March 7, 1951. The hills north of Seoul were a frozen, muddy mess, pockmarked by artillery craters and littered with the wreckage of a war that refused to quit. Operation Ripper, the grand UN plan to shove the Chinese and North Koreans back across the 38th Parallel, was in full swing. Launched by the Eighth Army under General Matthew Ridgway, the offensive aimed to recapture Seoul (again) and secure key terrain like Hongch’on and Ch’unch’on. The dates were grimly etched into every soldier’s mind: March 7 to April 4, 1951, a month of slogging through rugged ridges and dodging Chinese mortars. The U.S. I and IX Corps, alongside South Korean and Commonwealth troops, were tasked with breaking the enemy’s grip on the Han River line. It was a meat grinder, but the UN forces were determined to make the Reds regret ever crossing the Yalu.

In the spring of 1953, the Korean War ground on like a busted record, stuck on a tune nobody wanted to hear. The Battle of Pork Chop Hill, fought between March and July 1953 in the shadow of the 38th Parallel, was a bloody tug-of-war over a muddy lump of earth in the Iron Triangle, near Cheorwon, Korea. The hill, named for its pork chop-shaped contour on maps, was a strategic speck—hardly worth the 1,500 UN casualties or 5,000 Chinese losses it racked up. Yet, it became a symbol of stubbornness, with U.S. troops of the 7th Infantry Division, alongside South Korean allies, duking it out against waves of Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. The fighting peaked in two brutal phases: April 16–18 and July 6–11, 1953, before the armistice on July 27 ended the slaughter. Into this meat grinder strolled Private First Class Brandon Herrera, a man destined for absurdity.

November 27, 1950, near the frozen hellscape of the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. The wind howled like a banshee with a grudge, and the thermometer—if anyone had bothered to check—would’ve laughed at the notion of “above zero.” The 1st Marine Division, alongside scraps of U.S. Army and UN forces, was surrounded by a tidal wave of Chinese troops, hell-bent on turning them into popsicles. The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir was about to become a legend, and Private First Class Brandon Herrera, a lanky Texan with a grin wider than the Yalu River, was about to make it ridiculous.