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WAR
THE CIVIL --- THE KOREAN --- THE GULF
THE REVOLUTIONARY

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WAR (THE CIVIL)

see: "SLAVERY"
see "WAR & PEACE" for other related links


There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall. Let
us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
--Brig. Gen. Barnard E. Bee (1824—1861)
Confederate army general during the American Civil War.
To his brigade at the first Battle of Bull Run [21 July 1862].

-

It is a safe bet that few New Yorkers who work in Midtown or lower Manhattan realize that in July 1863 the streets they now walk every day were the scene of savage riots that left hundreds dead, countless buildings in smoldering ruin and the city in the grip of mobs demanding the overthrow of Abraham Lincoln. No set of events in New York's history was more terrifying or more aggressively forgotten.

The riots were sparked by the introduction of a military draft to fill the depleted ranks of the Union army. The poor were particularly angry at a provision that allowed any conscript to buy his way out of the draft for $300, a year's wages for many workingmen. Behind the riots lay a combustible mix of racism, poverty and class resentment that was fanned into violence by pro-Southern Democratic politicians and journalistic demagogues. Not all the rioters were Irish, but enough were to give the mobs a Hibernian cast, nearly erasing the reputation for patriotic sacrifice that Irish volunteers had earned on the battlefields of the Civil War.

[ . . . ]

Order was finally restored by the arrival of seasoned troops rushed north from the Gettysburg battlefield. In all, at least 500 men, women and children died that week, including about 175 African-Americans. Five thousand blacks — roughly 40% of the city's black population — may have been made homeless, many fleeing to Long Island and New Jersey.

--Fergus M. Bordewich
reviewing Barnet Schecter's _The Devil's Own Work_
in _Wall Street Journal_ [18 January 2006].

-

-

During the war's final days, a spick-and-span federal detachment
surprised a tattered, dejected North Carolinian, scavenging for his
supper.

'Surrender, surrender,' they yelled, 'we've got you!'

The weary Rebel dropped his gun. 'Yes, you've got me,' he said,
'and the hell of a git you got!'

--Robert T. Cochran Jr.
"Witness To A War"
_National Geographic_ [April 1961]

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When the slavery issue came to a boil, [Robert E. ] Lee made
it quite clear where he stood. He freed his own slaves and wrote,
'Slavery is a moral and political evil in any society, a greater evil
to the white man than the black.' There are some problems of
conscience, however, that cannot be so cleanly solved, and
when the war started Lee faced an acute moral conflict. It was
always a shock to recall that Lincoln offered him the command
of the *Northern* forces. He could have taken it on principle
because he firmly believed that secession was unconstitutional.
But through five generations all his loyalties and affections were
with Virginia.

He spent a day and a night pacing around the bedroom of his
house and looking down the slope of the hill that is the last short
stretch of Virgina before the Potamac River and the North begins.
At the end of this agony, he came downstairs and wrote a letter
to his son, in which he said he believed in the Union and could
'anticipate no greater calamity' than its dissolution. 'Still, a union
that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets . . . has no
charm for me [and] if the Union is disssolved . . . I shall return to
my native state and, save in defense, will draw my sword no
more.'

--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]


A few days after Fort Sumter, Lee left his house
on the hill and never went back to it. And within
a few more days it was a camp and then a
graveyard. The Secretary of War, to whom Lee
had written a note rejecting the Northern
command, saw to it that no one would want to
live there again. He ordered that soldiers' graves
should be planted close to the house. Later the
place was confiscated by the government and
became a military cemetery. It is now Arlington,
the national military cemetery.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]

-

Damn the torpedoes — full speed ahead!
--David [Glasgow] Farragut (1801—1870)
Amercan admiral who achieved fame
for his Union naval victories during
the American Civil War [1861—1865];
the ranks of vice-admiral and admiral
were created for him.
At the Battle of Mobile Bay [5 August 1864].

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Before the war, it was said, "The United States are ...
"Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of
as a collection of independent states. After the war
it was always "The United States is ..." -- as we say
today without being self-conscious at all. And that
sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an
"is."
--Shelby Foote (1916—2005)
American author.
Interview, _The Civil War: An Illustrated History_ [1990].


After being accidentally shot by his own pickets while
inspecting his lines at dusk at Chancellorsville, Virginia,
Lt. General Thomas J. Jackson suffered the amputation of
his left arm. Jackson's condition worsened. Pneumonia set
in, and on Sunday, May 10, 1863, he knew he was dying:
"It is the Lord's day, my wish is fulfilled. I have
always desired to die on Sunday."

