1 one of the most diabolically re-written wars in history. the korean war set the standard for bias. it was this war where soldiers were first told to 'check their fire' when they knew of civilian units helping the north koreans. the precursor to vietnam's soldier-dilemma.

2 The question that must be asked: why was this war forgotten?

3 I'd rather focus on those veterans who bore the burden of it. They are our next generation of vanishing heroes.

God bless them.

God bless them indeed. 

4 And now we're allowing a Victory Mosque in NYC.

5 Nice post, DinT!

6 :salute:

7 The question that must be asked: why was this war forgotten?"

---happened a bit too soon after WW2 , pretty much the reason.

8 More specifically:  I went to government high school in the early 2000s.  Most people in my generation have some idea what the "Tet Offensive" was, but most don't even know this war even happened, beyond some vague idea that there was once a "Korean War."

9 Supposedly Stalin was against the original invasion by the North and the intercession of the Chinese.

10 My dad served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He spent the whole time operating a radio shack on Guam, thank God. Like most of the men in that conflict he just wanted to do his duty and go home.

I was privileged to be there at the opening of the Korean War memorial. Veterans of the war were there to answer questions about the statues. Those guys were so full of pride -- they had just done their duty and gone home, so nobody had really recognized their sacrifices up till then. God bless them all, they fought a numerically superior enemy to a draw despite the fact that they were forgotten.

11

 it was this war where soldiers were first told to 'check their fire' when they knew of civilian units helping the north koreans.

Linkage please! Tell me more. I have not heard that before.

12 Do you mean literally forgotten, or is the nickname a matter of how it was treated at the time?  It seems to me anyone who ever watched MASH (even if it was an allegory for Vietnam) has heard of it.

13 not many people realized the communists plans or the pace of what was happening after the big war. most just wanted to get on with life, we may see big epic movies about world war 2 and read heroic novels about it. but the truth was, it was very traumatizing for america in general. another war was simply a tad too much to handle at that point in time.

14 Linkage please! Tell me more. I have not heard that before."


---yeah? try going and reading ANY historical book about the korean war. or better yet, talk to vets.

15

Perhaps the public doesn't want to remember wars unless those wars were fought to win.  WWII, fought to win.  Korea?  Vietnam?  Afghanistan?

Perhaps someone here can put me some knowledge, as to why we went into Afghanistan with such a small (relatively small) force, and why the focus shifted to Iraq before Afghanistan was secured.

As I recall after 911, people wanted to go to war, they wanted to punish someone or something for the horror of that day.

16 2 The question that must be asked: why was this war forgotten?

Probably because it was SO unpopular, nobody wanted to remember it.  And you can kind of see how people would have been really sick of world drama by the '50s.

17 9 Supposedly Stalin was against the original invasion by the North and the intercession of the Chinese.

Posted by: steevy at June 25, 2010 09:29 PM (NmWLa)

I heard the opposite. I read that it was Kim Il Sun's idea and Stalin liked the idea of kicking the Americans out of Korea and green lighted it. Mao at the time was the hesitant one, at least at first.

 

18  it was this war where soldiers were first told to 'check their fire' when they knew of civilian units helping the north koreans.

Linkage please! Tell me more. I have not heard that before.

---
A citation would probably help, but since it was a big deal in Vietnam, and in WW2 some folks were going on about the effectiveness of morale bombing, it certainly seems plausible.

19 Two of the most embarassing moments in US history came in the Korean War.Erly US troops were soft and poorly trained and were cut up by the Norks.MacArthur crushed them with the Inchon landings but ignored all the sighns of imminent Chinese entrance into the war.Contrary to popular belief,American troops retreated before numerically and firepower inferior Chinese troops .Poor preparedness,poor training and poor leadership were the root causes.Never forget.

20

Good post DIT. 

 was privileged to be there at the opening of the Korean War memorial. Veterans of the war were there to answer questions about the statues

I think the KWM is much better than the VWM.  The latter, if I remember right, was agenda driven.

21 My dad was stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He went on maneuvers near point Barrow.

He says he was never as cold as he was in Korea.

22 ---yeah? try going and reading ANY historical book about the korean war. or better yet, talk to vets.

Posted by: str8 outta at June 25, 2010 09:32 PM (aoXSx)

I have done both. I guess you are just another kook on the Internet then.

