, the first time I stood, dry-mouthed and heart pounding, in front of a camera - "God is with you." had been enough. But was He with me now?
I found myself feeling sorry for myself, and then, I recognized this feeling as one I'd had before in my life...for another person, a girl riding in a car with my older sister and me. They had been talking without my taking special notice of their words until this girl had siad, "As far as I am concerned I am an atheist. I can't be a believer. I just can't believe."
I had been shocked and had felt sorry for her...and in exactly the same way I was sorry for myself now! Was I, too, I was sorry for myself now! Was I too, being a skeptic with the little faith I was showing? It wasn't a pleasant thought out there in the menacing freeze. I sat straight up in my seat and stopped cowereing. For most of my life I had always felt that if a thing was right it should be done. Whether it seemed risky or unwise did not matter. This, which I was now doing, was the right thing to do and from this point on I must stop worrying. It was out of my hands.
There is no way of judging the time but perhaps it was a hour later when we were challenged by an American sentry, then by another some distance further on, and after that we pulled up at a big tent hidden in a clump of trees. Several GI's showed up and we were helped out of the jeep...and we needed help, we were so stiff.
Inside we found almost 50 more men, some standing around a little stove trying to get warm and others bunched into little conversational groups. Mala and I pulled our hoods down and took the bandannas off our hair. Everything grew quiet, awfully quiet, and they just stood and stared at us. The chaplain entered quickly behind us, and made a little introductory announcement.
"Miss Mala Powers, Miss Piper Laurie and Johny Grant of Hollywood, men" he said. "They've just come up to join our get-together tonight." Still no one said anything. I got a feeling that it was because they had lost touch with the outer world. It had been so long they were too surprised to get over it easily. A few of the boys came closer and tried to talk...but awkwardly, as if they couldn't think of what to say. A couple of the soldiers started to distribute song books and each man took his, but still stared silently. We were given books and then the chaplain led off.
For the first few seconds everybody sang. But, as if they had all rehearsed it beforehand, the voices of the men suddenly became almost inaudible and just Mala and I were singing. I sensed why immediately. They wanted to listen to us not because it was Mala and me, but because to stand there and hear girls voices brought back everything they had left behind. And you could tell. As we looked around now a smile broke out here and there, an appreciative grin, an understanding look between buddies. We sang on. We knew we were giving the best performance of our whole trip.
The second song was a hymn and now the boys started to join in a bit and it was more of a party. I was singing along when I felt something lightly brush me from behind. I turned around and there, so close that his nose might have been touching my hair before, was a young GI, a dark-haired boy, maybe 19 at the most. His eyes were closed and he was inhaling deeply. Something must have told him that I had moved and he opened his eyes. For a second he looked at me, the barest smile coming to his lips. Then he closed his eyes again, said "Girls!" and inhaled again, sighing.
The chaplain delivered his sermon and then led us all in a prayer. Another song and it was over. Now the boys started moving in, there was no more strangeness but an eager desire to talk on the part of almost every one of them.
"How long you been here?" "How long you gonna stay?" "You coming back up here?" "When did you leave the States? How was it?"
Nobody wanted a show. Nobody wanted us to entertain in any way. They just wanted to talk. They wanted to be carried back, even if only conversationally , to what they had left behind. I looked around my little inhaler and saw him sitting alone, his head to one side and a lost look in his eyes. I knew he was thinking of someone he had hated to leave and wondered if he would ever see again. I had to bink my eyes to keep them from watering and turned back quickly to the others. Open sentiment was not wanted here. There was a lot of it around but for each it was private.
Almost every night of my life since I have been five years old I have prayed. I just pray- I don't pry for anything. But this night I resolved to include thanks in my prayer, thanks that I had turned an idle idea into something valuable. We were there almost two hours, most of which time Lt. Bondurant had individual sessions of prayer and talk with some of the boys. Then we started to bundle ourselves up - the fellows laughing at us openly - for the return trip. They escorted us- out to the jeep and stood in a half circle around us until we got under way. Mala turned to me immediately.
"I'm so glad we came," she said. "So awfully, awfully glad."
It was colder than before, if anything, but we were so exhilirated that I don't think we noticed it at first. Mala and I, as well as Johny and Lt. Bondurant would lean twoards each other despite the biting wind to recall incidents about the visit. Eventually we huddled down into our seats silently as the jeep bounced along. It was then that I had a chance to realize that once more I should be frightened. We had 20 miles of night ahead of us, night that could well be filled with danger from enemy patrols. But I wasn't frightened. I felt wonderful. I felt wonderful because I knew, somehow I just knew that there were not four of us, but five of us going back in that jeep. And the fifth passenger, I was certain, was God.
He was with me. END
[Piper's next picture is Universal-International's No Room for the Groom.]