The Lull

In the Hollywood Dance Hall in Yong-dungpo (a suburb of Seoul) last week, Sergeant John A. Wallace Jr. of Edmeston, N.Y., celebrated his 22nd birthday. Deciding to do well by himself and his friends, he hired the place, laid out a feast of roast beef, baked ham, potato salad, beer, whisky and champagne. While a six-piece native orchestra struggled manfully with U.S. dance music, G.I.s contentedly swung kisaeng girls (Korean equivalent of Japan's geishas) around the floor. Cost to Sergeant Wallace: $200. Said he happily: "This is my fourth birthday in the Far East, my second in Korea and the first I've had a chance to celebrate."

Meals & Movies. The lull was on. Last week even front-line troops were getting more showers and better food than ever before. The numerous outfits in rest areas were sleeping under canvas (sometimes leaky under the heavy rains, but still a luxury), and their meals--which included large quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs and ice cream--were elegantly laid out on tables fashioned from packing cases. They played baseball and basketball, swam in the rivers, flocked at night to movies, risked their payday money in poker and crap games. Stones glistening with new whitewash lined driveways at command posts which no longer had to be moved every few days.

Idle G.I.s were putting up signs on the muddy roads. One, newly mounted last week, announced the exact number of miles (6,669) to the Wall drugstore in Wall, S. Dak. Lonely engineer outfits were attracting passersby with such signs as "Joe's Joint--hot coffee and beef sandwiches--two miles ahead." The areas just behind the front were crawling with sightseers, mostly flyers, sailors and civilians.

Here We Go Again? A few men were still being killed and wounded in local actions; such small-scale casualties did not seem small to the men who were hit or who saw comrades fall. Assuming peace was possible, no man coveted the distinction of being last man on the casualty list. The attitude of the troops toward the Kaesong negotiations was mixed. Some, showing a monumental calm bordering on indifference, were fatalists who counted more on rotation than on a cease-fire to get them out of the fighting. Others hung eagerly on every day's news from Kaesong.

Almost to a man, the troops seemed to admire Ridgway's handling of the truce negotiations, but groaned profanely every time the talks stalled. "Here we go again," some said, adding their personal cuss words. No one doubted that the Eighth Army, the most effective and self-confident army the U.S. has ever fielded, would fight angrily, hard and well if called on again.

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