23 Perhaps someone here can put me some knowledge, as to why we went into Afghanistan with such a small (relatively small) force, and why the focus shifted to Iraq before Afghanistan was secured."


---did you really just ask this? are you serious?

24 I have done both. I guess you are just another kook on the Internet then."

---ummm no you havent. and no amount of googling books on the war while claiming you read them will convince me otherwise.

25 On the day the Korean War began, only 74 years had elapsed since June 25, 1876 -- the date of Custer's death and that of his immediate command at the Little Bighorn; the remainder of the 7th U.S. Cavalry was besieged on the 26th before the Indians finally withdrew. (In 1951, at the 75th anniversary commemoration, two Indian veterans of the fight were in attendance.  The last 7th Cavalry survivor, Charles Windolph, had died the year before.)  

In Korea, where the regiment added new laurels to its fighting reputation, the 7th Cavalry's colonel actually drove a jeep with a McClellan saddle on the hood, the better to remind his men of past glories.

How dare Michael Jackson have the effrontery to die on June 25!

26 18 Isn't it technically still going? Or is that an "urban" legend?

Technically, yes it is; there was never a formal end to the war.  There's just been a 57-year armistice.  (No, really.)

27 Technically, yes it is; there was never a formal end to the war.  There's just been a 57-year armistice.  (No, really.)"


--- he be correck

28 ---ummm no you havent. and no amount of googling books on the war while claiming you read them will convince me otherwise.

Posted by: str8 outta at June 25, 2010 09:34 PM (aoXSx)

Screw off douche, either cough up the cite or fuck off.

29 Oh, I like the design of that memorial.

Dropped by a local memorial to veterans of all wars last weekend and the slab of granite listing the local men who gave all in the Korean War called it "the beginning of the end of Communism."  Sigh.

30 27 Yep,basically a cease fire.

31 Another thing that made this war different was that it was considered a "police action" more than a war (sound familiar?).  I don't think Congress ever formally authorized the Korean War, although I could be wrong on that.

32 Screw off douche, either cough up the cite or fuck off."

---"cough up the cite"

im not going to sit here and give historical lessons, so much of it is already available at your local bookstores and on the internet for you to read yourself. want a lesson? fuck you-pay me.

33 Dave,
Amen and amen.  God bless all of our fine soldiers.

34

shamless linkage.  chosin resovior, bout 15 survivors tell their story. raw footage and documentary stuff I read and ordered from black five/ranger up/ their website.   Veterans talked to Veterans because they'd seen the elephant and lived and understood.

http://frozenchosin.com/

I wish this was shown in classes.

35 oh alright ill toss a bone his way, why not....from 'science magazine, 2009...and this is just a taste...

"Early in the Korean War, the South’s army was fighting on two fronts: against the North, which had invaded in June 1950, and against homegrown Communist guerillas. In February 1951, the army’s 11th Division and police in the divided peninsula’s southwest were closing in on guerillas holed up on Bulgap Mountain in Hampyeong County. Operation Full Moon—an assault on Bulgap—was planned for the night of 20 February. But the rebels caught wind of the impending attack and, knowing they’d be routed if they made a stand, slipped the cordon. In the meantime, villagers fleeing advancing troops had sought refuge on Bulgap. When soldiers and police stormed the ridge and found only civilians, survivors claim, they dug a long trench, forced the civilians to kneel inside, and then shot them or thrust sharpened bamboo sticks down their throats. Women and children were among the victims."

36 In a sane and just world the Korean war should have meant the expulsion of the Soviets from the UN security council. By their really bad miscalculation they walked out and the UN vote to defend South Korea went ahead.

37

I have read a couple books on this, I'd actually recommend Halberstam's "The Coldest War", if you're willing to suck up his stupid analogies* to "we're losing in Iraq and Bush is a fuckwit", the battle accounts are really solid work.

 

* lest I speak ill of the dead.

38 keyword "homegrown communist guerillas"

---i win, you lose.

39 I don't think Congress ever formally authorized the Korean War, although I could be wrong on that.

There was no declaration of war; WWII remains the last war in which America fought under one.  I don't know if there was any kind of "non-declaration-declaration" from Congress of the kind Bush received to go into Afghanistan and Iraq (and if you ever want to make a leftard head explode just remind them of that), but otherwise, the body "authorized" the Korean War by funding it for three years.

