Jacfu on the Railroad

On the railroad between Tientsin and Chinwangtao, four hours a day, Pfc. John J. Janes of the U.S. Marines stands guard at "Bridge 21." A husky young veteran from Grafton, W.Va., wounded at Okinawa, Janes is one of 47,000 marines now on duty in China. Like most of them, he is homesick and his morale is low--for a marine, very low.

"What I want," Janes told TIME Correspondent William P. Gray in the bare, inhospitable, sandbagged hut he shares with 18 other marines, "is an explanation of what I'm doing here. Then I'll sleep better. . . . We're buttering somebody's bread, riding these coal trains. Why don't these Chinese National troops run their railroads? They've gotta be protected wherever they go. If anybody gives me a good explanation why I'm here, I'll keep still."

Because his officers have failed to explain what the Corps is doing in China, Janes spends many of his 20 offduty hours writing more letters than he has ever written before--to his parents, his friends, Senators and Congressmen. He wants them to find out for him why he is in China and how long he can expect to be there.

The Unconvinced. The reason he is there is U.S. foreign policy, which he neither understands nor recognizes: U.S. forces are in China by international agreement, to support the Chinese Central Government. The average marine's reaction to that: "The hell with it--let's get outta here." As for preserving North China from the Communists, many marines say: "When we leave, the Communists will take it anyway--so why not let them have it now?"

The marines have so thoroughly failed to get the word that many of them did not know of General Marshall's mission to Chungking until the Kuomintang-Communist truce was announced (see FOREIGN NEWS). Then they hastily concluded that this meant they could go home right away.

"Doggie Trick." In the absence of adequate explanation there are anomalies that might puzzle stouter heads than the leathernecks'. Though they have been told that they are in China to disarm and repatriate Japs, they find other Japs, still armed, standing railroad guard duty alongside them. The marines' word for this is "jacfu"--joint American-Chinese foul-up.*

There are other more understandable but equally inexplicable anomalies: how some marines (especially officers) spend so much time investigating the licentious pleasures of the cities; how other marines sometimes kill and maim Chinese by reckless driving, or in deliberate mayhem and murder committed while drunk.

Yet in spite of these things, the outfit in China still has its pride. In a Marine station in Tientsin a young sergeant was busy at the new marine pastime of writing to Congressmen, demanding recall. Asked whether marines would stage demonstrations like G.I.s, he scoffed: "I don't believe the marines would ever do that--that's a doggie [soldier] trick."

*Not to be confused with other G.I. additions to the language; e.g., snafu (situation normal, all fouled up), janfu (joint Army-Navy foul-up), fubar (fouled up beyond all recognition).

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