army

by

The Koreans


In December of 1968 I was sent by the Army to Korea.  I was one of the fortunate ones who through luck alone was spared the horrors of Vietnam.  But Korea was not a country without conflict.  To the contrary, Korea had a simmering peace that occasionally erupted into armed exchange.  The world took little note of these exchanges because of Vietnam.  But the exchanges were often deadly.  Two of the more infamous events at that time was the taking of the ship USS Pueblo and its entire crew, and the downing of an American spy plane, an EC-121.  I was there for the release of the Pueblo and the entire EC-121 incident.  The latter came close to bringing about an all out fighting war.

But this is not the story of a divided country on the brink of war.  This is the story of a people I came to know, respect, and love.  It was also my introduction to a third world country, and all its challenges.

When I alighted from the Boeing 707 that took me to Korea I noticed a distinct scent in the air.  I found out in time it was a mixture of burning wood, burning charcoal, and human excrement.   The wood and charcoal were the fuels of choice for most of the Korean population and human excrement was used in the rice fields as fertilizer.

Many of the soldiers in Korea, myself included, lived in Quonset Huts.  Each of the huts was kept clean and in good order by a house boy, a Korean man we paid.  It was my house boy who introduced me to Korean society, such as it was.  But prior to arriving in Korea, I had met a Korean family in my home town who expressed to me their desire I visit with their relatives in Seoul.  I did that too.

At the time, Korea had a very small rich class, a slightly larger though still tiny middle-class, and a huge number of poor.  Korea was still recovering from the second world war.  My house boy, of course, was a member of the poor, and the family I was entreated to visit was a member of the middle-class.  You could tell middle-class members by their black and refurbished former US Army jeeps.  The rich owned small Toyotas and Datsuns.

My house boy invited to his house for supper one day.  I, of course, was obliged to accept.   His house was little more than two rooms that included his wife and children plus his parents.  In Korea it was expected and accepted that children cared for their parents.  The door to the outside was a wooden frame with paper filling what would otherwise have been small window frames.  The house was heated by a small charcoal stove situated beneath the floor.  These devices proved to be deadly too often, giving off much carbon monoxide.  It always amazed me that these structures never seemed to catch fire.  Such a fire would have ravaged its neighborhood with its extremely tightly intertwined wooden edifices.

A veritable feast was laid out in front of me.  We sat on the floor and ate there.  It was not as much because of custom but from a lack of any sort of furniture.  Such furniture was a luxury the poor could not afford.  The feast in front of my was, I am certain, far more expensive and expansive than the family could afford.  Rice, fish, kimchi and seaweed were a large part of this feast.  At the time, most poor Koreans allowed themselves fish once a week, opting for rice and kimchi as their staples.  Somewhere in the course of the evening my house boy offered how good they had it compared to others.  He explained that the truly poor were forced to eat rat at times.  Dogs were rare, for obvious reasons, but were considered a delicacy, he told me.   When the meal was finished we men had a drink of cheonju, a Korean rice wine.  When he took a drink my house boy turned his head away.  He later explained he that out of respect to his father, that he did not drink in front of him.

When the EC-121 was shot down my house boy disappeared for a week.  The entire Korean and American army had mobilized for what everyone was certain was the coming war.  My house boy was a member of the national guard which included every man between the ages of 18 and 60 without exception.  My house boy expressed a passionate desire to fight the north and re-unite the two Koreas.  He had relatives in the north he had never met.  When he returned he expressed his disappointment that a war had not started.  It did come to an exchange of artillery fire at the DMZ, and a lot of posturing.

I was also treated to dinner with the middle-class family I had been introduced to.  I do not remember how we found each other, but I do know their American relatives informed them I was there and where to find me, so I expect they reached out at some point.  They picked me up in their black jeep and took me to their home, considerably larger than that of my house boy.  The meal they put out, equal of course to that of my house boy, included pulgogi, beef that is fried upon a small stove.

I visited something that was rather unique in the orient while I was there, a “girl’s university.”  Women were still second class citizens in the far east.  But in Seoul there was a rather large, and or some prestige, college for women to attend, Yonsei University.

Koreans were hell-bent on being both autonomous and powerful.  Their army was large, extremely well-trained, and proud.  They were so highly thought of by the US Department of Defense that they were considered out best ally and fighting partner in Vietnam.  Many Koreans gave their lives in war in Vietnam.  Unlike other allies America has had, the Koreans never backed down from a fight and were intensely loyal.  The ROK soldiers, as they were known, were highly valued by the American troops.  This resolve was fermented in the 40 plus years of Japanese occupation Korea endured.