40

Thank you so much for the post Dave.   The Korean War memorial was the most evocative one in D.C. for me.  The artist who designed it was a Korean War veteran.  He used actual photographs of real soldiers to sculpt the faces on the statues.  When I visited it, the docent was a Korean War Vet from North Dakota.  He was absolutely incredible. 

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the Korean War or Vietnam War.  When I was in High School, we were taught American History in chronological order from America's inception.  By the time we finished WWII, the end of the school year would be in sight.  The Korean and Vietnam wars were basically just an afterthought.  I always wished, just once, that the teacher would start from present day, and go backwards. 

Last November, I read a great book about Chosin on a plane ride.  It was "The Last Stand of Fox Company" by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin.  It was so good, my 12 year old nephew (who's a big WWII buff) read it and so did my brother (in the week that I was visiting them).  I can't recommend it enough.  What those men went through was unfathomable.  I am truly humbled by and grateful for their sacrifice.

41 33 Yes,it was an unusually drawn out and costly "nonwar".Police actions were fairly common things,Marines in Haiti or Niciragua for instance.This was our first fullblown nonwar war.The idea probably being to ease tensions with the Soviet Union by preserving an obvious fiction.

42 36
Great pissing Charlie Sheen in a squirrel suit, will you two stop, kiss, & make up?

But Mom, he started it!

43 Maybe someday he history books will catch up to Truman. That ratfucker wouldn't allow USAF jets to chase commie jets north of the Yalu. He also had the USAF drop leaflets warning of bombing raids on North Korean industrial areas at least 24 hours before the attacks. Truman lost his balls after nuking Japan. No modern history will go there, though.

44

The war never ended. Technically we are still at war with the DPRK, just not a hot one at this time. However when they took the USS Pueblo we should have bombed them past the stone age and right back to the primordial soup.

45 i started it and finished it. any other dumb-fuck comments?

46 44 Vietnam and Korea were both essentially costly draws.We lacked the political will to truly "win" them and it is true that Americans very much like to win.Ties very much rub us the wrong way.(a reason for the disdain towards soccer

47 "Vietnam and Korea were both essentially costly draws.We lacked the political will to truly "win" them and it is true that Americans very much like to win.Ties very much rub us the wrong way.(a reason for the disdain towards soccer"


--- this is true. it also introduced an entirely new for of warfare ANYBODY was used to....well...except the french. they learned the lesson well. and that wasnt a tie.

48 One of my uncles, having been discharged from the Navy at the end of WWII because of reduction in forces, was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea.  I recently found a couple of pictures he took from a machine gun emplacement and of the motor pool where he was a mechanic who worked on jeeps and tanks.  It looks damn cold.

49 This is the war where the term "bug out" came into being - because our hastily assembled troops thrown in front of the North Koreans would flee the battle "bugging out."

50

My late father's older brother lied about his age and went into the army.  Went to Korea and was declared missing in action.  Pretty much destroyed my grandmother.  I have been trying to find his "remains."  Got the last relative from the mother's side to provide the dna.  I would like to take him home to bury him.  The Army sends me updates about meetings for the relatives of the lost.

51 Find yourself a copy of The Korean War by Max Hastings.
Hands up all those who knew that in the rush to fill the ranks, government bureaucrats recalled WWII vets with the fewest combat points.
(For bonus points, who can guess which sort of veteran had the fewest points?
As a clue, one poor bastard spent close to seven out of 10 years in the company of either the Japanese or North Koreans.)

52 47 The fighters chased them anyway.(at least many did)One told a funny story of shooting down a Mig right over it's airfield which was north of the river of course,in the gun camera footage was row after row of closely parked Migs.They watched the footage once and than burned it,needless to say he did not claim that Mig.....

53 actually i shouldnt have stated my last post so hastily. america had already the experience in guerilla warfare long before korea and nam, in the phillipines.

54 53 Yep.They flat ran.I don't blame them,I blame the nation for failing them.

55

crap., The Coldest Winter.

 

anyway.  The artillery defense at Wonju is a remarkable story of American bravery.

56 My dad was UDT during Korea.  The only thing he ever told me about it was that they would be loaded onto a sub which would then get them as close to the shore as possible at which time the UDT team would be shot out of the torpedo tubes.

