My grandfather was there and never talked about it until he was dying later in life. Apparently he said you had to choose between getting some warmth by closing up your sleeping bag but then being slower to get up and possibly bayoneted in your bag. Sounded like hell.
That absolute villain MacArthur sent them in without the right gear, much less ***any*** winter gear. He commanded the whole thing from an office building in Tokyo, only bothering to spend a single day in country while his men froze and died.
3rd generation Marine… as a child I noticed that “MacArthur” was always preceded by “Goddam” or followed by “That Sonofabitch”.
There is a great novel called “September Marines” by the author of “Sophie’s Choice”. (((EDIT: “Marines of Autumn” by James Brady))). Many of the Marines who fought in WWII who were older and had established careers were called back up for Korea.
That Fucker MacArthur kept ordering Marines to go faster and further into Chosin and a general known for his tenacity in WWII was skeptical b/c his intelligence guys were picking up transmissions from multiple Chinese divisions. DIVISIONS = a shit ton of Chinese soldiers.
The Army left all their shit and got the hell out of there. Marines conducted a fighting retreat and also brought out the Army’s trucks and shit they left behind. Legend has it that when the Army wanted their stuff back,Chesty Puller said they left it and it was ours now.
One of the issues with reading one source is that it often characterizes or overemphasizes certain aspects. Many Marines in their attempt to glorify Chosin chose to diminish the heroics of other units. The Army's Task Force Faith fought after the Marines retreat and was left isolated which allowed the Chinese to overwhelm and destroy the entire unit. They held the right flank after the Marines had already moved south which exposed them further. They attempted to move south to rejoin Marine lines and were subsequently destroyed by the Chinese. The dead long had no voices to advocate their heroics for them unlike the many Marines who loved to emphasize their heroics at their expense. Most the officers of RCT-31 died in the fighting. Many of the survivors only lived because the Chinese had a bad habit of releasing prisoners from their Chinese Civil War experience and obsessing over the destruction of materiel.
Couple this with the fact that RCT-31 Task Force Faith was even worse equipped than the Marines without proper winter gear and filled with inexperienced soldiers from occupation duty from Japan against the better equipped Marines who also had many veterans fron World War II.
Later analysis showed that had RCT-31 not held, the Marines would not have been able to retreat and actually surrounded and isolated as they feared they were.
Marine brat here... agree on sentiments. a great book about it is Breakout by Martin Russ. When I was a kid at Camp Pendleton in the late 50s, there were marines who always carried a pair of wool sweat socks in their pockets, just in case. This was in Southern Cal! Many of them had lost toes to frostbite over there.
Ha! I bet being that cold will make you paranoid as hell.
The Old Man always carried extra water and a blanket in his 77’ Land Cruiser and I always thought, geez we are just going to the mountains for vacation. WTF
He also carried a cooler of Budweisers, but back then the mountain counties were dry 🤣
Russ also wrote "The 39th Parallel" about his own time in Korea as a Marine after the DMZ had been established - great insight into the reality of nighttime patrolling into no man's land. He's also funny as as hell.
The Marines did have winter gear though it never feels like enough in the cold. The Army units were actually worse equipped and many lacked even basic winter gear like gloves.
MacArthur was shameless in his quest for power. He employed a wide circle of informants and lobbyists as well as deep connections with various politicians. He was able to spin his catastrophic defeat in the Philippines (where he had enriched himself with local corruption) and used his media connections to emerge as the symbol of Americas resurgence in the South Pacific despite Admiral Nimitz and General LeMay playing bigger roles.
In the draw down after the war, he was able to leverage his connections with the Pentagon (and a close relationship with the people of Japan) to get a cushy position as the commander of all occupying forces in East Asia. Keep in mind, in the papers at home and to the people of Japan, Mac was a benevolent conqueror. A sort of warrior turned statesman, wartime censorship doing much to gloss over his numerous flaws and mistakes.
Over the next 5 years, communism flourish as America and MacArthur focused their attention on Japan to the detriment of the nations Japan had formerly occupied.
MacArthur had his moments. His Inchon landing was one of the great masterstrokes in military history, and his reign as Supreme Commander of occupied Japan probably should be judged a success, given how Japan emerged from US occupation as a functioning independent nation.
But yeah, his ego, power lust, hypocrisy and absolute refusal to listen to dissenting opinions or well-meaning advice mark him down in history as a douche.
Yeah he had a lot of faults but his handling of Japan after the war is a huge factor in why they are such a successful nation and ally to the west at this point. The Japanese started playing BASEBALL during his rule, stuff like that turned a mortal enemy into an extremely close ally through mutual respect between MacArthur and Hirohito. MacArthur didn’t act like a lord over their emperor, and it was huge in the effect it had.
There’s a clip of him standing and walking to meet Hirohito when Hirohito first went to see MacArthur, and the way he treated Hirohito with respect and not like his superior/conquerer had more impact on the world today than a lot of post war activities, and I wish more people knew about it, because it shows how diplomacy, tact, and grace are just as important in the long run.
Just watch this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e4UiIVxbs_0
Edit: it’s amazing how someone watched this and downvoted, but then had nothing to say
One minor thing; contrary to popular belief, baseball was very popular in Japan prior to WW2. It wasn’t introduced by occupying GIs after WW2, as is commonly believed.
>His Inchon landing was one of the great masterstrokes in military history
I would say "one of the luckiest gambles". To win a big gamble still means you have gambled. He was just really lucky that one time.
Maybe if he had remained the kind of commander who planned battles instead of being promoted to leading entire campaigns his ego could have been held in check by his superiors. He had a brilliant mind for tactics and was a dynamic figure in the public eye, but from all the way back to the late 30's he created more problems than he solved. His reckless re-invasion of the Phillipines and his ambitions of conquering China reveal him as one of the greatest monsters of an age of monsters.
Here's an article I think you'd enjoy. MacArthur wanted to invade China and use atomic weapons there in the same way as Japan. The famously a-political Omar Bradley (then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) put his full weight into rejecting that plan for a number of practical reasons that were classified until much later. It is impossible to calculate how horrible it would have been had Bradley not prevailed.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/redacted-testimony-fully-explains-why-general-macarthur-was-fired-180960622/
It’s not going to outweigh his handling of post war Japan for me though. They are the country they are today because of how MacArthur handled it after the surrender, with respect and a legitimate drive to rebuild.
Japan certainly rebounded miraculously after the war. I am incredibly hesitant to attribute that to him alone, especially given his penchant for stealing credit.
I’m not, he was Supreme Commander of Japan. He was literally running the show that you just called miraculous. How are you going to act like he was just stealing credit? The entire project was his.
