| The crew of Tank 41 was in combat on both the eastern and western front, but they stayed on the east coast of
Korea for several months. During the late autumn, the 1st Marine Division put five Dog Company tanks on five
mountain tops facing North Korea. "They provided direct fire right into the goonyland on the trench line," Sarno
said. Two or three of the tanks supported Korean Marine Corps regiments. The other two tanks supported U.S. Marine
operations. While Dog Company Marines endured the miserable conditions on top of the mountains, Marines in other
tank companies were waiting in Reserve, including those in Able Company. Sarno’s company was in Reserve at
Wontog-ni from November to the 15th of December 1951. They set up camp adjacent to the Soyang-gang River, which
was down to a trickle. The river’s big boulders were visible in the riverbed. On November 10, as all Marines are
wont to do no matter where they are, the members of Able Company marked the anniversary of the Marine Corps’ birth
with a traditional birthday cake. It was an especially significant day for Chris Sarno, because he had just
received a battlefield promotion to corporal. "I was happy as a pig," Sarno said. "I had some combat time under my
belt, and as the youngest Marine in the company, I had the first cut of sweet cake from Top/Sergeant O’Neil, who
was the oldest Marine in the company. I got to slice the cake with Captain Snell’s K-bar. After the ceremony
ended, O’Neil got me to join the 1st Marine Division Association as a life member for the $25 of script that was
in my pocket." Sarno never had any regrets for having spent his last dollars on that life membership that day. The
date of November 10, 1951 was, indeed, a good day for USMC Corporal Chris Sarno. "I was still wet behind the
ears," Sarno recalled, "but I was one happy, unmarried gyrene who was cocky and brash but, conversely, hardly knew
anything about the mystery of life. The older NCOs read me like a book. I was still blinded by an 18-year-old’s
immaturity. I was a combat veteran, and to me, my world looked like a bowl of cherries." |
