As I stepped across the dust-choked road, I felt a chill up the back of my spine.

 

Jake Fragosi sat smiling coyly in an M1 U.S. Army jeep alongside a local scout, and to his rear I saw a Korean policeman.

 

Fragosi said, “Hop in. I’ll take you north.”

 

I bumped my knee as I clamored up into the jeep to sit next to the Korean cop. His name was Too Yoo, a legend among the civilian Korean police system. He smiled, and I smiled back.

 

The hum of the jeep almost sounded musical as it pushed on. We made a right turn to go north to North Camp. To turn left would have taken us south to Kum Chon.

 

As I exited the jeep to enter North Camp gate, Jake called me back and gave me the tightest grip of a handshake I’ve ever had. As the jeep headed toward Munson and Slicky Bay Corner, I went up the big hill to my barracks at North Camp. Fragosi and his companions headed north and sped past the chopper base as they looked out at Charlie Block, which loomed to the northwest.

 

Four hours later I was at North Camp and heard the news about Fragosi. An empty overturned U.S. jeep was discovered near Panmunjon. No dead, injured or blood was found in or around the jeep.

 

Perhaps Fragosi and his companions flew the coop. Or by chance were they, as the overturned jeep suggested, captured? Who can say, and who knows?

 

Even today, there is only thing anyone can say and anyone knows. It’s still a lost patrol.