While we were on Reserve we got ourselves a new platoon Leader who is a Battlefield Commissioned Sgt. to 2nd Lt., I liked our old Platoon Leader who was a Sgt. Anyway we found out later He was from West Virginia and a devout Confederate Flag bearer, he flew one over he's tent and one night a couple on guys in the squad from New York and Boston tore it off the tent and dragged it in the muddy ground. The action infuriated the LT. and He swore, He'd find out who did it and when He did....just a few happenings in a Platoon but from that day on the LT. always sent our Squad on Point on every attack, we didn't mind and welcomed the idea getting better every time on spearheading the attacks.
As all good things must come to an end so was all the nice 2-man tents we slept in above the ground, all the hot chow, mail call, nightly movies and most of all the "Get togethers".
We are now back on Trucks heading north to a point where we stop unload and start hoofing it again, up hills down roads and again through small villages. Finally stop atop a hill and again digging in and setting up a perimeter. I dug a position next to the Assistant squad leaders and when we got attacked and I did not see or hear firing from his position, I exited telling my assistant gunner to stay and cover as I moved my Gun to a better field of fire aimed at where most of the enemy were coming from. There I saw that the Assistant Squad Leader was wounded and slumped over one edge of the hole. I, very quickly covered his neck wound with a bandage that we all had on our gun belts and proceeded to fire at the ridge line. Finally about a half hour or so later the  skirmish subsided long enough, I called for a medic who arrived and took the wounded soldier away. The squad leader said, "Good thinking, moving your BAR for the better view, stay in this position, you'll have to cover as my assistant for the remainder of the night. The next morning as I was opening a can of peaches for breakfast the Platoon Sgt. and squad Leader both came by and informed me to turn over the BAR to my assistant for now, I was the Assistant Squad Leader of 2nd Squad. The last replacement that joined our squad would be the next assistant BAR Man, as it was the custom in an Infantry Squad during Combat operations, poor guy.
The Months of January and February flew past so fast that I never realized February at all, it was now March and we are seeing some green foliage and even some flowers popping up here and there, the snow is melted in most parts and some of the guys from the northern mainland parts were even peeling off their jackets. As we are marching down this road, we're told by our squad leader that, " the old man (Company Commander as they are called) said, we are getting hit all the way up the line, it seems they are on a major push". So everybody make sure you all get loaded down with ammo when we go by the Ammo Bearers. We were all surprised when we got to this bend on the road and see a group our Tanks and told to pick one and get behind it, we are approaching a village that's heavily occupied by "Chinks" (the slang for Chinese Soldiers that were now the dominant force to deal with in our sector. The official term was "C.C.F." or Chinese Communist Forces, and yes, we were very grateful for the heavy armor support, they were a force to be feared by the enemy with their pin point accuracy of their 90mm Canons and 50mm Machine guns. Attacking in this fashion was so great, we took the town with little opposition after all that fire power from our support team of Tanks.