Buck Matthews

Dogpatch Days

Recollections of a Non-Combatant in the Combat Zone

A Korea Christmas Carol

18th Fighter Bomber Wing Christmas Card

(copied from a GI publication)

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the tent

Was the odor of fuel oil (the stovepipe was bent).

The shoe paks were hung by the oil stove with care,

In the hope that they’d issue each man a new pair.

The weary GIs were sacked out in their beds

And visions of sugar-babes danced through their heads;

When up on the ridge-line there rose such a clatter –

(A Chinese machine gun had started to chatter).

I rushed to my rifle and threw back the bolt.

The rest of my tent mates awoke with a jolt.

Outside we could hear our platoon Sergeant, Kelly,

A hard little man with a little pot belly.

3 ‘Come Yancy, come Clancey, come Connor and Watson,

Up Miller, up Hiller, up Baker and Dodson!’

We tumbled outside in a swirl of confusion,

So cold that each man could have used a transfusion.

18th Wing Christmas Card

‘Get up on that hilltop and silence that Red!

And don’t you come back ‘til you’re sure that he’s dead!’

Then putting his thumb up in front of his nose,

Sergeant Kelly took leave of his shivering Joes.

But we all heard him say in a voice soft and light,

‘Merry Christmas to all – May you live through the night!’”

© Copyright 2008 Buck Matthews. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes without permission in writing from the author. Used with permission by BelleAire Press as a tribute to those American servicemen and women who served during the Korean War.