Korean War 1950 to 1953 6/5/25
To say we are the clay is an acknowledgement of Gods work. . “Behold, like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand, O house of Israel.” Jeremiah 18:6
This is about a boy found wounded, in a ditch and a old women takes care of him despite her husband. He is wounded and she tries to stop an ambulance to help but the driver just gives her a bandage and packet of sulfonamide powder to put on. After a few days they find a hospital and she begs them to operate and they take a piece of shrapnel from his belly and she get the 11 years old boy back with a new bandage. The old couple have fled their village ahead of the Chinese coming from the north. The boy was looking for his dog in the wood when his village was destroyed with his siblings and his parents who were scholars.. He is put in the cart covered with quilts and the old man is sure he will die. They survive in the cold by always keeping a brush fire burning and are always looking for brush wood.
The boy recovers and now the old man is sick. The boy breaks a hole in the lake and with a sharp stick. On the way back he has 3 dogs blocking the gap between the boulder, he throws a fish to distract the dogs and gets back. Later with fish cooked into jelly he entices the small dog to follow him into the cave where he feeds it but where the old man needs meat the she kills it for food. The set up a shack of scrap metal that they found at the battle sight. They are given packets of rice outside the US Feeding station. They later head back north to their village where all 12 families have returned.
They have to get permission from the village carpenter for the boy to remain. The boy leaves to return to his own village but all is destroyed and he returned to the old couple. The carpenter advises him to get a job with the American army. He goes to the camp where he is given a chest X-ray to prove he has not tuberculosis. He is given cream to cure sores on his face, and a week later he is given a job in the kitchen where the cook gives him leftovers to take home. that keeps the old couple healthy. He later gets a better paying job being a servant to the officers. Now the old couple regard him as a miracle. A youth askes him where the phonograph is hidden, he tells him and the next day it is stolen. He refuses the kickback for complicity. The old women is pulling the plough till he gives them money that he has been saving to buy an ox which is used to plough the fields or is rented out. The old women dies and he mourns her like his mother.
He has a problem with the teenager who demands that he join him and his gang as he is useful as he has learned English. He wants to leave to become a scholar in Seoul and he spoke to the army chaplain about his troubles. The old man says he owes him loyalty as he saved him. He visits the grave of he old women his real savior and the one who adopted him. The carpenter gives him his blessing and he and the old man are with him to see him onto the train to go study in Seoul. He had saved up money to become a scholar like his father.
Chaim Potok a rabbi was a chaplain in the US army in Korea
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