Once they had completed their mission they would swim the four or five miles back.

They were, and still are, men of iron.

57 57 Our first experience with suicidal muslims too.The Moros.

58 the korean war was also a small turning point in our history of arms. at first our men were outfitted with dated world war 2 weaponry which was basically useless against the north korean weight of attack. thankfully we wised up, and with very impressive results.

59

My Dad was in this war. US Army. I dont know the division etc, but could find out,maybe. He never talked much about his service, except some of the funny stuff and the fact that he was MIA for three or four days along with two or three other guys after having a jeep blown out from under them. They had to cross enemy lines to get back with their company. or something. I wish I would have wrote some of it down, He is gone now, 6 years.

My Dad. I Miss Him.

60 As to guerilla war we had earlier experiences.In our own revolution and Civil Wars.In Kansas.Later in Mexico.

61 49 i started it and finished it. any other dumb-fuck comments?

Posted by: str8 outta at June 25, 2010 09:49 PM (aoXSx)

Now that you bring it up, your cite does not really say what you posted. Now if you can chill out for a moment, all I did was ask you for a cite for an event that you claimed, that I have never heard before. If that twists your shorts, then I might suggest talking to your doctor about a Xanax prescription.

62

instinct, my dad was a sonarman on one of those boats.

 

Life is funny.  All he wanted to do was play baseball.  If all that hadn't happened, someone else woulda been writing this junk.

63 "Vietnam and Korea were both essentially costly draws.We lacked the political will to truly "win" them and it is true that Americans very much like to win.Ties very much rub us the wrong way.(a reason for the disdain towards soccer" Korea was not a draw, because it proved an excellent natural experiment to show commies that their system failed. Also, the millions of South Koreans (even if the young ones are whiny bitches) grew up free thanks to us.

64 one thing that always impressed me about our military was our adaptation to battle. in the layman's terms it was like "oh shit well....that didnt work, lets try it this way!" meme. unlike say, the germans, who during the midst of losing battles produced heavier and materiel costly tank/artillery  armaments....fucking idiots.

65 Why is everyone forgetting the American atrocities at No Gun Ri?

66 The one and only time the UN took up arms. Staggering losses, too.

67 "Now that you bring it up, your cite does not really say what you posted. Now if you can chill out for a moment, all I did was ask you for a cite for an event that you claimed, that I have never heard before. If that twists your shorts, then I might suggest talking to your doctor about a Xanax prescription."


--cute little retreat there. i wont punch you in the other eye though, so youre dismissed. as i said before, you want lessons? fuck you-pay me.

68 62 The weapons were not a problem.

69 By the time we finished WWII, the end of the school year would be in sight.  The Korean and Vietnam wars were basically just an afterthought.

My HS history teacher was in...I forget which branch of service during Korea...but same sort of thing.  Our entire study of the Korean War was a slide show of pictures of him with his plane and some girls on the last day of school.

70 68 Um,you don't know what you are talking about.

71 Thank you for this post. My father was KIA in this conflict.

72 67 If we kept our commitments the same thing would have happened to South Vietnam.They were draws because we left the enemy territory unoccupied and the enemy intact.

73 The Norks are a bunch of plicks. There are probably a few morons out there that have been to S. Korea since I left but the South is on a constant war footing. I worked in Pan Mun Jom and they had weekly security meetings to go over every topic from incursions to locating the latest tunnels. When I was there, there were still Americans getting wounded or killed.

74 The weapons were not a problem."
-steevy


----ehhhhhhh....thats a bit debatable....but only a bit id say. the north korean artillery, guns were a 'tad' better than our world war 2 stuff at the beginning. but only a tad.

basically the commie weapons were like the german weapons at that time, lots of rate of fire, but no stopping power.

75 76 Not saying they were useless wars though.I think both were necessary in there own way.

76 8 Um,you don't know what you are talking about."


---about?

77 rawmuse, my condolences. God rest him.

78

also str8, the North had tank advantages, early in the conflict.

 

They had zero artillery advantage, and no air cover.  They minimized their disadvantage by closing in lines, and encirclement.

 

Don't talk out of your ass.

79 --cute little retreat there. i wont punch you in the other eye though, so youre dismissed. as i said before, you want lessons? fuck you-pay me.

