T. R. Fehrenbach (in This Kind of War) describes the demoralized retreat of the American troops in Korean:
Men threw away their shoes, because it was difficult to walk in the mud. They had no canteens, and they had no food. They were tired and dispirited, and some were bitter. The sun burned out of the clouds, and now the full brazen heat of Korean midsummer baked them. Some men grew dizzy and sick.
[...]
No American may sneer at them, or at what they did. What happened to them might have happened to any American in the summer of 1950. For they represented exactly the kind of pampered, undisciplined, egalitarian army their society had long desired and had at last achieved. They had been raised to believe the world was without tigers, then sent to face those tigers with a stick. On their society must fall the blame.
I can see how in a couple of generations an entire society can forget the lessons of history, as those who were there die off or give up trying to make youngsters understand. But this was only about five years after WWII. Surely these kids personally knew thirty-somethings from the Greatest Generation? Older brothers and cousins?
The thought was that ground combat wars of the type like WW2 would never be fought again. The atomic bomb was thought to have made this so. Turned out to be totally false but the lesson had to be learned.
This reads more like an indictment of today’s generations than the one that went to Korea
At a certain point, when you see the paperwork ordering you to Korea, even the dumbest kid ought to realize that ground combat wars will indeed be fought again, and soon, and by you.
Were they in denial up to the moment they got shot?
Had the subject of what cousin Fred did in WW2 never come up at the dinner table for four straight Thanksgivings and Christmases?
The author is describing the summer of 1950, when the Army hadn’t learned yet. They did, and rallied.
As for why their training and discipline was so poor the book made it clear: Karen moms writing to Congressmen.
That’s why the book is required reading: so at least poorly prepared units does not happen again — and at the unit and tactical level.
But as long as Karens can vote, as long as we have a 19th Amendment, no level of society or civilization will be safe. That’s me, not Fehrenbach.
Harry Jones: “But this was only about five years after WWII. Surely these kids personally knew thirty-somethings from the Greatest Generation? Older brothers and cousins”
It is now totally clear that the US (and the rest of the West) at the end of WWII were already subject to internal attack by Communists, fellow travelers, and empty headed followers of fashion. Remember the Jolly Olde English voted Churchill out of office even before the dust had settled on the war. We know that FDR’s Administration was riddled with Communist sympathizers. The Far Left Long March through the Institutions had already started, and many people in the West were being persuaded to be ambivalent (or ashamed) about the use of nuclear bombs to safe lives on both sides by obviating the need for an invasion of Japan.
It is tough to know what the situation was really like in the late 1940s after WWII. Most of the people of that generation have now died off, and the history of the times was written by Leftists. But it may not be surprising that individuals in the military were unprepared for North Korea’s attack.
One of the repeated observations of conflicts is that the side which starts it gets one free shot. Afterwards, the US military in Korea did a great job of recovering from that unexpected attack and fighting back.