Later, in delirium, Jackson's final words brought him to
a soldier's ultimate peace: "Let us cross over the river
and rest under the shade of the trees."

--Shelby Foote (1916—2005)
American author.
_The Civil War, A Narrative_ [1963],
"Fredericksburg to Meridian"

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I will receive 200 able-bodied men if they will present
themselves at my headquarters by the first of June with
good horse and gun. I wish none but those who desire
to be actively engaged. My headquarters for the present
is at Corinth, Mississippi. Come on, boys, if you want a
heap of fun and to kill some Yankees.
--Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821—1877)
Confederate Lt. Colonel during the American Civil War.
Recruitment notice dated May 1861; in Shelby Foote's
_The Civil War: A Narrative_ [1986], Volume 1.

The rebels now have in their ranks their last man.
The little boys and old men are guarding prisoners
and railroad bridges, and forming a good part of
their forces, manning forts and positions, and
any man lost by them cannot be replaced. They
have robbed the cradle and the grave.
--Ulysses S. Grant (1822—1885)
American Unionist general and 18th President
of the United States [1869—1877].
In a letter issued for publication [16 August 1864].

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At 'the angle' in a space of 12 by 15 ft between two
traverses, Col. Penrose told Kent he counted 150 bodies.
. . In the corner of the woods referred to yesterday,
the dead of both sides lay piled in the trenches 5 to 6
deep — wounded often writhing under superincumbent
dead — The trees were in slivers from the constant
peppering of bullets.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
Diary, May 1864, Battle of the Bloody Angle of
Spotsylvania, south of Chancellorsville quoted
in Louis Menand _The Metaphysical Club_.


I've pretty much made up my mind that the South
have achieved their independence & I am almost
ready to hope spring will see an end ... Believe me,
we never shall lick 'em ... I think before long the
majority will say that we are vainly working to effect
what never happens — the subjugation (for that is it)
of a great civilized nation. We shan't do it — at least
the Army can't.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004].
Cohan & Major explain:
The 21-year-old Holmes had almost been killed at the Battle
of Antietam on 15 Sept., and his letter reflects the sense of
despondency that had overcome the North at this stage of
the war.

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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored:
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
--Julia Ward Howe (1819—1910)
American Unitarian lay preacher.
"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
_Atlantic Monthly_ [February 1862]

It may be too that Grant at last realized his own strengths. He
was not a thinker, like the unfortunate General McClellan, who
thought so long and hard about a campaign that it never got
anywhere, leading Lincoln to complain that McClellan had "a case
of the slows," and exasperating the president until he finally
asked if he could borrow the Army of the Potomac since McClellan
wasn't using it. Grant, on the contrary, was a man of action, and
movement was what stimulated him, not thought. He would try
something, and if it failed he would try something else, but his
instinct was always to keep moving forward against the enemy.
--Michael Korda
_Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero_ [2004]

-

They do not know what they say. If it comes to a
conflict of arms, the war will last at least four years.
Northern politicians do not appreciate the determination
and pluck of the South, and Southern politicians do not
appreciate the numbers, resources, and patient
perseverance of the North. Both sides forget that
we are all Americans, and that it must be a terrible
struggle if it comes to war.
--Robert E. Lee (1807—1870)
American Confederate general.
[May 1861], in J. William Jones
_The Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee_ [1906].

& see:

You might as well attempt to put out the flames
of a burning house with a squirt-gun. I think this
is to be a long war — very long — much longer
than any politician thinks.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
In 1861, Sherman was a colonel at the time.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 589.

-

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My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to
save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave
I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and
if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
In a letter to Horace Greeley [22 August 1862].


[Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in November, 1862:]
So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made
this great war!
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Quoted in McClure's Magazine [April 1911].


I claim not to have controlled events,
but confess plainly that events have
controlled me.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Letter to A.G. Hodges [4 April 1864].


Military glory — that attractive rainbow
that rises in showers of blood.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].


I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and
the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance
with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I
shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument
in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen
people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Address to the New Jersey State Senate [21 February 1861].


"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently
half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not
expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease
to be divided.

It will become all one thing, or all the other.

--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
"House Divided" speech in the Lincoln-Douglas debate,
Springfield, Illinois [16 June 1858].


