Although the fighting had not been severe for other units of the 1st Marine Division during the first two weeks of July, the casualties (including KMC losses) were 55 KIA, 360 WIA, and 22 MIA--a total of 437. Relief of the Marines was completed by the 2d Infantry Division on 15 July, and by the 17th all units were on their way back to assembly areas in X Corps rear. It was the second time since the landing of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade on 2 August 1950 that the Marines had been away from the firing line for more than a few days. _Red Herrings at Kaesong_ It is not changing the subject to switch to the truce talks. Kaesong was actually a second UN front. After the preliminaries had been settled--most of them to Communist satisfaction--the UN delegation, headed by Admiral Joy, held a first meeting on 10 July 1951 with his opposite number, NKPA Major General Nam Il, and the Communist truce team. This was the first of the talks that were to drag on for two dreary years. Nam Il, a Korean native of Manchuria, born in 1911, had been educated in Russia and had served with the Soviet army in World War II. His career in Korea began when he arrived as a captain with Soviet occupation troops in 1945. Rising to power rapidly, he took a prominent part in the creation of a Soviet puppet state in North Korea. An atmosphere of sullen hatred surrounded the UN delegates at Kaesong. The CCF sentinel posted at the entrance to the conference room wore a gaudy medal which he boasted had been awarded to him “for killing forty Americans.” When Admiral Joy tried to send a report to General Ridgway, the messenger was turned back by armed Communist guards. These are samples of the indignities heaped upon the UN truce team. After several UN delegates were threatened by guards with burp guns, Joy protested to Nam Il, “demanding prompt elimination of such crudities.” In order to give their battered armies more time for recuperation, the Communist delegates met every issue with delaying tactics. They proved themselves to be masters of the ancient art of dragging a red herring across the trail. Going back on their word did not embarrass them in the least if they found it to their advantage to renege.[252] [252] This section, except when otherwise noted, is derived from the following sources: Joy, _How Communists Negotiate_, 6–10, 129, 140; Carl Berger, _The Korean Knot_ (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957), 141–151; Comments n.d., Col J. C. Murray. The truce negotiations were bound to have an immediate effect on military operations. In the United States it seemed a pity to newspaper readers that American young men should have to die in battle at a time when headlines were hinting at the possibility of peace. Mothers wrote to their congressmen, requesting a halt in Korean operations. General Van Fleet minced no words after his retirement when he commented on the effect of the truce talks on strategy: