He hadn't been able to make the two soldiers in the distance hear by shouting to them, but somehow was able to attract the attention of the rescue team. McMorris and the other soldier were unable to get out of the boat and had to be lifted out. He said, remembering that he was 19 at the time, "I wasn't really worried about the gunshot wounds. I thought I was going to starve to death. I had never missed a meal in my life.

McMorris was flown to Tokyo, where his feet were amputated above the ankles. Then he was taken home on a route that included Midway Island and Hawaii. McMorris said he never had dreams while sleeping in a foxhole at night on the battlefield, but later in lengthy stays in hospitals he had a recurring dream. " In the dream, I was in the hospital with my legs off, and was on my knees. I have a machine gun sticking out the window. There is a big stockade gate wide open, and Chinese, as far as the eye can see, are coming through the front gate and I am there mowing them down while they are piling up

When asked how he kept from breaking down and what his thoughts turned to in the full week that he spent in the boat, McMorris is silent for a moment, and then speaks in a lower tone than when recounting the battles. "Very weird. Very weird," he said quietly. "Of course, I thought about home a lot." At night, he would look up at the sky and see the big dipper and was comforted. It looked like the sky he used to see when he lived in Seymour, and would sleep outside at night in the summer.