The FReeper Foxhole Revisits - Remembering Task Force Smith - Korea 1950 - Jan. 10th, 2003

http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/oqmg/Professional_Bulletin/1996/Spring/tfsmith.html ^

[snippy_about_it]

Good afternoon Victoria.

[SAMWolf]

Yeah. He sure hits the nail on the head.

[Darksheare]

I STILL remember a certain news'babe' who, in a nasally voice, said with a rising tone of dawning horror after 9/11, "You mean that they HATE us?!"
I wished I could've said to her: "Welcome to the REAL world kid, watch your head now. There's VILE things out there."

[Professional Engineer]

"It was a hell of a way to go to war."

I like this guy's wit.

[Professional Engineer]

US defense spending had reached a modern day low after World War. The military was ill-prepared and those in authority embaced questionable doctrines.

This pattern seems to occur after every major conflict. Somehow by defeating one bad guy, Washington starts believing all the bad guys are gone for all time.

[Professional Engineer]

1968 US Surveyor 7 lands near lunar crater Tycho

Now where did I stash the photo of a certain black monolith?

[SAMWolf]

Evening PE.

This pattern seems to occur after every major conflict.

Boy! Isn't that the truth!

[snippy_about_it]

Good evening PE.

[snippy_about_it]

This pattern seems to occur after every major conflict.

So true. It's like they think we're done. Hello, how about being ready for the next one.

[Professional Engineer]

Howdy ma'am. Fine thread ya' have here.

[Professional Engineer]

Hiya Sam.

FReeper PE reports.

[w_over_w]

Evening Grace Snip & Sam~

Now, thanks to the FR Foxhole, I now know where the expression, "no more Task Force Smiths" comes from . . . and because this is a two-fer special, I also know what "the whole nine-yards" means. Thanks.

On MacAuthur . . . not only did his Far East Command "fail to anticipate the threat", but when first reports came in that the 24th division was getting chewed up, Mac Arthur said, "the news reports painted it much worse than it actually was". Huh? [From "American Ceaesar"]

Well, back to the football game . . .

[SAMWolf]

Evening w-over_w.

Always nice to hear when someone learns something new from at the Foxhole.
'
Hope your team is winning!!

[snippy_about_it]

Glad you liked it. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

You bring your snow shovel? This suff isn't melting fast enough for me. LOL!

[snippy_about_it]

Hi w_over_w, good to see you.

[PhilDragoo]

Truman lost China, with a little help from his friends Dean Acheson, Owen Lattimore and other assorted pinks, reds, corals, scarlets, cerises and rubies.

FDR and Truman obviously never learned a thing about Stalin--FDR sucked up to him; Truman thought he was just swell.

So, with Stalin and Mao backing Kim Il Looney Tune, what's the worst thing that could happen?

Bringing in Ann Coulter, Treason: Liberal Treachery From The Cold War To The War On Terrorism, Crown Forum, 2003, pp 150-1:

In one of the great moments of American statesmanship, in January of 1950, Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson gave a speech at the National Press Club writing off South Korea. He excluded South Korea from America's defensive perimeter, saying, "It must be clear that no person can guarantee these areas against military attack."²¹ The speech made quite an impression on Stalin: With his blessing, North Korea attacked South Korea just five months later.²² But don't call them "Democrat wars." It could have happened to anyone. . . .

Two paragraphs further on:

MacArthur complained publicly that he was not being allowed to win the war. So Truman fired him for insubordinately fighting the Korean War to win.

Admittedly MacArthur blinded himself to initial intel of the invasion, and blinded himself to intel of Chinese intervention, but his Inchon landing was brilliant--and he would have won--

Instead we have a half-century armistice, a nuclear Kim Jong Looney Tune, and Truman is credited for "containment"--

I'm sure Eastern Europe and the billion Chinese appreciate being contained.

Gun crew of a 105mm howitzer in action along the 1st Cavalry Division sector of the Korean battle front.

A 75mm recoilless rifle team made up of two U.S. Army corporals awaits the command to fire while their sergeant checks an enemy position with field glasses.

The 2.36 inch rocket launcher was developed at the beginning of World War II and distributed to units in 1942. The launcher was essentially a tube, about 60 inches long, with a rocket propelled shaped charge in the back. A magneto sends an electrical current that ignites the rocket motor and the projectile is propelled out the tube. Shown below are the two types of ammunition used. The upper projectile is the early war version of the shaped charge munition while the lower example is the later version.

The launcher was nicknamed the "bazooka" after a musical instrument used by the entertainer Bob Burns. The bazooka was advantageous in that it was light in weight, yet had plenty of punch for armor and other hard targets such as bunkers. Lightly armed infantry significantly increased their fire power using the bazooka. Disadvantages included a dangerous back blast and limited range, making the bazooka team vulnerable to counter attack. The first version of the bazooka was the M1A1, which was a continuous tube design. The M9A1 design was a tube that came apart in two sections making it easier to transport.

60MM MORTAR CREW 1st Cav Korea

A 4.2-inch mortar crew of the Heavy Mortar Company, 179th Regiment, 45th U.S. Infantry Division, fires on Communist positions, west of Chorwon, Korea. 5 May 1952.

.30 Caliber Water Cooled Machine Gun Position

The T-34/85 Medium Tank

Russian WWII T-34/85 Tank

These 2 tanks are the famed T-34 of the Eastern Front. Stefan Wollbold identifies these as T-34/85 I or IIs & Mikael Olrog agrees.

C-54

Tiananmen Square protest for democracy June 4, 1989

Strike Hard response of Gen. Xiong Guangkai

traitorrapist42 welcomed Xiong Guangkai to White House January 24-26, 2000 to "re-establish military-to-military ties".

Condoleezza Rice told Xiong his threat to incinerate Los Angeles was "not helpful".

Mouse Dung provided the cadre of officers to lead the initial attack in 1950, and was poised to enter en masse when MacArthur crossed the Yalu.

Today in history in 1990 China lifted martial law after Tiananmen--

The PLA killed 2,000 to 6,000 in a storm of automatic weapons fire and by running over students with tracked vehicles--not merely in Tiananmen but at 130 locations in China.

Today Chinese workers must produce on six sixteen-hour shifts for twenty-four cents an hour--

--and access to Free Republic. . .oh, so sorry, you have reached FreeRe-education.com.

Just think--we could have nuked Dung and his hordes and Wal-Mart would stock Made in USA.

[Professional Engineer]

snow shovel? ~scratching head~

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo.

The Korean War, the first war we didn't fight to win. The policy was carried on into Vietnam. Both mainly caused and escalated by Democratic Presidential policies. Democratic Presidents since FDR sure seem to have made a habit of selling out to Communist dictators haven't they?

[SAMWolf]

We're still trying to dig out from the snow storm we had in the Valley early this week.