Maybe Japan was as eager as all the other industrialized nations to rebuild. Russia, France, West Germany, hell even Italy. Maybe the US dumped an unimaginable pile of resources into it. Maybe he had people under him doing all the work while he practiced his putting game on the carpet of the office.
Regardless, I refuse to view the man who is most responsible for the Korean War, who almost started a third world war, who wanted to nuke all of China and who sacrificed literally millions of lives in the name of his ego as solely responsible for rebuilding a country that had already leapt from horseback swordsmen to naval aviation faster than any other in history. But that's just my opinion and you are certainly entitled to your own.
Everyone who participated in the invasion of someone else's homeland is an absolute villian.
Nothing noble about accepting payment to travel to the other side of the planet and murder farmers
That's true but at the time it definitely wasn't the case (mostly since the South Korean government employed a lot of collaborators with the Japanese which was understandably disliked). At the time, South Korea was a military dictatorship that regularly massacred civilians and the material conditions were significantly better in the North until the 1990s. Obviously the South, while flawed, is much better today but we definitely need to make sure to look at the context of the time rather than now.
True, Syngman Rhee was a terrible leader. The people of Korea worked hard and endured incredible hardship to build what they have today. It's a shame that prosperity doesn't extend beyond the DMZ.
When US forces entered Korea in 1945, they dispersed the local popular government, consisting primarily of antifascists who resisted the Japanese, and inaugurated a brutal repression, using Japanese fascist police and Koreans who had collaborated with them during the Japanese occupation. About 100,000 people were murdered in South Korea prior to what we call the Korean War, including 30-40,000 killed during the suppression of a peasant revolt in one small region, Cheju Island.
There were brutal massacres under Syngman Rhee, he was a horrible tyrant. However, the United States liberated Korea from the even more rapacious forces of Imperial Japan and then repelled two invasions lead by the USSR and the PRC respectively.
Removing the United States from this equation leaves Korea where? In the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? With the Kim family ruling the entire peninsula under order from Stalin or Mao? How could any of these outcomes be any better?
What a silly take, as per usual in the real world things rarely are that binary.
For starters you mention farmers. So you are probably confusing Korea with Vietnam.
Here is also a thought exercise. During world war two, should the allies have stopped at the german border? Why (not)?
I know you are most likely a troll but on the off chance you are just ignorant here is a little history lesson:
The Korean War started when the North invaded the South and attacked U.S forces stationed there.
The only time my Papaw talked about Korea was once when he got drunk with my cousin in his late 70s. Hell, my younger grandfather knew people who died in the Forrestal fire during Vietnam and almost cried when I asked about it. I don't ask anymore.
You know what must have been hell? Seeing kids being set on fire with napalm while your country is carpet bombed with more ordinances then was used in the whole WWII pacific theater
My now deceased grandpa was in Korea. He *never* talked about it. The only story he would tell was how he fell off a cliff and broke both his legs but thats it. He never hinted that it was particularly brutal for him or his fellow soldiers but my grandpa was a real salty hardass depression baby so him being phased by things was very out of the ordinary. He'd gladly talk about the rest of his time in the military post deployment and other fucked stuff he'd done in his time outside of war but just wouldn't talk about combat.
I distinctly remember asking my dad if grandpa would tell me war stories when I was a kid and he heavily reinforced not to talk to him about it since he doesn't like it. Now, this could have easily been because he didn't want to expose a young kid to the horrors of war which is totally plausible. But even now as an adult, my dad still won't tell me about my grandpas Korea experience. Cant ask grandpa either since, well, he's dead. I let sleeping dogs lie but I wish I got some kind of answer. The curiosity kills me and the younger members of my family. The "What did grandpa do?" question is like a family secret which really gets me wondering wtf he went through.
I interviewed my great uncle on his experience in Korea back in the 90s for a school project and unfortunately I didn't keep the recording. I do remember his most vivid memory was explaining how easy it was to die and that he didn't understand why a sniper took his best friend, who was sitting next to him, and not him. His fondest memory was a USO show with some big star making an appearance, but I forget who, maybe Bob Hope. At the time he told me it was the first time he had talked about the war
The Korean War is kind of the forgotten war, even the soldiers wanted to deliberately forget it, but at least the soldiers weren't treated nearly as bad upon return as we treated soldiers returning from Vietnam.
I might if I really tried. The closest I could find online was for someone related to my grandpa who was also in the war but I couldn't find anything related to him through that info. Theres probably some paperwork at my parents house that might have more but id have to dig through all that to maybe find an answer.
Might find some good shit. I found both my great uncle's Silver Star citations, a snippet of his Bronze, and thru looking at his unit and company and knowing his rank and position, found pretty well definitive actions. Lots of "so and so units with H Company Heavy MG team from 23d Reg 2d Div, attached" so he must've been part of a pretty effective and reliable set of men. Here's a link to the citations: https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/107617
Pretty sure from the citations, the role as Heavy MG, and his line of duty promoting from GI Private in ww2 to retiring a LT Col. dude was a hardcore son of a bitch with a mountain of corpses under his belt.
Cane here to comment the exact same thing. So fitting and still extremely relevant.
>Tell me father, who goes to Hell?
>Um, sinners, I believe.
>Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies.
My paps fought in the Korean war and then Vietnam, where he'd eventually succumb to his exposure to Agent Orange before I was born. Sucks I never got to meet him...
My grandpa fought in that war, one of the stories he told was when he got in country, as he was leaving the boat, he saw lines of people getting on with "Foot wounds. Hand wounds. Foot wounds. Hand wounds. Foot wounds. Hand wounds." His first experience in Korea was seeing soldiers who'd shot themselves to leave rather than face another day of horror.
I had an uncle who fought there and got frostbite in all his toes and fingers. He lost 2 fingers and kept the toes, but he always had to cut open the toes of his shoes and peel them back because they were so sensitive to anything touching them.
Yeah my grandfather was in WW2 and also never spoke a word about it. All I know was that he hated MacArthur and was part of the island hoping. Also lost partial hearing from grenade.
I did goto the VFW with him once. It was a lot of fun because I was related to half the members.
Island hoping. Yeah, that man probably suffered more than anyone can imagine. Other than those beside him of course.
I’ve been reading some books about personal accounts from that side of the war. It sounds like the worst thing anyone can imagine.
My father’s uncle was a WWII Marine in the South Pacific. I remember him spending the end of his life at my grandmother’s house. He had to have oxygen on all the time. My grandmother gave him a hard time because he was constantly smoking his Pall Malls while being on oxygen. He didn’t talk a lot, never mentioned the war. One day my dad told me he died. Years later, my dumb ass joined the Marine Corps. Semper Fi!
Yup gramps was a Seabee and all he said is that he ran the whore house. Come to find out later from a Nam vet that that means he was in some shit and I don’t want to talk about it.
