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see something in every shadow and over the chattering of my teeth heard unexplained noises in every direction. All of a sudden I heard the crunching of gravel and someone came out of the darkness. My hand shook from fear as much as the cold.
    â€œHalt,” I shouted.
    The shadow said something in Italian and kept coming.
    â€œFraido? Fraido?” he said.
    I figured the son of a bitch was asking me if I was afraid. I shook my head no. He smiled, turned around and walked off back into the darkness. I watched him leave and walk toward some fires. I shifted from foot to foot trying to stay warm. All of a sudden out of the shadows came my Italian partner, walking along as calmly as when he left. He handed me his canteen cup and it was full of coffee. He gestured to me to drink.
    The next morning I went to the old factory washroom. When I went to the sink to wash my hands, I noticed that the faucets were labeled caldo and f raido . Caldo was warm and fraido was cold. The guy last night was asking me if I was cold.
    I realized that fear comes from the unknown, and the unknown was never as bad as I initially thought. Overcoming fear needed to become second nature.
    After eight days onboard the ship, word spread that we were getting close to Japan. We’d do another month of training before landing in Korea. We crowded along the rail looking at the shore lights in the distance. The water made the lights from the city look like stars.
    â€œIt’s Yokohama and we’re headed right for it,” I heard a soldier say.
    Suddenly the ship started slowly turning to the starboard and running south, parallel to the shore. I didn’t think much of it. But the next morning we were informed that we were going straight to Korea.

CHAPTER FOUR
    PUSAN
    The smell was unbearable.
    The water around the dock at Pusan was black and slick with oil and sewage. Two docks up from where we were was a cattle holding area, and when they cleaned the pens they just hosed everything into the water.
    The pungent odor hit us as we approached the pier. Most of the guys stayed below, out of the smell, but I stayed on the deck mesmerized by the port.
    Tucked into the southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula, Pusan was Korea’s largest port. Thousands of U.N. soldiers were moving through this port. Everywhere you looked there were cranes, trucks and trains, all in constant motion. The piers were clogged with green Army trucks and crates of ammunition and food. Cranes lifted the supplies to the dock and forklifts zigzagged around bringing them to waiting trains. It was a complex, modern ballet of engines and men, and we’d arrived right in the middle of it. The docks and railroads reminded me of Philadelphia.
    Before we got off the ship, I pulled my section aside.
    â€œA lot of you men have never seen a harbor. This one is busy and dangerous. Keep your heads up and make sure you stay out of the way of the cranes.”
    The men nodded and we marched down the ramp to the dock. My company was quartered in a huge shed right on the dock. Winn told us that we’d be there a few days, until the ship was downloaded. The shed was dark and we were given a small spot to sleep. We used our shelter halves and blankets and slept on the floor. The grumbling started almost immediately.
    Walsh took his shelter half and laid it close to me. “What a shit hole,” he said. That about summed up everybody’s attitude. And after two hot meals a day on the ship, we were now stuck eating C rations.
    One daily ration had six twelve-ounce cans. Three of either meat and beans, meat and potato hash, or meat and vegetable stew, and three bread and dessert cans with crackers. We used a key, soldered to the bottom of one can, to open the rest of the three-and-a-half-inch-tall tinplate cans. The ration also came with a packet of gum, toilet paper, matches and a nine-pack of cigarettes. Everyone carried an opener on his dog tag chain.
    During the first