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Subject:
the remarkable story of Army Private Ed Reeves
Date:
Tue, 27 Jun 2000 17:59:35 -0700


(save for the next time you think you're having a ****ty day)

Following is the remarkable story of Army Private Ed Reeves, who
in December
of 1950 was caught in the fierce fighting around the Chosin
Reservoir, as
told by actor Charles Durning during the 2000 National Memorial
Day Concert.

As my unit tried to flee south in the afternoon of December
first, we were
caught in a savage Chinese ambush. I had been hit by exploding
mortar; my
legs crippled. So I was stuck with my wounded comrades in the
back of some
disabled trucks. We were zipped into sleeping bags - our only
protection
against the unbearable cold - while the rest of the troops
continued their
retreat from the Reservoir under heavy fire.
For hours, we waited, wounded, in pain - for support to arrive.
Then, without
any ammunition to defend ourselves, Chinese soldiers stormed the
trucks.
First, they robbed us helpless GI's of our rings and watches.
Then, they
began to torch the trucks with us still inside.

By fate, my truck was out of gas wouldn't ignite. That didn't
stop our
executioners. Two of them climbed aboard to finish us off.

One of them started at the tailgate and moved toward the middle;
a second
Chinese soldier concentrated on the other end. Each fired a shot
between the
eyes of every American soldier in their path. As they advanced
toward me, I
lay there waiting to die - talking to the Lord and asking for
peace so I
could die like a man. I found out you could still sweat when
it's 35 degrees
below zero.

Then it was my turn. The soldier aimed his gun at my forehead.
He fired; no
more than three feet away. The muzzle blast was blinding…but
somehow, the
bullet produced just a scalp wound. Then I heard the murderers
leave,
believing that everyone was killed.

For the next three days, I lay among my dead buddies, the only
one who had
survived. I burrowed into my sleeping bag, a futile gesture
against the
numbing, bitter cold.

Every time I tried to free myself from the truck, I fainted from
the pain. I
was trapped. Then more Chinese came to loot the dead corpses
around me. They
were stealing leather boots from dead GI's. It was pure luck
that I was
wearing a kind of shoe that wasn't in demand. I kept myself
still, so when
the enemy poked about, they would think I was dead. More time
passed…hours,
perhaps days, until a Chinese soldier came along who rifled
through my
clothes - and felt my body heat.

He knew I was still alive. He pitched me from the truck onto the
ground,
where he and several other Chinese beat me with their rifle
butts until they
were sure I was dead. Then they tossed me on a heap of dead
bodies on the
side of the road. "Jesus, here I come," I muttered to myself.
But my
tormentors disappeared into the driving snow.

I wasn't walking anywhere. So I told myself I had to crawl
before I could
walk. On elbows and knees, I crept toward the frozen reservoir,
each moment
waiting for a Chinese sniper to shoot at me.

To keep myself going, I counted in the cadence I learned in boot
camp. "One,
two, one two!" Then I switched to the hymns I learned when I was
a boy in
Sunday school. "Jesus loves me, this I know, 'cause the bible
tells me so…"

Another night of this hell passed. I was near death, slipping in
and out of
consciousness, when one of the "Ice Marines" who had volunteered
to search
for stragglers found me.

"Tell me where you hurt the most, son," he said, "so we won't
hurt you more."
"Please watch the legs, sir," I told him, "they really hurt." He
gently
lifted me up, and set me in the front seat.

I was so bad off that when I reached the hospital in Japan, the
doctor told
the medic not to bother nursing me, since there was no way I was
going to
make it. I guess the Lord didn't want me to die on that road.
But 400 of my
wounded buddies in those trucks didn't make it. May God bless
them and hold
them dear.

Reeves' frostbite was so severe that doctors had to amputate his
feet and all
his fingers. But the courageous young man refused to give up.
While Ed was
still in the hospital, he married his hometown sweetheart.
Together, Ed and
Beverly have raised seven children - two of them Korean orphans.
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