Posted by: str8 outta at June 25, 2010 10:01 PM (aoXSx)

I will SKULL FUCK you.

You got nothing, you know even less, and got called out on it - almost by accident. Nice self-ownage, bozo. 'Saved me a lot of typing.

80

also str8, the North had tank advantages, early in the conflict.

 

They had zero artillery advantage, and no air cover.  They minimized their disadvantage by closing in lines, and encirclement.

 

Don't talk out of your ass.

zero artillery advantage? oh come on now, dont be THAT cute. im not saying it was years ahead of their time....

and no air cover? there was a famous 'mig alley' in korea that was fought over, not fought over very long but i wouldnt say 0 air cover.

youre pretty stupid. no...youre very stupid.

81 To this day, I hate commies. I admit it.

82 78 Mosin Nagant rifles ,Degtaryev light machine guns(seen in the picture with the soldier.last on the bottom)and PPSH 41-43 sub machine guns.The Soviet troops left their small arms behind when they pulled out.Bolt action rifle with a decent round was inferior to M1 ,Degtaryev was pretty good,fairly even with BAR's.PPSH fired a weak round,7.65 Tokarev pistol round(basically .30 ACP copy).They also had standard Soviet mortars and field pieces which were quite good and some T-34's.

83 "I will SKULL FUCK you."

---no you got skull fucked by me already, and its tiresome to bully you around all night. the column i had to find for you online was easily researched (took me less than two minutes) unfortunately youd have to pay to read the entire thing so yeah, no more lessons from you unless of course you pay, as ive stated before. sucks to get beat up and humiliated doesnt it?

84

str8, you're speaking from total ignorance at this point.  They had next to nothing in the way of artillery support in all major engagements.  The air war was a reclamation of fighter superiority against our early bombardment campaigns.  Their air fight contributed zero to the ground war.

 

Seriously, you seem not to know anything about this.

85 84 He's right,you are wrong.The Migs slowed down our air support but did not lend any support to the enemy on the ground.They were strictly forbidden.The Chinese were very light on artillery and in fact had little firepower.They were however very mobile do to their lack of equipment.It was their ability to get behind us and on our flanks that caused the "bug outs",often against inferior Chinese.

86 78 Mosin Nagant rifles ,Degtaryev light machine guns(seen in the picture with the soldier.last on the bottom)and PPSH 41-43 sub machine guns.The Soviet troops left their small arms behind when they pulled out.Bolt action rifle with a decent round was inferior to M1 ,Degtaryev was pretty good,fairly even with BAR's.PPSH fired a weak round,7.65 Tokarev pistol round(basically .30 ACP copy).They also had standard Soviet mortars and field pieces which were quite good and some T-34's."


hmmmm id have to research if their bolt actions were inferior to our M1's. seems i read somewhere before they werent. and ur right about the mortars and the tanks.

87

You really are talking out your ass str8. Knock it off.

Can't you just let it go without crapping all over the thread?

88 Nork tactics were similar.Both used infiltration to panic raw troops.When they did attack prepared troops it was with human wave attacks,hoping to get int the lines with enough men left alive to win the fight.Very wasteful of lives but that is the commie way.

89 str8,  most of what you've  said about North Korean and Wehrmacht weapons and methodology is wrong or doesn't make sense.

90 This was also the first "war" that had jet vs jet air combat. At the beginning, we were still prop driven - from the B29 to the F4U Corsair and the Mustang. It wasn't long before Sabres and Migs were going at it. One of the most fascinating episodes of "Dogfights" was the Mig Alley air combat recreations.

91 Bolt action is superior for long range accuracy,that is all(which M1's are no slouch at).Rate of fire is poor and ammo capacity was 8 to 5 in favor of M1.In normal battle ranges we were by far superior.

92 My Dad went in with a Michigan National Guard artillery battery. Not many came home.

93

You really are talking out your ass str8. Knock it off.

Can't you just let it go without crapping all over the thread?"

the fuck are you talking about?" i already proved to you there were commie guerillas in korea, and that in such we had to take notice of it and it was one of our first forays into that in the modern era. of course you choose to ignore it cuz i made you look like an imbecile.

this from steevy...

