Posted on 05/31/2021 9:46:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If not for the USMC, Korea would have been lost. The US Army had gone so far downhill that many of the troops sent over from Japan at first couldn’t properly assemble an M1 Garand. The NKs rolled right over them. Fortunately the Marines hadn’t lowered their standards.
Bookmarked. Looks like a good read when for when I’m sober. Thanks.
President Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex “deep state” in 1961. Promoting wars made them rich. The FED bank system sucked the country dry during the depression. Lost battles gave arms dealers billions in orders.
US actions in the Korean War enabled us to contain communism. It was NOT a failure!!!!
The Korean war was also followed by the greatest period of prosperity the US has ever seen! (This even started shortly before and during the war.) Some regard it as the golden age of America!!!! This was despite the continuing nuclear threat from the Soviets!
God Bless our veterans, including Korean War veterans, this Memorial Day! And may the Memory of deceased veterans be Eternal!!!!
RE: President Eisenhower warned us of the military industrial complex “deep state” in 1961. Promoting wars made them rich.
So, bottom line, in hindsight, should the USA have engaged in the Korean War or not?
I think the fall came between with Eisenhower rounding up illegal aliens and Reagan giving them amnesty. Reagan destroyed America with this action and it has been downhill since.
My father was sent to Korea .. His description was laying on a hillside shooting off artillery shells, until the armistice and he was among those that returned the colors to NYC ... He was told to get out of uniform soon after parade, so as to not stir up the commies in the area.
That war was the first war that we were not allowed to finish, same for Viet Nam. How sad for all the Americans killed, all of whom got mocked very heavily by the MASH tv series. Absolutely revolted me. According to that horrible show, all good soldiers were jerks and killers, and all bad soldiers were to be treated gently. We were even friends to the enemy Koreans ..
Other than the modest humor once in a while, I couldn’t take more than a half dozen of their unpatriotic shows.
“The troops left were therefore barely enough to respond to any Soviet aggression while also occupying Germany and Japan. The military was gutted. In Korea, we committed into combat most likely the least trained and least-equipped army in our history.”
Maybe. The troops we sent to France in 1917-18 had no realistic combat training at all. The French Army had to set up schools of instruction for all of our combat arms.
The Civil War was probably worse. They did get training in parade ground maneuvers which basically got everybody slaughtered.
We did not lose the Korean War. The N. Koreans and later, the Chinese, invaded the South and drove the UN troops (Mostly American troops stationed in Japan and poorly trained) and the ROKs down to a small part of the South. Their goal was to take over the South and unify the country under communist control, and they almost did it.
However, we fought back and pushed them back across the 38th parallel (N. Korea/S. Korea border) and then almost into China until Truman stopped MacArthur from invading China.
The end result was a stalemate that kept the South free. So the North did not accomplish their goal of unifying the country under communist control.
‘Someone’ didn’t want America to win that war and pacify the peninsula. The ongoing threats of regional conflicts keep the military industrial complex growing in wealth and power.
RE: That war was the first war that we were not allowed to finish
In hindsight, how should the Korean War have been finished?
Don't know . . . McArthur was not around.
Not. Same with Viet nam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Counterfactual history speculation is always fun. What would Korea be like now if it was entirely overtaken taken over by the Kim regime? Would it be like Vietnam in the cold war - in the Russian camp? Would it have undergone any kind of reform by now?
Remember too that Korea, Vietnam, etc... were outside of Kennan's original "containment" proposal - they were considered poor, insignificant countries not worth fighting over.
RE: Would it be like Vietnam in the cold war - in the Russian camp? Would it have undergone any kind of reform by now?
Well, Vietnam DID fall to the Communist in the mid 1970’s. Heck, they even fought a war with China after we left.
But look where she is today...
How?
Fire McArthur and his incompetent staff on the first day
“In Korea, we committed into combat most likely the least trained and least-equipped army in our history.”
When my dad, at 17yrs old got off the boat in Korea they had 12 hours to clean their M-1 and sight in.
Then they were on the trucks to Hadong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadong_Ambush
Two days later he wrote his mom and let her know he was in Korea, was OK but that his unit got shot up pretty bad.
I still have that letter written on waxed paper in pencil. She saved it.
3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment.
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