With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as
God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to
bind up the nation's wounds....
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].,
In his second inaugural address [4 March 1865].

-

The passions of the titanic struggle will finally enter upon
the sleep of oblivion, and only its splendid accomplishments
for the cause of human freedom and a united nation, stronger
and richer in patriotism because of the great strife, will be
remembered.
--James Longstreet (1821—1904)
Confederate general of the American Civil War.

The President is nothing more than
a well-meaning baboon.
--George B. McClellan (1826—1885)
American Union general during the Civil War.
Letter to his wife [1861].

When we look at our vast country with all its resources of
wealth and power, at our system of free government with
all the appliances for further advancement in greatness
and intelligence, reaching as it does from ocean to ocean,
with its fields, and mines, and streams, its hills and valleys,
smiling in' the sunlight of freedom, inviting the poor and
oppressed of all lands to come and occupy them, to plow
and reap, to build and grow, and be happy — when we look
at all this and think what we would have been had the
rebellion proved a success, we feel that our comrades
did not die in vain, and we feel that this is but a small token,
indeed, of the love that we ought to show their memories.
What tender emotions are awakened to-day in our minds
as we bend over the silent, yet eloquent, mounds where
the American soldier sleeps his last sleep.
--J.F. Meredith (late 19th cent.)
American clergyman.

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Well, it is all over now. The awful rain of shot
and shell was a sob — a gasp. I can still hear them
cheering as I gave the order, "Forward!" The thrill
of their joyous voices as they called out, "We'll
follow you, Marse George, we'll follow you!"

Oh, how faithfully they followed me on — on — to
their death, and I led them on — on. Oh, God!

--George Edward Pickett (1825—1875)
Confederate Army officer during the American Civil War.
In a letter to his fiancee on the charge named
after him at Gettysburg; July 3, 1863.

-

Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
--George Frederick Root (1820—1895)
American musician and music publisher.
"The Battle Cry of Freedom" [1863]

Don't duck. Ha, they couldn't hit
an elephant at this dis—
--General John B. Sedgwick (1813—1864)
The most senior officer from either side to be
killed during the American Civil War.
He was shot by a Confederate sniper at
the Battle of Spotsylvania [9 May 1864].

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I have seen enough of war not to be caught
by its first glittering bait.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Letter to Thomas Ewing Jr. [23 May 1861].


If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity
and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not
popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and
their relatives must stop the war.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Letter to Gen. Halleck before Sherman's march
through Georgia [4 September 1864].


Then for the first time I saw the carnage of
battle, men lying in every conceivable shape,
and mangled in a horrible way; but this did
not make a particle of impression on me,
but horses running about riderless with
blood streaming from their nostrils, lying
on the ground hitched to guns, gnawing
their sides to death.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Letter to his wife after 1st Bull Run [28 July 1861].


War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it.
The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
(December 1863, remark to a Tennessee woman
who had complained about the behavior of his
troops on their march to Knoxville.)


Newspaper correspondents with an army, as a rule, are mischievous.
They are the world's gossips, pick up and retail the camp scandal,
and gradually drift to the headquarters of some general, who finds
it to make reputation at home than with his own corps or division.
They are also tempted to prophesy events and state facts which, to
an enemy, reveal a purpose in time to guard against it. Moreover,
they are always bound to see facts colored by the partisan or
political character of their own patrons, and thus bring army
officers into the political controversies of the day, which are
always mischievous and wrong. Yet, so greedy are the people at
large for war news, that it is doubtful whether any army commander
can exclude all reporters, without bringing down on himself a
clamor that may imperil his own safety. Time and moderation
must bring a just solution to this modern difficulty.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.


I will never again command an army in America if we
must carry along paid spies. I will banish myself to
some foreign country first.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Letter to his wife (the "spies" were newspaper correspondents)
[28 January 1863].


Not more than two newspapers will be published in
Savannah; their editors and proprietors will be
held to the strictest accountability, and will
be punished severely, in person and property, for
any libelous publication, mischievous matter,
premature news, exaggerated statements, or any
comments whatever upon the acts of the
constituted authorities.
--William Tecumseh Sherman (1820—1891)
American Union general.
Special field order [26 December 1864].

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A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.
--Slogan of the protesters against conscription
in New York, [13 July 1863],
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004].
Cohan & Major explain:
The phrase originated in the South in 1861. $300
bought exemption from the draft, introduced by
Lincoln in the summer to replenish the Union Army.