Nork tactics were similar.Both used infiltration to panic raw troops.When they did attack prepared troops it was with human wave attacks,hoping to get int the lines with enough men left alive to win the fight.Very wasteful of lives but that is the commie way."

---he be correct....

94 the human wave attacks by china was also disastrous. especially considering the under-fed and under-clothed troops. ive read that thousands were frozen on the fields.

95 94 There was earlier jet combat between Formosa and mainland China but yes it was the first major action.We still flew alot more thatr was "turnin" rather than "burning".Corsairs were still in production through 52 and were the workhorse ground support bird for the Navy and Marines.Migs were superior to our straight wing jets and the prop jobs.They were even superior in some respects to the Saber.Thanks to the Brits(at the time the most advanced jet engine builders)giving the Soviets a Nene turbojet.

96 i wouldnt say the air war in korea was anything spectacular steevy, but yes the air battles were there.

97 The B29's were most effected by the Migs.There opeations were forced into night time roles and there was a true Mig scare for awhile.The Migs didn't do much against the close support types though.The Soviets were flying them early on and had lots of restrictions on where they could operate.

98

Son, did you take your meds this morning?

99 "str8 outtas mom"

--- im sorry i bullied you....would you like your change back?

100 to steevy (the guy with common sense)

"The Soviets were flying them early on"

wasnt their a 'fuel' thing about those early migs? just wondering.

101 104 All the early jets had poor endurance.Yes fuel was a concern,last thing the Soviets wanted was a crash landing in our lines.Hence they kept them up North,usually at very high altitude(they had a big ceiling advantage over the early Sabers)which would facilitate a glide across the Yalu in case of fuel starvation or battle damage.

102 ---steevy

thats all i was saying that yes the artillery (however dismal) and air support was there. was it detrimental to the battles? of course maybe not on the scale as the big war but still there. as far as the regular rifles etc..we did in fact come around after the first months and develop better in order to turn the tide. and we did it effectively.

103 108 Our infantry carried the same weapons mix from beginning to end as far as I know.What improved was training and experience of the troops using them.M1 was scheduled to be replaced in the near future and it was,by the M14 which was very much the same weapon with a slightly less powerful cartridge and a removable box magazine.The Claymore mine was developed in response to human wave attacks experienced in Korea.So were the new type grenade launcher weapons like M79.M14's couldn't be used on full auto though and were big and heavy.They had a very short career before the AR15 was bought as the M-16 and serves til this day.Ironically the Afghan war and some experience in Iraq has made the big rifle/cartridge combo popular again.All squads have a designated markman armed with a 7.62 semi auto to give them long range punch back.

104 ---steevy

youre right on the claymores.

training and experience, well yeah, we'd been doing that since god knows when. the korean theater was no different.

id have to check on the M14 again however as im a bit too foggy on the sordid details. 

the grenade launchers had been used in WW2 with huge effectiveness and yes youre correct, it carried over.

the M14's although big and heavy had the stopping power of an asteroid as compared to the commies (as most of our wepaons had) but yes they were cumbersome.

105 110 No,the rifle grenades used in WW2 were standard types.They had a rod that fit in a special grenade firing attachment screwed on an M1 and fired with a blank cartridge.Good to about 50-75 yards with any accuracy.In the 50's and 60's 40mm grenades were developed using a low pressure discharge technique.The gas built up from a small charge and filled an expansion chamber in the shell until it aqyuired the pressure to push the grenade out of the barrel at some 200-300feet per second.Allowed the firing of the large projectile with soft recoil.Originally used in the break open,single shot M79 they were big favorites and very accurate out to even 300 yards.Only trouble was the grenadier had to carry a back up ,so they came up with the clamp on type used today.We still use the same type grenades today albeit with better fuses and payloads.

106 lol alright lets not get too deep in the trench here.

too much for me to go over at this point. the fact i was pointing out was north koreas use of weaponry at the time. their tank/infantry attacks were at the forefront, but yes they did have artillery and air support, albeit minimal (sort of) at the time.

i think our points are taken in and the fact remains as such....the north koreans/chinese suck at warfare. (see the vietnames/chinese war for a grand comedy.) jus sayin.

107 So, hows the weather?

108 hows the weather......yeah? hows the weather.....THE FUCKING WEATHER IS GREAT.

