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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.