If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought
about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United
States; that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the
equality, but to the inequality of condition.
--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859)
French historian and politician.
_Democracy in America_ [1840]

In the South the war is what A.D.
is elsewhere; they date from it.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Life on the Mississippi_ [1883]

Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine
are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment
of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of
the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface!
Who is so foolish — I beg everyone's pardon — as to expect
to see any such thing?
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.
Speech in the U.S. Senate [7 March 1850].

The hope of all who suffer,
The dread of all who wrong.
--John Greenleaf Whittier (1807—1892)
American poet.
(Characterizing the Union cause in the Civil War, in
"The Mantle of St. John De Matha" [1865] - GBAQ.)

The best men we had in each of these two regiments are not
visibly present with us now; the best and truest of our number
lie buried on the battlefields of the south; some were clad in
gray, some in blue; no towering monument marks their resting
place, nor massive monolith stands sentinel. Buried where they
fell, baptizing the soil with their blood, forever consecrating the
ground, making it holy, while their life and death tell the world
the story of how an American will fight, and if necessary, die for
what he believes to be the right.
--Clark Wright
19th cent. American soldier and clergyman.



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WAR (THE KOREAN)

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see "WAR & PEACE" for related links


Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate
the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war,
at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the
wrong enemy.
--Omar Bradley (1893—1981)
American general.
Testifying before a Senate committee on the desirability
of widening the Korean War [15 May 1951].

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Then, while it was still summer, the Marine Corps
notified me my footlocker had been shipped and I
could pick it up at Grand Central Station. . . . I
handed a paper to an employee of the railroad, and
he led us deeper into the cellar.

There, along with lost baggage and my footlocker, were
the coffins from Korea, stacked and tidy, each with its
American flag neatly lashed on. Like Mack and Simonis
and Captain Chafee and me, they too were home.

--James Brady (1928— )
_The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea_ [2000]

-

^

[Upon relieving MacArthur] Truman [...] said, characteristically,
of the hostile polls: 'I wonder how far Moses would have gone
if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have
preached if he had taken a poll in the land of Israel?... It isn't
polIs that count. It is right and wrong, and leadership — men
with fortitude, honesty and a belief in the right that make
epochs in the history of the world.' But gradually the rage
died down, and MacArthur's own highly emotional appearance
before a joint session of Congress was more a valedictory than
a gesture of defiance. The conviction gradually spread that
Truman had been right, and many now see the episode as
his finest hour, a forceful and perhaps long overdue
reassertion of the elective, civil power over an undoubted
military hero who had ignored the constitutional chain of
command.

The truth is, Truman kept in mind, which MacArthur did not,
that the object of US intervention in Korea was not to start a
third world war, but to prevent one. That is what it did. The
war settled down to a stalemate. Negotiations scaled down
and eventually ended (July 27, 1953) the fighting, though the
country remained divided and the cease fire line tense. The
war was costly. US casualties included 33,629 battle deaths,
20,617 non-hostile deaths, and 103,284 wounded. There
were in addition, 8177 missing and, of the 7,140 servicemen
made prisoner, only 3,746 were repatriated.

--Paul Johnson (1928— )
British historian.
_A History of the American People_ [1997] pp. 824-825

^

November saw China enter the [Korean War] with
a rush. MacArthur's armies were driven back almost
to Pusan again. Gallup polls of October had shown
64 percent of the public in favor of taking all Korea,
rather than stopping at the prewar line. By January
1951 they showed 66 percent for getting out of
Korea altogether.
--Gallup Poll as summarized by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May
in _Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers_ [1986].

-

The only way we got out of Frozen Chosin is
because a lot of young guys know how to fight.
God bless the Chosin Marines. They are my
brothers for life. . . .

Every Memorial Day my thoughts go drifting back
to those youngsters who never came home. I can
still see them as they were then. They'll never
grow old.

--Lt. Henry Litvin
A battalion surgeon with the U.S. Marines, describing
fighting which occurred in the Chosin Reservoir, North
Korea, 1950. Quoted in Martin Russ' _Breakout_ [1999].

-

The boys will be home by Christmas.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.
[November 1950.] In Harry S Truman
_Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, Ch. 24 [1956]


I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met
all tests there, and I can report to you without reservation
that they are splendid in every way. It was my constant
effort to preserve them and end this savage conflict honorably
with the least loss of time and a minimum sacrifice of life.
Its growing bloodshed has caused me the deepest anguish
and anxiety. Those gallant men will remain often in my
thoughts, and in my prayers always.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.
In his address to a joint session of Congress [19 April 1951].