109

Kim Il Sung was hot to invade the South but Stalin wouldn't let him while the US had atom bombs and the Soviets didn't.  Julius & Ethel Rosenberg  solved that problem by passing the atom bomb secrets on to the Soviet Union.  A year after the Soviets tested their first atom bomb, Stalin gave the green light to North Korea for its invasion.  The result was 53,000 American dead and 92,000 wounded. 

Had we not dropped the Bomb on Japan and ended the war quickly, the Soviets would have invaded Japan, creating a North & South Japan, leading to another war there, just like Korea and Vietnam.

The lesson is that as long as we maintain overwhelming military superiority, we'll have less war.  And right now, Obama is determined to throw away our military advantages.  He thinks we can get rid of nukes, uninvent them, and that will bring peace.

110 A blog post is too small a canvas to give proper tribute and perspective to their sacrifice.

beautifully put

111 Dave, well done.

112 I rember the war.  My dad fought in it also.  2nd Inf Div as an infantry machine gunner.  He never talked about it much to anyone but me. And I was just a young teenager. I still have the pics he took in the war. It is why I hate lefterds and did not buy into their dogma in college.  The assholes have not changed.  They just become friends with Al Q since the USSR is no more.  My dad and mom were both Dems.  He would be ashamed of how bad that party has become.  I had RR to vote for my 1st time.  And Jimmah Carter to get rid off.  Now we morons have Obamadouche to get rid of. My mom loves Fox news and has become a Rush fan.

113 Anyone rememder George Patton wanted to take on the USSR when Germany was falling.  He new that we were going to fight them sooner or later.  The entire war started (WW2) when both the Socialist countries invaded Poland.

114

I grew up in South Korea. Anytime one of my lib friends blathers on about wasting American lives in foreign wars, or that war is never the answer, I point out that if it weren't for Americans being willing to fight and die in foreign wars, there would be two North Koreas and no South Korea. That usually shuts them up.

115

Perhaps someone here can put me some knowledge, as to why we went into Afghanistan with such a small (relatively small) force, and why the focus shifted to Iraq before Afghanistan was secured. As I recall after 911, people wanted to go to war, they wanted to punish someone or something for the horror of that day. --Posted by: Boots

Word was that Bush trounced al Qaeda in Afghanistan, though no body for Osama bin Laden ever surfaced; and then word at the time was that Iraq's WMD were a global threat in the hands of the crackpot Hussein who was harboring al Qaeda elements, whether Afghan refugee or Iraq's own.

After al Qaeda lost prevalence in Afghanistan circles via Bush's invasion, the Taliban prolifically filled that void upon the departure of US troops. That's what's been said, anyway.

116 The Korean War was the first UN war effort, fought to defy the aggression of global communism (later referenced as the Domino Theory Principle by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954). Having the UN determine which hill held strategic interest, as with Pork Chop Hill's two devastating blood bath battles, was foolish and demoralizing. My uncle commanded the US forces during the second Pork Chop Hill something like 59 hours straight, with no communications, and though hit by mortar insisted that all others be evacuated first, he being last. I'll certainly never forget his contributions in the face of battle.

Once the top military strategy for winning was cut loose for insubordination with MacArthur's dismissal, doom was cast. Perhaps by fighting "nice" like Truman demanded of strategy, the war was lost.

Military decisions being made by politicians doomed the entire enterprise, as with Vietnam, the other "illegitimate" war never declared by Congress that was LBJ's fault for blowing up in our faces, refusing unanimous counsel to NOT engage in another war doomed to replicate our experience in Korea. As with the UN during the Korean War, Congress certainly sabotaged whatever "purpose" our troops in Vietnam were there to accomplish.

Considering Korea's topography, given that the US allied forces were fighting the warfare according to WWII experience, the slaughter of troops seems to parallel the American Civil War's slaughter on battlefields. Expendable men so distant from the politicians pulling strings as if keeping political hands clean while extending political careers that douse the memory of soldiers sacrificed.

Hats off to our troops.

117 Great post, Dave. Thanks. I'm with Average Jen above. The proof of what our guys accomplished in the war is the miracle that is South Korea today. God bless them.

118 A recent war memorial dedication included a speech by Colonel Francis Burns, who addressed among other things the question of the Korean War as the "Forgotten War." http://tinyurl.com/2arp389 The speech starts at 21:47 and ends 37:30.