Spring sunshine dappled the floor of the forest as we dashed from tree to tree, diving for cover under heavy enemy fire.

        Our squad assaulted the right flank while the rest of our team launched an attack up the middle. They were taking the worst of it. We had to move fast. We moved out deeper into the woods, as enemy fire popped and snapped through the trees around us. And then, suddenly, we were behind the enemy sandbags and they were exposed.

        “Make every shot count,” someone yelled. We poured it on. I heard a voice from the sand bags yell “I'm hit.” It sounded like it was just a boy. As he crawled out of cover I got a look. It was a boy. About 11, I guessed. He looked like a kid in our church youth group . . .

        Then, “Whack,” I was hit. “How bad is it?” I asked. I could read the answer in my buddy's eyes before he spoke. “You're finished,” he said. “There's paint everywhere.”

        I drank in the sunshine and the leaves and the grim faces of the boys. The firefight had slowed like microwave popcorn that's nearly done. I took a last look at the battlefield. We were winning. It was a good day to die.

        Paintball war is heck.

        It's not fatal, as far as I know. But it can feel pretty mortal. Those CO2-propelled marbles sting like curses. They leave bruises the size of quarters that hurt like five bucks. On the Ouch Meter it's somewhere between running into a swarm of bumblebees on a speeding motorcycle, and getting shot with a BB gun. I speak from painful experience.

        But playing a paintball Sgt. Rock from the comics was more fun than falling off a horse. And I learned something, too.

        I learned to thank the good Lord for mercy, because I sure didn't get any from my my fellow Christians, who split up into teams for a Church outing paintball war. They turned the other cheek by opening fire on anyone who tried to surrender.

        I learned it's not so easy to judge people who carry weapons for a living. I'd like to have a tube of bruise remover for every time someone accidentally fired a weapon into his foot or his own team. “Friendly fire” is the biggest oxymoron since “Christian soldiers.”

        Anyone who wants a tiny spoonful of the flavor of being a cop or a G.I. should try walking point in a paintball firezone.

        And I learned that my paintball adventures sounded pretty tame a few hours later when I was sitting at dinner with Ohio's only Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the Korean War, Ronald Rosser.

        “They grabbed my by the legs, they climbed on my back. I ran out of ammunition and this Chinese soldier came right up and pointed his rifle at me and I yelled as loud as I could at him. He ran. I bluffed him,” former Corporal Rosser said, describing how he killed at least 13 Chinese soldiers and ran back under enemy fire to rescue Americans who were wounded worse than he was.

        It put paintball on a whole new level — in the sandbox with Matchbox cars and plastic army men.

        Now and then it's good to have someone remind us that the war games we play and watch today were brought to us by men who played for keeps in the real thing. The heroes gathered for the Korean War Veterans Association reunion in Sharonville last weekend remember plenty. They've been to the dark side of the moon.

        And all they ask in return is that the rest of us try a little harder to remember all the boys who did not come home.

        At the end of this month, they'll be marching in parades that end in cemeteries, where the haunting notes of taps will summon old ghosts out of the shadows on a sunny May morning: Memorial Day.

        It's a good day to remember.

        Contact Enquirer Associate Editor Peter Bronson at 768-8301; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: pbronson@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Bronson.
       

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