Victims of Intelligence

Too often, we only know what we're told

We looked at the bridge and checked our wires. The C4 was strung in a daisy chain from support to support all along the side of the bridge. If all went well, it would capsize as it fell into the sludge of the Yung Ri. We had waited for ours, our shirts black with sweat, our eyes burning. Was the intelligence wrong? No! There—the clanking rumble of mechanized armor!

Lieutenant Hamma whispered, grinning: "Are you ready for the fireworks, my friend?"

The vehicles stopped before mounting the bridge. An officer climbed down from the second truck and walked back along the column shouting, "Modu meogeora!" The drivers in the first half-track examined the bridgehead; the rest ate lunch.

We waited, frozen in place. We didn't dare move, not even to take a drink, lest lookouts mark our position call artillery down on us. Too much risk; this convoy had to be stopped.

At last, the Korean officer climbed up into his truck. "Gyesok apeuro naagada!" —Forward!

The first two vehicles mounted the bridge; then four more vehicles, the troop transports. When the last two were on the bridge, I shouted: "Now!"

Hamma smashed the trigger; the bridge exploded, crashing down. The lieutenant and I cheered.

We looked at our handiwork as the curtain of dust settled. We saw the crumpled trucks we thought would be carrying troops. But the intel had been wrong.

Our joy turned to tragic bitterness as we looked at the ruined trucks, each with a red cross on a white background emblazoned on their canvas tops, surrounded by small bodies—much too small to be troops.

We hadn't stopped a devastating ambush. We had destroyed marked hospital trucks, murdering dozens of sick and injured Korean children.

We weren't heroes.

We had just become war criminals.

(Word Count: 300)