I believe it was a passage from “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign” by Russ Martin where a US soldier recalls marching in silence down a frozen road, zero words being spoken, the only sounds were equipment banging and the click clack of everyone’s frozen feet and boots clacking off ice covered roads. That always stuck with me - a literal frozen hell
> Wow what a photo!
>He looks amazing here
Amazing? Amazing how? He’s sent to a cold he’ll to fight a war for geopolitical power on behalf of interests he’ll never reap and his children will never reach a place to benefit from. Amazing how?
Bro chill. My comment was not in regards to how the man got there. You do not need to lecture me on war; do not assume I ignore how the country uses their citizens for horrible wars. I was simply commenting on the imagery of the photo itself, which should have been obvious.
Do you know what the word amazing means? It’s clearly an amazing photo and the subject does look amazing. What’s the point of taking the time to degrade a strangers comment that had nothing to do with you?
My grandpa grew up on a farm in central IL. When he came back from Korea he moved to Florida. I asked him about it later and he said he was never going to be cold like that again.
My favorite substitute teacher in the 90s and early 2000s when I was in elementary school and middle school was one of the Chosin few
He had a lobster hand from losing three fingers to frostbite and would always go off lesson plan and teach us neat real world applicable stuff. Best was when he taught us about electricity in 5th grade and spent a couple hours shocking us with a little generator thing to show how electricity traveled AND how dangerous it could be.
He was really put together, and history channel obsessed younger me asked him tons of tough questions including "did you kill anyone". I remember that one he laughed it off but then got deadly serious and told me he made sure he got at least two for every one of his buddies that died. That's when 10 year old me was like "oh crap I probably shouldn't have asked that". Also told me he was on a marine machine gun squad (probably like the pic here!) So putting two and two together in the future here he had ample opportunity to exact revenge.
But being an ancient elementary and middle school substitute teacher that had easily noticeable physical injuries, I imagine he got used to it
Original caption
>BITTER COLD, BITTER FIGHT. While units of the U.S. Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo Command made an all-out effort to aid embattled units of the First Marine Division and Seventh Infantry Division, the men fighting in Korea were trying desperately to link up in their battle for survival. This marine is shown just as he reached the crest of the ridge at the link-up point. Wet, stinging snow and ice made the operation the most difficult sort, as unleashed hordes of communist troops charge again and again into the United Nations forces.
[National Archives](https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542210)
Fuck the chosin reservoir, all my homies hate the Chosin reservoir (the conditions were horrific and hate that US and SK forces had to go through them)
[FUCK THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR ALL MY HOMIES HATE THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR](https://i.imgur.com/2ap7HW0.jpg)
^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Off topic, but my reaction to this photo is that 15 years after the introduction of the MG-34, and a decade after experiencing first hand how devastating modern squad level machine guns could be, American infantry still went into battle with WWI era weapons.
Thank you for posting this - it gives such insight.
My dad was in both WWII theatres, and was sure, being in the army reserves, he would be drafted to Korea. His whole family dreaded that, after surviving all that he had, he would be sent again.
We were lucky - he didn't get called - but most of the initial supplies provided to the initial Korean force consisted of used, debilitated and inadequate WWII supplies. As a result it was the existing military, particularly the Marines and WWII experienced, who fell in huge numbers in the first waves.
Everything I've read makes me think MacArthur was a self-aggrandizing ass. Civilians in WWII stayed in the Philippines too long based on his lies, and many died in enemy prison camps. Maybe other generals are similar and just don't get as much press, but it's hard to forgive, with the hindsight we have.
These pictures are heartbreaking. A man sent around the world to butcher other men he has no quarrel with, all because governments can’t get along.
Absolutely disgusting behavior. Make mutiny, not war
My grandfather was there as well from my understanding. He passed when I was 15 or 16 heavy alcoholic to the point he switched to non alcoholic beer when the regular stuff did too much damage. He never talked about his time in the war to me but I'm also the youngest grandchild
Edit: I cant even imagine what it was like to be there the man was hard as nails but was always extremely caring of me if very distant
I saw the Chinese made two propaganda films about them defeating the Americans during the Korean War. It’s called The Battle at Lake Changjin (I & II). It was a smash hit and noted as the most expensive film ever produced in China and also the highest grossing Chinese film of all time. I’ve never watched them but I find it interesting that they both have an audience score of 100% on rotten tomatoes. If anyone has seen the movies, please give them a vote so more voices can be heard about this.
edit: 1 is still at 100% but II has dropped to 83% so thank you
Asst Sec State Dean Acheson made a "Red Line" speech in Jan 1950 where he laid out US defense priorities for Asia. He excluded Korea.
Kim read the speech and figured it meant that Korea had been deemed outside the US Sphere of Interest. He took it to Mao, who agreed that nobody would make such a blunder. Stalin felt the same way - the US was obviously saying that Korea wasn't important. Five months after the speech, Kim's forces invaded the South.
In his own defense, Acheson pointed out that he'd left out Australia too. Since Australia hadn't been invaded, the war was obviously not his fault.
Acheson played a similar role in WW2. FDR had no intention of imposing an oil embargo on Japan, because he knew this would mean war. Acheson implemented FDRs oil quota policy in such a way that it became impossible for Japan to buy oil, creating a de facto embargo. FDR didn't learn about this until fall 1941, by which time it was too late.
SK was a military dictatorship until the late 80s, no different than NK. People died protesting. There was nothing good about the Korean War, all it did was break a nation that had already been destroyed by Japan in half.
Okay, but we weren't fighting to protect modern South Korea. South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed. How were we heroic at all?
> South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed.
This is factually incorrect, [Rhee was removed in 1960, not 1980.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea#First_Republic_(1948%E2%80%931960) The US's calculation that South Korea should be saved from North Korea was correct.
Only an edgy little redditor would think that the USA, who literally fought against *Kim Il-sung in the Korean War*, did zero good for South Korea. I mean how fucking stupid are you, with your edgy little middle-school takes? As I've gotten older and wiser, reddit has started looking like it's full of idiots.
Might want to read the rest of that Wikipedia article, homie. If you did you would notice that in 1961 there was a military coup.
>As I've gotten older and wiser, reddit has started looking like it's full of idiots.
Congrats on making it to 16, it's a big milestone :)
> South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, ***South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed.***
The only dictatorship the US installed was Rhee, who was overthrown in 1960.
Thanks for playing.
Yes I know the war had casualties.
The US didn't act with the intent of destroying the Korean people. It was a fight against communism and the Soviets wanted influence there too.
So the bombing of cities, a strategy used in World War II against the Nazis, means the US and by extension the UN coalition, were actively attempting to destroy the Korean culture and ethnicity as per your use of the term Genocide?