It isn't just dust that is settling in Korea, Senator,
it is American blood.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.
Remark during Senate hearings, quoted
in Time magazine [14 May 1951].


Our first line of defense for Western Europe is not
the Elbe, it is not the Rhine — it is the Yalu.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.[1951 speech],
quoted in William Manchester, _American Caesar_ [1978].


It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
--Douglas MacArthur (1880—1964)
American general.
In a speech to the Republican National Convention [7 July 1952].

-

We want you to feel unhampered tactically and stategically
to proceed north of the 38th Parallel.
--George C. (Catlett) Marshall (1880—1959)
American general and statesman.
Secretary of Defense. This decision (following
the Inchon landing and the expulsion of North
Korean forces from South Korea) led to Chinese
intervention. It was conveyed in an "Your-eyes-only"
cable to Gen. MacArthur in late September, 1950.
In William Manchester,
_American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur: 1880-1964_, Ch.9 [1978].

Men, they're in front of us and behind us. They're on
both sides of us. They won't get away this time.
--Lester Burwell "Chesty" Puller (1898—1971)
Marine officer, the most decorated Marine
in American history.
While surrounded by the enemy during the Korean War.

The willingness to settle fot a stalemate...was all that
brought peace to Korea...we had finally come to realize
that military victory was not what it had been in the
past — that it might even elude us forever if the means
we used to achieve it brought wholesale devastation
to the world or led us down the road of international
immorality past the point of no return.
--Matthew B Ridgway (1895—1993)
American army general who planned and
executed the first major airborne assault in
U.S. military history with an attack on
Sicily [July 1943].
_The Korean War_ [1967]

Gentlemen. We are not retreating. We are
merely advancing in another direction.
--Oliver P. Smith (1893—1977)
American general.
News Conference, on the retreat of U.S.
forces in North Korea [4 December 1950].

-

The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt
that Communism has passed upon the use of subversion
to conquer independent nations and will now use armed
invasion and war.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
In a statement to the press [27 June 1950].


I fired [General Douglas MacArthur] because he wouldn't
respect the authority of the President. That's the answer
to that. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of
a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law
for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them
would be in jail.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
Interview with the author, in Merle Miller's
_Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman_ [1974].


I wasn't going to let this attack on the Republic
of Korea . . . go forward. Because if it wasn't
stopped, it would lead to a third world war,
and I wasn't going to let that happen.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
Quoted in Merle Miller _Plain Speaking_ [1974].


If we had not persuaded the United Nations to
back up the free Republic of Korea, Western
Europe would have gone into the hands of the
Communists.
--Harry S. Truman (1884—1972)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1945—1953].
_The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman_

-

-

Fellow members of Task Force Smith, it has now been 48
years since we deployed on this hill. We did not realize
it at the time, but we were the vanguard of the United
Nations Forces who came to help the South Korean people
defend their freedom. Our mission was to delay the main
enemy forces coming down this historic invasion route
Seoul —Taejon — Taegu — Pusan.

My comrades, 53 of you were Killed In Action here on that
day so long ago. 5 of you are still Missing In Action. 34
of you died in unspeakable conditions as Prisoners Of War
in either South or North Korea. To you I report that we
completed our assigned task with honor.The enemy had to
deploy his forces in order to eject us from this hill.
When the enemy's tanks reached this spot, followed by a
convoy of truck-mounted Infantry many miles long, they
were traveling at 20-25 miles per hour. About seven hours
later the enemy's infantry was slowly occupying the high
ground to my right. Afterwards, when the main body of the
enemy's force continued down the road to my left they were
walking at 2-3 miles per hour.

There are a number of your comrades here with me today.
They marvel at the progress the Korean people have made
since we arrived here so many years ago. Your sacrifice
undoubtedly played a major role in the defense of their
freedom.

To the Korean people assembled here today, I say thank
you for honoring my comrades. Always remember that here,
on the fifth day of July 1950, your people and my people
became Blood Brothers.

When you explain the meaning of freedom to your children —
tell them about Task Force Smith and the foreigners who
died here. Tell them that FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!

