Some questionable comments in the book that can be described as dated or worse.
When the North Koreans overran Seoul, information on all of the 5,000 Some questionable comments in the book that can be described as dated or worse.
When the North Koreans overran Seoul, information on all of the 5,000 South Koreans who worked at the American embassy was left behind. None of them survived.
It is difficult to know what happened from the Communist side. There never seems to be a lot of information about that. It is such a closed society in the North.
As with any disaster, we need to learn the need to prepare for the worst. Something we are not doing for the climate catastrophes heading our way now. Nor does it seem for just about anything else. Let us please learn the need for good governance and forget about this idea that anything goes is somehow a way to protect the future.
The author is critical of the idea of a "pampered, undisciplined, egalitarian army" that Americans "had long desired and had at last achieved. They had been raised to believe the world was without tigers, then sent to face those tigers with a stick."
The first edition was published in 1963. There are moments of racism that I find offensive. For example, here is a quote from Chapter 16:
"The Koreans, North and South, are by any standard a brave people, but they are mercurial, rising one moment to extremes of exaltation, dropping quickly back into despair. They can be martyrs on any given day, traitors the next. They have been called, not without reason, the Irish of the Orient. And in some cases, not even rigid Communist training, with its denial of basic human nature, can eradicate the nature of the Korean peasant."
Yet not long after that is some fascinating information about the war: Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku surrendered to American soldiers and was completely cooperative. He was the highest ranking soldier to surrender. Yet in captivity, "he would do more damage to the U. N. cause than he had ever accomplished while serving with the Inmum Gun."
And I need to finish every book that I review or not give any stars.
In the end, I was not happy with the author intrusions. ...more
Gut-wrenching war. The whole thing can be summed up in the title of another book about Korea: The Forgotten WAnother superb book by David Halberstam.
Gut-wrenching war. The whole thing can be summed up in the title of another book about Korea: The Forgotten War by Clay Blair.
Can you name a movie about the Korean War? There are many about Vietnam and WWII. Why not Korea? The Manchurian Candidate in 1962 is not really a war movie. And MASH is really about Vietnam although it is set in Korea--Even the director admits that. For me they would be The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) with William Holden and Grace Kelley; and especially Pork Chop Hill (1959) with Gregory Peck. That's a while ago.
Douglas MacArthur is portrayed in a very negative light. An egomaniac. Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Un, MacArthur, and Trump are all so similar. Egoists. Above the law. A bit mental. Believed in nonsense.
Here is one example that says all you need to know about MacArthur. He walked by a general and did not salute him to get to another general who was a total supporter of his. That general he walked by had just courageously led a band of poorly trained, ill equipped soldiers who fought to the death against overwhelming odds in order to attempt to hold a line. That is an ego trip on MacArthur's part. The man he saluted was Ned Almond who is held in disgrace for his performance in the war.
The greatest success of MacArthur's career was at Inchon. But the success only made him more headstrong and above the military and civilian command. That would lead to the later failures as he sent troops north.
Military preparation 101: Never send soldiers in the dead of cold winter, into uncharted and unfriendly territories, with a long unprotected supply line, after looking at a flat map in Tokyo. They did just that.
So we have these Colonels with scrambled eggs on their hats, getting laid in Tokyo, looking at their flat maps and not understanding why American soldiers are taking so long to go 20 miles. They send messages that could be rewritten in this way: "What's taking you guys so long to advance 20 miles! MOVE!!!"
I had never heard of sandbag bridges before. Sandbags were dumped in a river. They formed an underwater bridge. Harder to spot and to blow up.
There's something about war. We are left with the bare essentials. Humans are called upon to define themselves. For example, a wounded soldier is left behind by a young lieutenant in order to save his own skin. But four American soldiers and two South Koreans decide to stay behind and drag the man along thinking they probably would not make it. Somehow they get back to safety. Moments like that define you as a human being.
In another incident, wounded American soldiers are left behind as the troops flee advancing Chinese. When Americans return to the spot, the soldiers are bandaged up and left on the side of the road. Don't get me wrong, the Chinese tortured and executed many prisoners, but moments like that one stand out to show humanity shining through.
One officer who fled the Chinese onslaught with a few men left stood and cried. His commander went over and embraced him. The man kept crying. The commander took off his helmet and held it up so people could not see the man's face as he cried. There are many moments like this one where I would use the word "beautiful."
Actions have consequences. We will pay for Trump long after he is gone. The Korean War started long before. The Japanese controlled Korea for a long time. Young Korean leaders were killed. The people were treated as inferior.
We think of Hitler as the great dictator of the 20th century. I think Stalin and Mao should be included. Each killed tens of millions of their own people. Including supporters. And they survived for a long career. Such damage is hard to overcome later in history.
Mao used to have province chiefs build villas for him around the country. When he visited, he stayed there and expected to have young peasant women to have sex with.
No one in command believed the American soldiers when they told of advancing Chinese soldiers. They just couldn't wrap their heads around it. The numbers vastly overwhelmed the United Nations forces.
Mao had no problem sending countless numbers of his soldiers to their deaths. Overpopulation leads to a sense of the worthlessness of human life. I believe it is one of the causes of war. ...more
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