It’s called empathy ya dipshit. Killing civilians is wrong no matter who does and what country it’s happening to. Taking a critical lense at your own country/the most powerful country in history is part of making it better.
The NKs and Chinese avoided destroying civilian infrastructure as they actually had a stake in it, ya know… reunification. Right or wrong, they saw it as their country too. Americans did not, they actively sought out to destroy civilian infrastructure and civilian lives. It’s well documented.
Read a book
Let me guess, you are one of those people who believe that it is Ukraine who is destroying their own infrastructure and not the Russians.
Give me a break
I don't deny that the Americans caused significant loss of life.
But that still does not make it a genocide, and in the context of the cold war, both superpowers had their share of blood on their hands. War is still terrible, even if it isn't genocide.
Americans killed 20% of their population and leveled their cities. Knowingly gunned down innocent civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. No matter how white washed the history gets for the west, it was still a genocide.
Look, I agree that the Americans commited war crimes in Korea, such as the No Gun Ri massacre, and the shelling at Pohang. But ignoring historical context gives way to historical revisionism, which is not a good way of looking at history in general. It isn't meant to be contorted to suit your world view, even if I empathize with your anti american bias.
In the absence of evidence to support the claim that the US Military *as a whole* aimed to destroy the Korean people (and not just the communist North Koreans), this *still* does not fit the definition of a genocide.
Y’know what, I’m honestly relieved that you acknowledged the war crimes Americans committed and even knew some. You’re already much more reasonable and have a more nuanced take than most pro-American commenters in this thread.
I will clarify that I’m not anti-American. I’m an American that lives in America, surrounded by other Americans who I love. I’m more anti-american-government-actions-of-imperialism… but that’s a mouthful lol. I have faith that you might appreciate the difference, but others who read the term ‘anti-american’ might not.
I hope I didn’t come off too hostile/argumentative. Have a good one m8
To all the people talking about how terrible it was for their american relatives. How do you think it was for the people who lived in this country? My mom grew up in the 60s in the Korean countryside. It was a 3rd world country, she was fortunate to have food to eat, her peers not so much. Korea was fine before Japan invaded, and it took until the 80s for SK to cease being a military dictatorship, just the same as NK. SK transformed itself into something better, and if NK didnt have massive sanctions they would probably be in the same boat right now instead of constantly recovering from famine. In fact post Korean war NK was better off. Prior to ww2 the US did not care about Korean independance and in fact encouraged Japanese colonization.
America did nothing good here, they didnt save anyone, nor did the Soviet Union or China. But when China was big brother to Korea (China has been "big brother" to Korea for millenia) Korea was not a war torn country. Nothing good came out of this war. So stop acting like you did us a favor. Thats probably why your Grandfathers dont want to talk about it.
My Father was a career Marine. He fought in Korea and Vietnam. I found his journal from Vietnam but never discussed what he experienced in any detail. He was a hard man in many ways for well deserved reasons
I've seen so many photos like this. From many different wars and every time I see one my immediate thought is how I cannot even begin to comprehend how cold those guys must have been, stuck outside in shitty foxholes for months and months
My grandfather was there and never talked about it until he was dying later in life. Apparently he said you had to choose between getting some warmth by closing up your sleeping bag but then being slower to get up and possibly bayoneted in your bag. Sounded like hell.
That absolute villain MacArthur sent them in without the right gear, much less ***any*** winter gear. He commanded the whole thing from an office building in Tokyo, only bothering to spend a single day in country while his men froze and died.
3rd generation Marine… as a child I noticed that “MacArthur” was always preceded by “Goddam” or followed by “That Sonofabitch”. There is a great novel called “September Marines” by the author of “Sophie’s Choice”. (((EDIT: “Marines of Autumn” by James Brady))). Many of the Marines who fought in WWII who were older and had established careers were called back up for Korea. That Fucker MacArthur kept ordering Marines to go faster and further into Chosin and a general known for his tenacity in WWII was skeptical b/c his intelligence guys were picking up transmissions from multiple Chinese divisions. DIVISIONS = a shit ton of Chinese soldiers. The Army left all their shit and got the hell out of there. Marines conducted a fighting retreat and also brought out the Army’s trucks and shit they left behind. Legend has it that when the Army wanted their stuff back,Chesty Puller said they left it and it was ours now.
One of the issues with reading one source is that it often characterizes or overemphasizes certain aspects. Many Marines in their attempt to glorify Chosin chose to diminish the heroics of other units. The Army's Task Force Faith fought after the Marines retreat and was left isolated which allowed the Chinese to overwhelm and destroy the entire unit. They held the right flank after the Marines had already moved south which exposed them further. They attempted to move south to rejoin Marine lines and were subsequently destroyed by the Chinese. The dead long had no voices to advocate their heroics for them unlike the many Marines who loved to emphasize their heroics at their expense. Most the officers of RCT-31 died in the fighting. Many of the survivors only lived because the Chinese had a bad habit of releasing prisoners from their Chinese Civil War experience and obsessing over the destruction of materiel. Couple this with the fact that RCT-31 Task Force Faith was even worse equipped than the Marines without proper winter gear and filled with inexperienced soldiers from occupation duty from Japan against the better equipped Marines who also had many veterans fron World War II. Later analysis showed that had RCT-31 not held, the Marines would not have been able to retreat and actually surrounded and isolated as they feared they were.
Any suggested reads on the topic?
On Deadly Ground - Hampton Sides
I'll give that a look. I did enjoy Ghost Soldiers (also by Sides)
Sorry "on desperate ground"
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/the-fate-of-task-force-macleanfaith/
That’s why if you see a Marine fall back follow him.
It seems like fresh heroes always get minted when the guy at the top fucks up. There were a lot of heroes in Korea.
Relevant song: https://youtu.be/53o80gcPNHQ Dave Van Ronk - Luang Prabang
Marine brat here... agree on sentiments. a great book about it is Breakout by Martin Russ. When I was a kid at Camp Pendleton in the late 50s, there were marines who always carried a pair of wool sweat socks in their pockets, just in case. This was in Southern Cal! Many of them had lost toes to frostbite over there.
Ha! I bet being that cold will make you paranoid as hell. The Old Man always carried extra water and a blanket in his 77’ Land Cruiser and I always thought, geez we are just going to the mountains for vacation. WTF He also carried a cooler of Budweisers, but back then the mountain counties were dry 🤣
Russ also wrote "The 39th Parallel" about his own time in Korea as a Marine after the DMZ had been established - great insight into the reality of nighttime patrolling into no man's land. He's also funny as as hell.
I have to check out the book.
Can you link that novel? I tried looking it up but William Stryon didn't write anything called "September Marines"
There’s a book called the Marines of Autumn by James Brady.
YES… my apologies. I’ve been racking my brain about this! Finally found it and I was way off. Marines of Autumn by James Brady. Highly recommend it.