--Bill Wyrick, former Plt Ldr, 2nd Plt, C Co, TFS [5 July 1998]
http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/tfs.htm



Click picture to ZOOM
WAR (THE GULF)

.
.

see "WAR & PEACE" for related links
see also: "IRAQ"


Iraq controls some 10 per cent of the world's proven
oil reserves. Iraq plus Kuwait controls twice that. An
Iraq permitted to swallow Kuwait would have the
economic and military power, as well as the arrogance,
to intimidate and coerce its neighbors — neighbors who
control the lion's share of the world's remaining oil
reserves. We cannot permit a resource so vital to be
dominated by one so ruthless. And we won't.
--George H. W. Bush (1924— )
American Republican statesman and President [1989—1993].
[11 September 1990]

-

The grotesque carnage of Iraqi solders on the "Highway of Death"
shocked our sensibilities, and led to calls to end the Gulf War —
only to allow Saddam Hussein to live on to butcher thousands of
innocents. [Gen. William] Sherman taught us that such moderation
in war is imbecility, and that smug moralizing before absolute
victory is achieved — which he called "bottled piety" — in fact
gets more, not fewer, killed.
--Victor Davis Hanson (1953— )
American military historian and senior
fellow at the Hoover Institution.

& note:

Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skillful method
of disarming and overcoming an enemy without great bloodshed,
and that this is the proper tendency of the Art of War. However
plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be
extirpated; for in such dangerous things as War, the errors
which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.
--Karl von Clausewitz (1780—1831)
Prussian soldier and military theorist.
_On War_ [1832]

& note:

To carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy.
When an extreme case calls for that remedy which is in its own
nature most violent, and which, in such cases, is a remedy only
because it is violent, it is idle to think of mitigating and diluting.
Languid war can do nothing which negotiation or submission will
not do better; and to act on any other principle is, not to save
blood and money, but to squander them.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
_Hallem_ [1828]

-

-

On Thursday afternoon, February 28th, about six
hours after the U.S. declared a cease-fire, the
victorious armies began to roll into Kuwait City.
The Arab contingents were firing their guns in the
air and the Kuwaiti Resistance fighters responded by
firing their guns in the air and then the other
Kuwaitis picked up all the leftover Iraqi guns and
started firing these in the air, too.

People were singing, dancing, clapping their hands
and beating on car horns. The women began their
eerie ululation, that fluttering liquid animal sound
made somewhere in the back of the throat, and the
women's kids joined in with a more familiar plain
screaming of heads off.

An impromptu parade was begun past the American
embassy, but there really wasn't anyplace else that
the crowd wanted to parade to so the parade turned
in ever tightening circles in front of the embassy
and finally just stopped and became a crowd.

The crowd yelled, "George Push! George Push!
George Push!" Someone had already spray-painted
"Thank you for George Push" across the American
embassy wall, and the "P" had been carefully crossed
out and the spelling corrected. . . .

A lot of people were crying, and I was one of them.
A young Kuwaiti came out of the crowd and he was
crying, and he grabbed me by my notebook and, with
that immense earnestness that you only have an
excuse for two or three times in your life and
usually that's when your mother is dying, he said,
"You write we would like to thank every man in the
allied force. Until one hundred years we cannot
thank them. What they do is . . . is. . . " — words
failed him — ". . . is America."

--P.J. O'Rourke (1947— )
American political satirist.
_Give War a Chance_ [1992], "Kuwait City"

-

As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military
strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he
schooled in the operational art, nor is he a
tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier.
Other than that, he's a great military man. I want
you to know that.
--H. Norman Schwarzkopf, III (1934— )
American general who commanded the U.S. forces in the Gulf War of 1991.
(At a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [27 February 1991]
while commander of allied forces in the Gulf War.)

-

About six million barrels of oil, weighing roughly
a million tons, around 10% of the world's daily
oil ration, are going up in smoke every day from
the 500 Kuwait wells set afire by Iraqi occupiers. . .

Joel S. Levine of NASA, an authority on biomass
burning [said that] . . . the Kuwaiti well fires were
"the most intense burning source, probably, in the
history of the world."

--Tom Wicker (1926— )
American journalist.
"Smoke Over Kuwait"
_New York Times_ [3 March 1991]

-

History of the Gulf War:
http://www.rotten.com/library/history/war/gulf-war/



Click picture to ZOOM
WAR (THE REVOLUTIONARY)

.
.

see "AMERICAN REVOLUTION"


end page




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