I knew, at the tender age of 20, that this industrious society would one day come into its own and be respected by the world.  That day, of course, has arrived.  I responded to what I found in Korea by vowing to verbally defend anyone who would detract Korea and its people.  These are wonderful people.  They have a marvelous country, rich with history, and a force in the world both economically and politically.  They are the epitome of Teddy Roosevelt’s axiom, “Walk quietly and carry a big stick.”

by

The American Military Crisis


The murder of Afghan civilians by the American Army soldier was not only avoidable, but to some degree, predictable.  In this age of immediately available information it is sad that the American public is so uninformed about its soldiers.  I can tell you from personal experience that being a soldier is like no other a person can experience.  It therefore is the responsibility of the government to inform and the American public to be informed.  Both scenarios have failed.

The last time America fought a war like World War II was World War II.  From that point on warfare has changed dramatically.  Guerrilla warfare was developed by the Japanese during World War 2.  It has been adopted as the preferable form of fighting by small fighting forces everywhere since.  Vietnam was America’s introduction at a large-scale to that form of warfare.  To its credit, during the Vietnam conflict the Department of Defense seldom required a soldier to serve more than a single one year tour of duty in Vietnam.  It relied up rotating in new troops on their first tour to take the place of departing troops.  A single unit, the 25th Infantry Division, for example, stayed involved in the war for much of its duration.  But on a man-by-man basis, replacements were brought in as an individual soldier completed his one-year tour.  That was a formula used at both office and enlisted levels.  The U.S. seemed to have learned that battle fatigue was a real detriment to the effectiveness of a fighting unit.  And anytime a man was returned to the war zone his thinking necessarily made him feel more vulnerable to a bullet with his name on it.

During that era there were always upwards to 1.5 million men on active duty so the ability to rotate men through the war zone without using them more than once was more easily accomplished than it is today.  During Vietnam there were many men who asked to be sent for a second tour in Vietnam, and few who asked for a third.  But in the individual soldiers mind was the knowledge that if he had already been to Vietnam once, he would not be required to go again.  Such knowledge is absent from the soldier’s psyche today.  Worse, those being required multiple trips to war zones are those who volunteered to be reserve troops.  That only happens when the numbers of active forces are too low to meet requirements.

What makes this even worse is that since the government has taken the tack of base closures, it has also reduced the size of the military.  In some instances the size of individual units have been reduced by as much as two-thirds while others have been totally disbanded.  The reason given, as always, is the level of funding.  The problem with such thinking is simple.  It is foolishness in the extreme.

America for over twenty years now has been trying to enforce peace and guarantee the safety of Americans on the cheap.  You cannot properly assess the strength and preparedness of the nation’s military in terms of dollars and cents alone.  History shows clearly that a country’s budget for its military is necessarily large, at least as long as it desires to be fully prepared.

Today, America has 10 active Army Infantry and Armor Divisions and three reserve infantry divisions both of which are a part of the National Guard.    In 1989 there were 19 active divisions and 10 reserve divisions.  Why is it we could afford that level of preparedness then but not now?  Simple math shows that we reduced that part of our defense by over 55%.

During those same years the size of the Air Force and Navy also have been reduced in both active and reserve numbers.  It would seem that our politicians have lost sight of the fact that in the end it is people, not machines, that win wars.  Technology serves a very important part of our readiness but technology is worthless without a sufficient human presence.  But on the battlefield, the place where the ground soldier must operate, even the best technology has its limits.  It should be painfully obvious to all but the most apathetic that the biggest deterrent to an enemy force is the number of men it faces, not their technology.  The Taliban certain respects America’s technology but it does not fear it.  Right now they know they have a superiority of number and are willing to play the game of attrition.  They know they are not going anywhere and can simply wait out America and hope for its resolve to wane.  But were they to face a very large increase in the number of men on the ground, their resolve would necessarily weaken.  They know American does not have such resources, so they simply wait, pick their fights, continue the battle of attrition confident in their ability to wait things out.

This scenario is not going to change in the future even as our enemy does change.  America must increase the size of its military, greatly, and become willing to pay for it.  But the cost of such an increase will reap long-term rewards.  Our military’s ability to keep fresh troops in the field will be enhanced.  It is morally wrong to ask the same small group of men to put their lives in harm’s way over and over and not expect there to be both short and long-term negative effects.  With enough men at its disposal the Army could have looked at SSG. Bales request, or requirement, to be deployed to a war zone for the fourth time in 11 years as the assumption of unnecessary risk and blocked his deployment.  With the shortage of manpower, such as it has, the Army’s hand was forced, and now we have the results.