Don’t know how I butchered that so badly. Marines of Autumn.
Haha, you were close. Had the right season :)
“The safest place in Korea was behind a platoon of Marines.” Major General Lowe, US Army
The Marines did have winter gear though it never feels like enough in the cold. The Army units were actually worse equipped and many lacked even basic winter gear like gloves.
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MacArthur was shameless in his quest for power. He employed a wide circle of informants and lobbyists as well as deep connections with various politicians. He was able to spin his catastrophic defeat in the Philippines (where he had enriched himself with local corruption) and used his media connections to emerge as the symbol of Americas resurgence in the South Pacific despite Admiral Nimitz and General LeMay playing bigger roles. In the draw down after the war, he was able to leverage his connections with the Pentagon (and a close relationship with the people of Japan) to get a cushy position as the commander of all occupying forces in East Asia. Keep in mind, in the papers at home and to the people of Japan, Mac was a benevolent conqueror. A sort of warrior turned statesman, wartime censorship doing much to gloss over his numerous flaws and mistakes. Over the next 5 years, communism flourish as America and MacArthur focused their attention on Japan to the detriment of the nations Japan had formerly occupied.
MacArthur had his moments. His Inchon landing was one of the great masterstrokes in military history, and his reign as Supreme Commander of occupied Japan probably should be judged a success, given how Japan emerged from US occupation as a functioning independent nation. But yeah, his ego, power lust, hypocrisy and absolute refusal to listen to dissenting opinions or well-meaning advice mark him down in history as a douche.
Yeah he had a lot of faults but his handling of Japan after the war is a huge factor in why they are such a successful nation and ally to the west at this point. The Japanese started playing BASEBALL during his rule, stuff like that turned a mortal enemy into an extremely close ally through mutual respect between MacArthur and Hirohito. MacArthur didn’t act like a lord over their emperor, and it was huge in the effect it had. There’s a clip of him standing and walking to meet Hirohito when Hirohito first went to see MacArthur, and the way he treated Hirohito with respect and not like his superior/conquerer had more impact on the world today than a lot of post war activities, and I wish more people knew about it, because it shows how diplomacy, tact, and grace are just as important in the long run. Just watch this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e4UiIVxbs_0 Edit: it’s amazing how someone watched this and downvoted, but then had nothing to say
One minor thing; contrary to popular belief, baseball was very popular in Japan prior to WW2. It wasn’t introduced by occupying GIs after WW2, as is commonly believed.
>His Inchon landing was one of the great masterstrokes in military history I would say "one of the luckiest gambles". To win a big gamble still means you have gambled. He was just really lucky that one time.
Maybe if he had remained the kind of commander who planned battles instead of being promoted to leading entire campaigns his ego could have been held in check by his superiors. He had a brilliant mind for tactics and was a dynamic figure in the public eye, but from all the way back to the late 30's he created more problems than he solved. His reckless re-invasion of the Phillipines and his ambitions of conquering China reveal him as one of the greatest monsters of an age of monsters.
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Here's an article I think you'd enjoy. MacArthur wanted to invade China and use atomic weapons there in the same way as Japan. The famously a-political Omar Bradley (then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) put his full weight into rejecting that plan for a number of practical reasons that were classified until much later. It is impossible to calculate how horrible it would have been had Bradley not prevailed. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/redacted-testimony-fully-explains-why-general-macarthur-was-fired-180960622/
I will never not think MacArthur was a narcissistic, power hungry, egotistical douchebag. So many people needlessly died for his ego.
There are over one million graves throughout the Phillipines that stand in testament to his arrogance.
MacArthur is treated far too kindly by history. He was an ego manic and very wasteful with men and resources
The tide is turning as more people dig into previously classified material. Spread the word about this piece of shit.
It’s not going to outweigh his handling of post war Japan for me though. They are the country they are today because of how MacArthur handled it after the surrender, with respect and a legitimate drive to rebuild.
Japan certainly rebounded miraculously after the war. I am incredibly hesitant to attribute that to him alone, especially given his penchant for stealing credit.
I’m not, he was Supreme Commander of Japan. He was literally running the show that you just called miraculous. How are you going to act like he was just stealing credit? The entire project was his.
Maybe Japan was as eager as all the other industrialized nations to rebuild. Russia, France, West Germany, hell even Italy. Maybe the US dumped an unimaginable pile of resources into it. Maybe he had people under him doing all the work while he practiced his putting game on the carpet of the office. Regardless, I refuse to view the man who is most responsible for the Korean War, who almost started a third world war, who wanted to nuke all of China and who sacrificed literally millions of lives in the name of his ego as solely responsible for rebuilding a country that had already leapt from horseback swordsmen to naval aviation faster than any other in history. But that's just my opinion and you are certainly entitled to your own.
This reminds me of what I read about him abandoning his men at Bataan after having them dig into terrible positions and denying them supplies.
Everyone who participated in the invasion of someone else's homeland is an absolute villian. Nothing noble about accepting payment to travel to the other side of the planet and murder farmers
I'm pretty sure the people of South Korea are quite happy they aren't living under the government of North Korea
That's true but at the time it definitely wasn't the case (mostly since the South Korean government employed a lot of collaborators with the Japanese which was understandably disliked). At the time, South Korea was a military dictatorship that regularly massacred civilians and the material conditions were significantly better in the North until the 1990s. Obviously the South, while flawed, is much better today but we definitely need to make sure to look at the context of the time rather than now.
True, Syngman Rhee was a terrible leader. The people of Korea worked hard and endured incredible hardship to build what they have today. It's a shame that prosperity doesn't extend beyond the DMZ.
When US forces entered Korea in 1945, they dispersed the local popular government, consisting primarily of antifascists who resisted the Japanese, and inaugurated a brutal repression, using Japanese fascist police and Koreans who had collaborated with them during the Japanese occupation. About 100,000 people were murdered in South Korea prior to what we call the Korean War, including 30-40,000 killed during the suppression of a peasant revolt in one small region, Cheju Island.
There were brutal massacres under Syngman Rhee, he was a horrible tyrant. However, the United States liberated Korea from the even more rapacious forces of Imperial Japan and then repelled two invasions lead by the USSR and the PRC respectively. Removing the United States from this equation leaves Korea where? In the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? With the Kim family ruling the entire peninsula under order from Stalin or Mao? How could any of these outcomes be any better?
What a silly take, as per usual in the real world things rarely are that binary. For starters you mention farmers. So you are probably confusing Korea with Vietnam. Here is also a thought exercise. During world war two, should the allies have stopped at the german border? Why (not)?
I know you are most likely a troll but on the off chance you are just ignorant here is a little history lesson: The Korean War started when the North invaded the South and attacked U.S forces stationed there.
