Chosin Fate

Tenth story in Richard Lobinske's Falling Into College series. Notable for offering a detailed and sympathetic background for "Mad Dog" Morgendorffer, Jake Morgendorffer's father.

Summary
Daria gets a new job transcribing radio interviews from the Korean War for a history professor. An off-hand comment from Michael (who plans to go into archeology) about Daria's half-buried skeleton print leads to an awkward conversation on sex, and both agree that they are not ready. On one of the recordings, she hears the voice of her grandfather, Nathan, "Mad Dog" Morgendorffer. He's a young marine waiting for the Inchon landing, telling about being part of a team, that he's scared about combat, and he sends his love to his wife and children. Nothing like what her father had always described. Later, Daria searches for and finds a second recording, made on a hospital ship evacuating casualties from the Chosin Peninsula. The brutality of the war and surviving the fighting at Chosin had changed him into the man Jake knew. That evening, Daria calls Grandma Ruth and talks about Nathan, both the one that Ruth married and the one that came back from war. Daria calls Jake about the recordings and sends him a copy. Jake listens, and for the first time, hears his father say he loves him.