The Forgotten War Essay- The Forgotten War | Page 3

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any type of hygiene care in a while. His skin was crusted with dirt, but I was too scared to scrub
hard, for his body, including the skin, was deteriorating due to the cyanide.”
After wrapping him in a thin sheet, she went and found a South Korean soldier that said
he would help her bury the body. “I couldn‟t even remember where he took me. All I remember
is how horrible it smelled. We finally stopped at a huge ditch that was used for mass burials,
there were hundreds of deceased bodies laying out in the open as if they were on display” my
grandmother said. When she had realized that her brother was going to be one of those nameless
bodies, she begged and pleaded with the soldier to let her take her brother back but he insisted
that this was how it had to be. Her eyes had swelled so much from crying, that by this time she
couldn‟t even see the soldiers face when he walked away with her brother‟s body. He then went
and placed him on top of another blanket wrapped remain. Following her return that evening my
grandmother could do nothing else but lay on the dirt floor, watching the dust that float up
illuminate in the air from the sun rays. She tried to visualize her brother‟s face and distort the
sobs into his laughter. It was hard to believe that he was gone. Not only gone, but she was forced
to leave him in a hole with countless others.
The next day, it was clear her mother‟s condition was worsening, she seemed to be at her
last breath. Although they were supposed to be looking for food, no one could leave for dread of
coming back to one less family member. That night it wasn‟t the bombs that kept everyone
awake, it was her mother‟s despairing gasps for air. As she breathed in deep one last time, a
moment of silence occurred then the sounds of hopeless crying fill the hut as her sister, father,
and her wonder what there is left to live for. The following morning my grandmother and her
sister prepared her mother‟s remains for a proper burial as their father dug up a g