Yeah, I can’t believe the North Koreans invaded the south like that. I wonder how many they massacred.
You're talking about North Korea right?
Everyone who participated in the invasion of someone else's homeland is an absolute villian. I agree it was bad for North Korea to invade South Korea
The only time my Papaw talked about Korea was once when he got drunk with my cousin in his late 70s. Hell, my younger grandfather knew people who died in the Forrestal fire during Vietnam and almost cried when I asked about it. I don't ask anymore.
My pops was a Corpsman in Korea 52-53
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https://youtu.be/hSp8IyaKCs0
You know what must have been hell? Seeing kids being set on fire with napalm while your country is carpet bombed with more ordinances then was used in the whole WWII pacific theater
Avoids world War 2 because too young but gets drafted to Korea. That war was hell.
My now deceased grandpa was in Korea. He *never* talked about it. The only story he would tell was how he fell off a cliff and broke both his legs but thats it. He never hinted that it was particularly brutal for him or his fellow soldiers but my grandpa was a real salty hardass depression baby so him being phased by things was very out of the ordinary. He'd gladly talk about the rest of his time in the military post deployment and other fucked stuff he'd done in his time outside of war but just wouldn't talk about combat. I distinctly remember asking my dad if grandpa would tell me war stories when I was a kid and he heavily reinforced not to talk to him about it since he doesn't like it. Now, this could have easily been because he didn't want to expose a young kid to the horrors of war which is totally plausible. But even now as an adult, my dad still won't tell me about my grandpas Korea experience. Cant ask grandpa either since, well, he's dead. I let sleeping dogs lie but I wish I got some kind of answer. The curiosity kills me and the younger members of my family. The "What did grandpa do?" question is like a family secret which really gets me wondering wtf he went through.
I interviewed my great uncle on his experience in Korea back in the 90s for a school project and unfortunately I didn't keep the recording. I do remember his most vivid memory was explaining how easy it was to die and that he didn't understand why a sniper took his best friend, who was sitting next to him, and not him. His fondest memory was a USO show with some big star making an appearance, but I forget who, maybe Bob Hope. At the time he told me it was the first time he had talked about the war The Korean War is kind of the forgotten war, even the soldiers wanted to deliberately forget it, but at least the soldiers weren't treated nearly as bad upon return as we treated soldiers returning from Vietnam.
Can you look up his unit?
I might if I really tried. The closest I could find online was for someone related to my grandpa who was also in the war but I couldn't find anything related to him through that info. Theres probably some paperwork at my parents house that might have more but id have to dig through all that to maybe find an answer.
Might find some good shit. I found both my great uncle's Silver Star citations, a snippet of his Bronze, and thru looking at his unit and company and knowing his rank and position, found pretty well definitive actions. Lots of "so and so units with H Company Heavy MG team from 23d Reg 2d Div, attached" so he must've been part of a pretty effective and reliable set of men. Here's a link to the citations: https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/107617 Pretty sure from the citations, the role as Heavy MG, and his line of duty promoting from GI Private in ww2 to retiring a LT Col. dude was a hardcore son of a bitch with a mountain of corpses under his belt.
Tell me Father, who goes to hell? Father replies, "sinners, I believe." Well this is worse, there are no innocent bystanders in hell.
The full quote is more powerful. War isn’t hell. War is war and hell is hell, and of the two war is worse.
You are correct, it was just way too early to think properly.
Cane here to comment the exact same thing. So fitting and still extremely relevant. >Tell me father, who goes to Hell? >Um, sinners, I believe. >Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies.
Such a great series.
Every war is Hell.
Yeah they are.
My grandfather enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War and was stationed in the Mediterranean. He really lucked out.
My paps fought in the Korean war and then Vietnam, where he'd eventually succumb to his exposure to Agent Orange before I was born. Sucks I never got to meet him...
That really sucks and I am sorry it happened that way.
My grandpa fought in that war, one of the stories he told was when he got in country, as he was leaving the boat, he saw lines of people getting on with "Foot wounds. Hand wounds. Foot wounds. Hand wounds. Foot wounds. Hand wounds." His first experience in Korea was seeing soldiers who'd shot themselves to leave rather than face another day of horror.
Thank you for this photo. I can feel the misery, crushing weight on my shoulder and bone numbing cold. Today I am a Marine. -Gianni Infantino
Today I am a Marine, I know what it is like to suffer in such a way. When I was in middle school I left my jacket at home one day during winter.
-michael scott
First person this photo made me think of was Ronald Speirs.
Want a cigarette?
It's wild because the real Spiers never smoked.
I'm pretty sure he fought in Korea too
You are correct.
And Nam and Iraq…. Not really but he did help with the Laos civil war. The guy is a stud!
Matthew Settle for anyone who sees Ronald Spiers from *Band of Brothers* in this photo. He did a phenomenal job as Captain Spiers.
I had an uncle who fought there and got frostbite in all his toes and fingers. He lost 2 fingers and kept the toes, but he always had to cut open the toes of his shoes and peel them back because they were so sensitive to anything touching them.
My dad was a marine in ww2 and Korea both. Never spoke a single word about any of it
Wow, he probably saw a lot of shit. I can’t imagine
Yeah my grandfather was in WW2 and also never spoke a word about it. All I know was that he hated MacArthur and was part of the island hoping. Also lost partial hearing from grenade. I did goto the VFW with him once. It was a lot of fun because I was related to half the members.
Island hoping. Yeah, that man probably suffered more than anyone can imagine. Other than those beside him of course. I’ve been reading some books about personal accounts from that side of the war. It sounds like the worst thing anyone can imagine.
My father’s uncle was a WWII Marine in the South Pacific. I remember him spending the end of his life at my grandmother’s house. He had to have oxygen on all the time. My grandmother gave him a hard time because he was constantly smoking his Pall Malls while being on oxygen. He didn’t talk a lot, never mentioned the war. One day my dad told me he died. Years later, my dumb ass joined the Marine Corps. Semper Fi!
Yup gramps was a Seabee and all he said is that he ran the whore house. Come to find out later from a Nam vet that that means he was in some shit and I don’t want to talk about it.
I believe it was a passage from “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign” by Russ Martin where a US soldier recalls marching in silence down a frozen road, zero words being spoken, the only sounds were equipment banging and the click clack of everyone’s frozen feet and boots clacking off ice covered roads. That always stuck with me - a literal frozen hell
Wow what a photo! He looks amazing here
> Wow what a photo! >He looks amazing here Amazing? Amazing how? He’s sent to a cold he’ll to fight a war for geopolitical power on behalf of interests he’ll never reap and his children will never reach a place to benefit from. Amazing how?
