Ralph Tracy Clark, Smithfield, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, September 9, 2006: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 767 & 768

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RALPH TRA Y LARK PT MB R 9, 2006 next month and a half it became known as Heartbreak Ridge. In eptember and clober the Second Division repeatedly attempted to drive the enemy off Heartbreak Ridge and out of the surrounding countryside. The North Koreans, dug in securely on the rever e slopes, mounted a determined defense. The Second Division, after almost two month of some of the most bitter seesaw fighting of the war, finally blasted the enemy off the ridge for good. The Second Infantry Division suffered over 3, 700 casualties taking Heartbreak Ridge but it is estimated that they had inflicted 25,000 casualties on the enemy. The North Korean II and V Corps were virtually annihilated in the fighting. These losses forced the enemy to return to the truce talks and allowed UN battle lines to be a pushed little further north, to positions more favorable for defense against enemy attacks. As of this writing in 2006, the Demilitarized Zone still runs tangent to the north side of the Punchbowl and its northern edge is still mined.] So we went over around the Punchbowl and were in another big attack that was going on. Our company was in it. I saw the personnel in Baker (B) Company, which I was with, change over almost completely three times except for the key NCOs, who stayed with it and the company commander who never got wounded. He was there all the time. But I'd see (new) guys come in and their fatigues still had creases from being folded up at the Quartermaster's. They put the new uniforms on, be sent into combat and they'd be dead or wounded so soon that when they were carried out the creases were still in their uniforms. It was a very sad thing. I had to learn right early on, that I couldn't let those things affect me. I just had to be prayerful about it and say, "I'm sorry." I had a job to do and if I lost my cool, we'd be in bad trouble. 61