Return To Heartbreak Ridge Return To Heartbreak Ridge is the story of a sons' search for his fathers' past, and a series of letters received from Korean War Veteran SFC Seymour "Hoppy" Harris, a gunner with Company H, 23d Infantry Regiment, 1951. It is a complex story. Warning: Strong language, pejorative terms, and honesty. Thoughts Dear Hal, We are in the middle of the worst storm of the season, and there is little to do but write and try to make like it's spring. I will be glad when the election business is over. Same old garbage every time someone wants to be President. I can't really warm up to Mondale or Hart. Hart is making a big mistake by passing off mistakes in his campaign by blaming them on his staff. Will he do the same if he is President? Wonder what his answer is to Central America? Let the communists take over? What does he propose we do? Sit on our hands while communism takes the world over piece by piece? Are we to just sit by and do nothing because we are all afraid of another Viet Nam? If we keep this crap up, we will be afraid to move. We really will become the Chinese "Paper Tiger." We have lost a lot of freedom in this country, just in my lifetime. Hal, I have always been a very private person, and resent anyone prying into my business. I don't do it to other people, and don't expect them to do it to me. I guess I got that attitude from growing up in communities where everybody minded everyone's' business. Guess most people considered me an oddball because I wanted privacy. I don't know what to think of me, Hal. All my life, I've been one step over the line, one step ahead or behind everyone else. The way I thought in Korea was way out of line with what others were thinking. I had then, and still have a sense of responsibility. Once I have started something, it tears me up to have to quit. To have to admit I'm not as good as the man next to me. Right today, if someone like Chesty Puller says we got the shit kicked out of us in Korea, it tears me apart. We didn't lose, and I will say that until the day I die. We whipped the living hell out of both the North Koreans and Chinese. We drove them out of South Korea. We inflicted more casualties on them then they did on us, so how can people say we got beat? I can only say this. I did the best I could, and if anybody wants to ridicule me, there is not much I can do about it. But I would be lying if I said it didn't bother me. You don't do you duty the way I did over there and not have it bother you when someone like Puller calls you a cowardly bastard. You can't get it through some people's heads, especially a goddamned pacifist, that there have always been wars, and always will be as long as there are men on the face of this earth. Trying to raise a son believing that our way of life can be preserved without fighting is utterly stupid. An army is a must. Civilization as we know it in this country would not last 30 days if we did not have a well trained, well supplied army. I suffer through people who say we could get along without fighting if we tried. Watch the Russians come into New York Harbor, and take over, and see what their reaction would be to see Russian troops goose-stepping through New York City. Oh, you could live right. But would it be living, of just existing? Those who did not want to fight would be the ones to cry the loudest. I know perhaps as well as anyone that war is a hell of thing, but it is also a fact of life. You can't sit back with no way to defend yourself and expect someone with a powerful army to leave you alone. It just won't work. Hey, sorry about the grammar. I knowed I shouda wenta school more. Got to get this mailed and put a muffler on my car. How'd you like to do that with no hoist. Laying on that wet ground will be just the thing for my arthritis. Say hello to Nancy and you be good to her, you hear? You be good to Hal. Your Friend, Hoppy Harris Go to Return to Heartbreak Ridge Return to Korean War Project Home Page Feedback to the Korean War Project is welcome, and encouraged. Copyright 1995, by Hal Barker (hbarker@kwp.org) All Rights Reserved.