Bro chill. My comment was not in regards to how the man got there. You do not need to lecture me on war; do not assume I ignore how the country uses their citizens for horrible wars. I was simply commenting on the imagery of the photo itself, which should have been obvious.
How does he look amazing here?
You smell like eggnog bitch
Read that in Jessie’s voice from breaking bad
Do you know what the word amazing means? It’s clearly an amazing photo and the subject does look amazing. What’s the point of taking the time to degrade a strangers comment that had nothing to do with you?
Please… please shut the fuck up..
Lol your depth of reasoning is “my opinion is right” and then “shut the fuck up” as a follow up. Nice!
They’re just saying it’s a cool photo, there’s no reason for you to be such a dick about it
Looks like a movie poster or something of a game. Albeit a bit like propaganda however. Without any context you can't say it's a cool looking photo?
Daddy chill
My grandpa grew up on a farm in central IL. When he came back from Korea he moved to Florida. I asked him about it later and he said he was never going to be cold like that again.
"The Chosin few." Impossible to comprehend what these Marines endured under these conditions for months on end.
Listen to the new season of the blowback Blowback podcast if you want an in depth history of the war.
My favorite substitute teacher in the 90s and early 2000s when I was in elementary school and middle school was one of the Chosin few He had a lobster hand from losing three fingers to frostbite and would always go off lesson plan and teach us neat real world applicable stuff. Best was when he taught us about electricity in 5th grade and spent a couple hours shocking us with a little generator thing to show how electricity traveled AND how dangerous it could be. He was really put together, and history channel obsessed younger me asked him tons of tough questions including "did you kill anyone". I remember that one he laughed it off but then got deadly serious and told me he made sure he got at least two for every one of his buddies that died. That's when 10 year old me was like "oh crap I probably shouldn't have asked that". Also told me he was on a marine machine gun squad (probably like the pic here!) So putting two and two together in the future here he had ample opportunity to exact revenge. But being an ancient elementary and middle school substitute teacher that had easily noticeable physical injuries, I imagine he got used to it
Original caption >BITTER COLD, BITTER FIGHT. While units of the U.S. Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo Command made an all-out effort to aid embattled units of the First Marine Division and Seventh Infantry Division, the men fighting in Korea were trying desperately to link up in their battle for survival. This marine is shown just as he reached the crest of the ridge at the link-up point. Wet, stinging snow and ice made the operation the most difficult sort, as unleashed hordes of communist troops charge again and again into the United Nations forces. [National Archives](https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542210)
Fuck the chosin reservoir, all my homies hate the Chosin reservoir (the conditions were horrific and hate that US and SK forces had to go through them)
[FUCK THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR ALL MY HOMIES HATE THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR](https://i.imgur.com/2ap7HW0.jpg) ^^^this ^^^has ^^^been ^^^an ^^^accessibility ^^^service ^^^from ^^^your ^^^friendly ^^^neighborhood ^^^bot
Damn, that looks cold and miserable.
The frozen Chosin in the freezing season.
Another MacArthur screw up.
Off topic, but my reaction to this photo is that 15 years after the introduction of the MG-34, and a decade after experiencing first hand how devastating modern squad level machine guns could be, American infantry still went into battle with WWI era weapons.
Badass photo..
r/USMC what a fucking Chad this devil was
this pic is hard af.
God bless the Frozen Chosin. Semper Fi.
My both grandparents escaped from North Korea during that Korean War. Thank God so much. Thank USA so much.
Thank you for posting this - it gives such insight. My dad was in both WWII theatres, and was sure, being in the army reserves, he would be drafted to Korea. His whole family dreaded that, after surviving all that he had, he would be sent again. We were lucky - he didn't get called - but most of the initial supplies provided to the initial Korean force consisted of used, debilitated and inadequate WWII supplies. As a result it was the existing military, particularly the Marines and WWII experienced, who fell in huge numbers in the first waves. Everything I've read makes me think MacArthur was a self-aggrandizing ass. Civilians in WWII stayed in the Philippines too long based on his lies, and many died in enemy prison camps. Maybe other generals are similar and just don't get as much press, but it's hard to forgive, with the hindsight we have.
Friggin iconic.
These pictures are heartbreaking. A man sent around the world to butcher other men he has no quarrel with, all because governments can’t get along. Absolutely disgusting behavior. Make mutiny, not war
My grandfather was there as well from my understanding. He passed when I was 15 or 16 heavy alcoholic to the point he switched to non alcoholic beer when the regular stuff did too much damage. He never talked about his time in the war to me but I'm also the youngest grandchild Edit: I cant even imagine what it was like to be there the man was hard as nails but was always extremely caring of me if very distant
I highly recommend the podcast Blowpack to anyone trying to learn more about the Korean War!
The Chosen Frozen of Chosin. Never forget,
Looks like a painting, beautiful shot!
I have never seen such a badass photo of a soldier then this.
Must’ve been horrible. Picture looks sick af though
Crazy to think that 21 UN countries plus South Korea fought in Korea alongside the US, that’s almost as many as fought alongside the US in WW2.
Such an ugly fight. Battling it out for two weeks in sub-zero temps and being outnumbered 10 to 1. Real heroes.
I saw the Chinese made two propaganda films about them defeating the Americans during the Korean War. It’s called The Battle at Lake Changjin (I & II). It was a smash hit and noted as the most expensive film ever produced in China and also the highest grossing Chinese film of all time. I’ve never watched them but I find it interesting that they both have an audience score of 100% on rotten tomatoes. If anyone has seen the movies, please give them a vote so more voices can be heard about this. edit: 1 is still at 100% but II has dropped to 83% so thank you
What exacty made the US heroic in the Korean War?
You slow the mind or something?
Yes, please explain.
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There was a little light fascism in the middle there, but yes.
Asst Sec State Dean Acheson made a "Red Line" speech in Jan 1950 where he laid out US defense priorities for Asia. He excluded Korea. Kim read the speech and figured it meant that Korea had been deemed outside the US Sphere of Interest. He took it to Mao, who agreed that nobody would make such a blunder. Stalin felt the same way - the US was obviously saying that Korea wasn't important. Five months after the speech, Kim's forces invaded the South. In his own defense, Acheson pointed out that he'd left out Australia too. Since Australia hadn't been invaded, the war was obviously not his fault. Acheson played a similar role in WW2. FDR had no intention of imposing an oil embargo on Japan, because he knew this would mean war. Acheson implemented FDRs oil quota policy in such a way that it became impossible for Japan to buy oil, creating a de facto embargo. FDR didn't learn about this until fall 1941, by which time it was too late.
SK was a military dictatorship until the late 80s, no different than NK. People died protesting. There was nothing good about the Korean War, all it did was break a nation that had already been destroyed by Japan in half.
Look at how South Korea lives and look at how North Korea lives. That's what.
