” ALERT: The United States says it is not moving additional military power into South Korea following artillery attack by North Korea. “
“IF this is accurate, and there’re no steps in motion to reinforce the 8th Army - and I’ve seen no reports to indicate preparations for evacuation — then are we forced to conclude that the sacrifice-in-place of 28,000 American Lives is considered ‘acceptable losses’??”
We can`t pull troops out of thin air. As for the troops already in SoKo,,,they`ve always been considered nothing more than a sacrificial trip wire, like our troops posted along the west/east German border during the Cold War.
Re your #371- “the sacrifice-in-place of 28,000 American Lives is considered ‘acceptable losses’??””
I got to ASCOM Depot just inland of Inchon 4 days before the Norks took the USS Pueblo, killing several USN personell in the process. I figured that the CIA must have known something was going down prior, as my orders were changed from VietNam to Korea about a month before I shipped out.
Here I thought we’d missed out on all the fun, but within the first week we were on serious full combat alert and I wasn’t all that sure I was going to see 19.
We could hear the tortured crew members “confessing” over NOrk radio for the whole year they were there. It was heartbreaking knowing there wasn’t anything we could do about it. It was against the law for a ROK citizen to even listen to Nork radio. What we take for granted!
We were told that the Pentagon had figured that should the Norks jump the line, two things would happen; Seoul would be flattened within hours, with millions of civilian casualties. Apparently it’s a bigger city now than it was then, in 1968.
Next they would come pouring South a couple of million strong, probably accompanied by the PRC again, and totally annihilate the entire 8th Army, about 50,000 of us at the time under Gen. Bonesteel.
Our best hope was to slow them down as best we could while we got slaughtered and the Pentagon flew air support and the 101 AB over, for whatever good that would have done.
We were told that the Norks were not planning on taking any prisoners, and from what the Veterans of ‘52 told us (we still had a few NCOs who had been there)you did not want to be a POW of the Norks. They said that if you had never seen a “human wave” assault coming at you, you did NOT want to, and we trusted them about that.
One KATUSA who survived the intial over-run - 1950 was it? - told me “MP die first”, as they ran the TCPs for retreating units and usually didn’t make it out.
He said they found the unfortunate MPs hanging by the feet from the ceilings of the same metal culvert-like quonset huts we were quartererd in, having been skun alive.
Another woman I worked security with was a little girl when the Kongsan came, and watched her parents being tortured to death because they wouldn’t reveal where the last bag of rice was hidden, so that she and her brother could survive.
Most of the survivors of ‘50-’53 are gone now, and I don’t think that many of the current generation have a clue as to who they are dealing with.
The 8th Army took about 36 casualties IIRC the year I was there, and the ROK Army wasn’t talking about, but they gave every bit as good as they took on the DMZ and other places where the Kongsans infiltrated in - frequently. About 27 of them assaulted the “Blue House” Presidential palace and raised a lot of hell until the ROK forces took care of them. Took one of them alive, and we almost pitied the poor bastard. They came ashore and took over a whole town for a couple of days down around Pusan. Fun times.
I came away with a profound respect for the Korean people, and especially their military. Toughest darn people I ever did meet...
they have to be.