The Forgotten War

Townhall.com ^ | July 31, 2013 | Paul Greenberg

[EternalVigilance]

My father was a Korea vet. I know he went through a lot of hell, but not quite the hell endured by the First Marines, I don’t think.

Great post.

[warchild9]

My daddy is a three-war Marine, and meaintains that his time as a grunt in Korea was worse than his two weeks on Okinawa (where he was wounded) or his THREE Tours in Force Recon in Viet Nam. Korea was much more intense and unpleasant.

/He loves Korea and Koreans to this day
//Yes, my daddy is awesome...and still a little frightening

[cdcdawg]

I’m amazed at how many people don’t know that we have fought a war against China. Why has Hollywood never expressed an interest in the Korean War? M*A*S*H doesn’t count, since it’s really about Vietnam.

[warchild9]

There have been a ton of Korean War movies:

The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Pork Chop Hill
The Steel Helmet (a particularly excellent movie, by the way)

even

Mad Men has roots in the Korean War

There’s lots of others

[cdcdawg]

I will check out The Steel Helmet. It’s a stretch to call it a ton. It’s received nothing like the coverage of Vietnam. I had forgotten about the origins of Don Draper on Mad Men.

[warchild9]

Mad Men is both Shakespearean in its structure

and

serves the War in Korea what The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit did for WWII

/needless to say, I’m a big fan of MM
//and also CH, but that’s a different matter

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I just watched Pork Chop Hill again a few months ago, and was struck by how well it depicted small unit tactics.

[warchild9]

My daddy got a look at the Pork Chop Hill area before it was surrendered to the communists. He says it is very small.

[ComputerGuy]

Chesty - Five Navy Crosses

[NTHockey]

I worked with a Marine survivor of Chosin after my time in the Corps. He told of using axle grease to lube their M-1 Garands, because all the gun oil froze. He had nothing but disdain for the 8th Army, who he claimed abandoned their vehicles with the keys still in them.

BTW, when the Marines boarded ship with their men and material, they refused to return the Army’s equipment.

Good night Chesty, wherever you are.

And to the NSA trolls, FU.

[catman67]

Anyone who has NOT seenn the documentary Chosin should do so!!

[warchild9]

It’s available on Netflix, both disc and streaming.

[lentulusgracchus]

Well said. BTTT.

[Fiji Hill]

The Forgotten War? I haven’t forgotten it.

[Fiji Hill]

I like “Korean Patrol” (1951), one of the first movies about the war. Another that I like is “The Hunters” (1958), which focuses on air combat. The “Soviet MiG-15’s” in the film are actually American F-84 Thunderstreaks.

[Bulwyf]

I will look for that later today, thanks.

My uncle was on hill 677, 2PPCLI, they held against 10,000 with 224 men. Battle of kapyong.

[Yorlik803]

Worked with Chosin vet also. We worked together at a fullservice gas station back in the 80s. One cold winter evening he came out in windbreaker while everyone else was bundled up. When asked if he was cold he laughed and said “ i was at the chosin and let me tell you,this ain’t cold” and called us sissies.
God bless them guys

[warchild9]

I can get The Hunters on Netflix, but Korean Patrol might be a bit elusive.

[robowombat]

The Korean War is forgotten in popular memory for good reasons. The leftists who control academia and the entertainment industry have no interest in publicizing a war that the communits obviously started. The communists and their helpers like I F Stone did try to push the absurd story that the ROK attacked North Korea and the North Koreans just fought back. But even liberals could grasp how fake that narrative was. The US government would prefer not to remember Korea as it was the war that proved every piece of the conventional wisdom on military affairs to be bogus. Truman and his vile Sec Def Louis Johnson believed they could go on starving the conventional forces because ‘strategic air power’ would deter any aggression through the threat of nuclear retaliation. No one thought a serious challenge might pop up in a peripheral area. All the leadership in DOD including the JCS knew they were rolling the dice that that US ground forces wouldn't ever be needed during the Cold War. The Army deteriorated to being little more than a constabulary. Aside from the 8th Army in Japan the only divisonally organized units in the Army were the 82nd ABN and an armored division at Ft Hood and I think and an infantry division. The last two were skeletonized. What ever McArthur’s failings he did serve the nation and the Army exceedingly well by refusing to turn the 8th Army into a constabulary and insisted on keeping the tactical structure of a field army in place no matter how badly equipped and poorly trained the men in those divisions were. When war came there at least was an organizational structure to use to fight it.

The US State Department would rather forget Korea as in January Sec State Acheson, in a statement obviously coordinated with the White House, declared Korea outside the US sphere of interest. McArthur seconded this statement by a similar one.

The US Army, in particular, generally ignores the Korean War because of the wretched performance of many of the 8th army units deployed in the first weeks of the conflict. Soldiers who had maybe two weeks of tactical training a year and often fired less than a hundred rounds on the firing range in a year found themselves suddenly thrust into combat with a tough, well trained and motivated enemy generally better armed and equipped than the US Army. A great many officers at both company and field grade failed miserably as leaders. Some fleeing in confiscated vehicles abandoning their units. Virtually all Army personnel assets available in the Far East and Conus other than the 82nd ABN were tasked to fill gaps and flesh out the 8th Army as it was conducting both a fighting retreat and attempting to establish a firm defensive perimeter. The fighting on the Pusan Perimeter was a closer thing than is generally known even with the concentration of US air, naval and land resources. These initial traumas were eclipsed by the near disaster that the 8th Army suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communists in their surprise counter-offensive sprung a few days after Thanksgiving 1950 as US/UN forces kicked off what was to be the ‘victory’ offensive that McArthur confidently expected would enable him to begin withdrawing some US forces by the end of the year. In this offensive in which one US division (the 2nd Infantry) was virtually destroyed and another (the 25th Infantry Division) was seriously mauled plus numerous non divisional units being destroyed or seriously damaged, the Chinese came near to cutting off and destroying the bulk of the combat forces of the 8th Army. Amidst this chaos it appears the commander of the 8th Army, LTG Walton Walker, suffered a near collapse due to battle fatigue. Walkers disarray led to no real command direction on a structured retreat to defensible positions near Pyongyang. Instead US/UN forces began a virtual stampede to the south . This situation was compounded by the death of General Walker in a vehicle accident shortly before Christmas and the innefectuality of MG Coulter the senior US Army officer in the 8th
Army.

The Korean War ought be ever remembered both to commemorate the courage and sacrifice of many US servicemen and their allies. Further this war illuminates every major professional challenge military forces can anticipate meeting. A sudden and unforeseen outbreak of hostilities, an enemy who appears as a near peer material contender with outstanding cohesion, training, and morale and an utterly ruthless elan that motivates them to win at all costs, a primitive battlefield marked by extremes of weather and environment and challenges to the highest command authorities requiring extraordinary moral and intellectual fortitude and sagacity.