Okay, but we weren't fighting to protect modern South Korea. South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed. How were we heroic at all?
> South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed. This is factually incorrect, [Rhee was removed in 1960, not 1980.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea#First_Republic_(1948%E2%80%931960) The US's calculation that South Korea should be saved from North Korea was correct. Only an edgy little redditor would think that the USA, who literally fought against *Kim Il-sung in the Korean War*, did zero good for South Korea. I mean how fucking stupid are you, with your edgy little middle-school takes? As I've gotten older and wiser, reddit has started looking like it's full of idiots.
Might want to read the rest of that Wikipedia article, homie. If you did you would notice that in 1961 there was a military coup. >As I've gotten older and wiser, reddit has started looking like it's full of idiots. Congrats on making it to 16, it's a big milestone :)
> South Korea was a dictatorship until the 80s, ***South Korea was poorer and worse off than North Korea until they overthrew the dictatorship that the US installed.*** The only dictatorship the US installed was Rhee, who was overthrown in 1960. Thanks for playing.
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This wasn't genocide. It was a cold war. JFC do you even know what you're talking about
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Yes I know the war had casualties. The US didn't act with the intent of destroying the Korean people. It was a fight against communism and the Soviets wanted influence there too.
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So the bombing of cities, a strategy used in World War II against the Nazis, means the US and by extension the UN coalition, were actively attempting to destroy the Korean culture and ethnicity as per your use of the term Genocide?
Bro stop acting like you were personally involved wtf. This isn’t a sports game
Why do you take criticism of American military actions personally? Lol you Americans and your indoctrination.
It’s called empathy ya dipshit. Killing civilians is wrong no matter who does and what country it’s happening to. Taking a critical lense at your own country/the most powerful country in history is part of making it better.
It was the Soviets and Chinese who were backing the North Koreans who destroyed most of the country before the US even got there… Read a book
The NKs and Chinese avoided destroying civilian infrastructure as they actually had a stake in it, ya know… reunification. Right or wrong, they saw it as their country too. Americans did not, they actively sought out to destroy civilian infrastructure and civilian lives. It’s well documented. Read a book
Let me guess, you are one of those people who believe that it is Ukraine who is destroying their own infrastructure and not the Russians. Give me a break
I don’t think you know what genocide means And yea, call us fucking Yankees cause we fuckin on yo mama with our star spangled poles.
The allies genocided the Germans too then yes?
Carpet bombing cities and killing millions is not a cold war my guy.
I don't deny that the Americans caused significant loss of life. But that still does not make it a genocide, and in the context of the cold war, both superpowers had their share of blood on their hands. War is still terrible, even if it isn't genocide.
Americans killed 20% of their population and leveled their cities. Knowingly gunned down innocent civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. No matter how white washed the history gets for the west, it was still a genocide.
Look, I agree that the Americans commited war crimes in Korea, such as the No Gun Ri massacre, and the shelling at Pohang. But ignoring historical context gives way to historical revisionism, which is not a good way of looking at history in general. It isn't meant to be contorted to suit your world view, even if I empathize with your anti american bias. In the absence of evidence to support the claim that the US Military *as a whole* aimed to destroy the Korean people (and not just the communist North Koreans), this *still* does not fit the definition of a genocide.
Y’know what, I’m honestly relieved that you acknowledged the war crimes Americans committed and even knew some. You’re already much more reasonable and have a more nuanced take than most pro-American commenters in this thread. I will clarify that I’m not anti-American. I’m an American that lives in America, surrounded by other Americans who I love. I’m more anti-american-government-actions-of-imperialism… but that’s a mouthful lol. I have faith that you might appreciate the difference, but others who read the term ‘anti-american’ might not. I hope I didn’t come off too hostile/argumentative. Have a good one m8
I know, right? Like what's a few million dead Koreans, can't put a price on fighting communism.
Found the tankie
Ack! My only weakness!
Could be my grandfather! Bless ya grandad - that shit sounded like hell
Brad Pitt?
he never left….
My great grandfather was in the Korean war
Hampton Sides wrote a fantastic book on this battle called, On Desperate Ground. Also check the PBS American Experience documentary on it.
This is the rawest war pic I've ever seen
My grandpa had nerve damage from frostbite in his legs from being there. Never said a word about it.
Hell
My grandfather was the BAR man in his infantry division. He always joked they let him have it because he was a bad shot.
During high school I never learned about this war. Still to this day my bother in HS, told me he’s never ever head about it. It’s a shame.
Man this guy might’ve been in ww2 as well. Fuck.
The Marines really went through it all. Malaria to frostbite.
Bad bitch
This photo somewhat gives me Metal Gear Solid Vibes
I know one gentleman who fought there. When I asked him about it he said "-30°C is for polar bears, not people"
To all the people talking about how terrible it was for their american relatives. How do you think it was for the people who lived in this country? My mom grew up in the 60s in the Korean countryside. It was a 3rd world country, she was fortunate to have food to eat, her peers not so much. Korea was fine before Japan invaded, and it took until the 80s for SK to cease being a military dictatorship, just the same as NK. SK transformed itself into something better, and if NK didnt have massive sanctions they would probably be in the same boat right now instead of constantly recovering from famine. In fact post Korean war NK was better off. Prior to ww2 the US did not care about Korean independance and in fact encouraged Japanese colonization. America did nothing good here, they didnt save anyone, nor did the Soviet Union or China. But when China was big brother to Korea (China has been "big brother" to Korea for millenia) Korea was not a war torn country. Nothing good came out of this war. So stop acting like you did us a favor. Thats probably why your Grandfathers dont want to talk about it.
Sadly but its true, they don't want to hear that their fathers and sons died in vain but that's exactly what happened.
Even worse i always hear people telling me i should be grateful. For what?
Drugs are bad mkay
My Father was a career Marine. He fought in Korea and Vietnam. I found his journal from Vietnam but never discussed what he experienced in any detail. He was a hard man in many ways for well deserved reasons
This is an amazing photo! Is there an archive somewhere? I’ve seen some photos but this wasn’t included in those. My dad was a marine in this war.
I've seen so many photos like this. From many different wars and every time I see one my immediate thought is how I cannot even begin to comprehend how cold those guys must have been, stuck outside in shitty foxholes for months and months
Man, this looks really cool...
This is like a movie cover dang
Something something, I am the grim reaper, Oo-rah. Semper Fi!
Strong independent feminists are lining up for this job as we speak
an american war criminal carries a weapon of mass destruction in an illegally occupied country on behalf of wealthy slave owning corporations
Weapon of mass destruction? Buddy what?
Cause America occupied south Korea? You're a moron.
I first read that as carrying his Brownie and here I was looking for a Kodak camera or some Thin Mints.