front during the second Korean winter.
The recalled reservists were largely gone now, their time—seventeen months for veterans, twenty-four for others—expired. The National Guardsmen of the 40th and 45th divisions had gone home, though these two divisions remained on the FECOM trooplist, as Army of the United States units, filled with other personnel.
The average man of the infantry companies was a selectee, and rapidly, he was becoming a special sort of selectee.
The first of draft call, in the summer of 1950, was a vacuum cleaner—sprung without warning, it took skilled and unskilled alike, high-school senior and college teacher together; there was no time to escape.
The Army got a great number of highly skilled men, which it badly needed. Throughout all history, only the pinch of poverty or the pressure of the draft board has made men in large numbers enter the ranks; this has always been the defensive weakness of a mercantile society, whether Carthage, Britain, or America. But by 1951, there was little poverty, and the draft pressures had relaxed.
Thousands of young men, with no stomach for infantry war, entered other services to avoid it, generally in the following priority: Coast Guard, which could pick and choose the best; then Navy and Air Force, where skills were more at a premium, and combat dangers—in this particular war—less. The Marine Corps, which had written some of its most glorious history at Changjin, and which kept its standards high, had difficulty recruiting up to authorized strength. For as one high-school student, who had been at the reservoir as a reservist, returned to his old school and said: 'For God's sake, watch where you enlist—the Marines will kill you!'
There was exemption for students, and anyone who could get into college and keep his marks up, or join ROTC, had it made. Parenthood—even
Understandably, with an unpopular war that had little public enthusiasm or support, the quality of men left over for the Infantry declined.
By May 1952, of over 5,000 new trainees entering the 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, slightly over half had Army General Classification Test scores of 80 or under—by Army standards unfit for training at any Army school, including cooks and bakers. It seemed an unmistakable trend that only those too stupid to figure an out were coming into the ground forces.
Yet, these men proved they could fight, and fight well, when trained.
The involuntary Reserve officers who had fought on Bloody and Heartbreak had left, most saying '
Very few of these young men, though intelligent and better educated than almost any wartime American officer corps had been, had seen hardship before. They were keen and alert, but tended to be permissive with their men. They had a difficult time with platoon command, because ROTC had given them little practical experience with the rough and tumble of combat; but graduated to staff jobs, they gave the Army an indispensable balance of poise and education junior officers promoted from the ranks could not.
Ironically, the officer who is often best at leading small units of men, who can rough it in the earth, living in filth and danger beside his men, the familiarity breeding no contempt, often is helpless when put behind a desk.
The ROTC boys worried their battalion commanders while they were in command of platoons and companies, at ages ranging from twenty-one to twenty-four, but—if they survived—they were invaluable later up on staff, where the pen is always mightier than the sword.
Few of these men, either officer or soldier, had a strong belief in the reasons for which this war was fought. They came because they had to, they did what they had to do, with one eye on Panmunjom, and when their time was up, they went home.
Oddly, they were never sanguine about their own combat prowess. Most of them, officers and men, felt a deep respect for, and almost an inferiority before, the various professionals that comprised the other U.N. troops in Korea. Their praise of the allies—the French, Thais, Turks, and Abyssinians—was far removed from the grousing about allies that had marked most previous wars. Most Americans, privately, would admit the U.N. troops were better than they were.
Which was highly surprising, since until the last, captured CCF intelligence documents always indicated the Chinese considered Americans the best.
For, unassuming, unaggressive, with no desire whatever to kill the man they called Joe Chink, when backed into a corner, or assaulted on their hills, these men showed that the spirit of the Alamo was not dead.
They had had the benefit of what had gone before. They came to Korea knowing in some measure what it would be like. The word was out. Like Frank Munoz, when offered George Company, they wouldn't volunteer—but what had to be done they would do.
If the job was pointed out to Americans, and they understood it had to be done, with no escape; if they were trained to do it, as they were from 1951 onward, Americans could do what had to be done.
If another war follows Korea, if American policy is threatened anywhere on the globe, it will not be years and months, as in the two world wars, or days, as in Korea, but only hours until American troops are committed.
In battle, Americans learn fast—those who survive.
The pity is, their society seems determined to make them wait until the shooting starts.
The word should go out sooner.
In May of 1952, a treaty of peace was signed between the United States and Japan. The Army ceased to occupy, and now became honored guests of the shrunken Empire of Japan.
Very little changed, except that now the Japanese were free to criticize their best customers, if they dared.
In Japan, the Korean War was always close, but always far away. While the Korean people were inevitably the real losers of the war, the Japanese became the true winners. The Korean War poured billions of American dollars into the Japanese economy.
Millions of Americans passed through Japan, moving to and from the combat zones. These had money in amounts unbelievable to the Nipponese—and the Japanese, among the world's most industrious people, soon found Americans would spend it for almost anything, if given the opportunity.
The Japanese, who view the nude human body with the same aplomb they view the naked dawn, soon found nudity was highly marketable. Farm areas were scoured for girls whose bosoms measured up to Western standards, to walk about in clubs without clothes. Some Americans, understandably, when buying tobacco from the strolling cigarette girl, picked up the wrong brands.
There were other business ventures. One young chaplain from a tank battalion, a Methodist with a family back home, was accosted by procurers fourteen times in 1952 while walking from his Tokyo hotel to a cab.
All Americans, passing through, found that good Canadian whiskey was $1.50 a fifth, and drinks a quarter U.S. a throw. As one officer said, happily, 'At these prices I can't afford to stay sober!'
These things were inevitable in war. Men going to and from a battlefield, even in crusades, have usually sought the same things. The Japanese could not be blamed for turning their nation into a large red-light district, for what the customer with money wants, he always gets.
The big money, and the prosperity that flushed the Japanese economy, however, came from American arms expenditures. American military procurement officers found Japanese industry—far more capable and efficient than it is generally given credit for—could produce almost anything needed at the front—and much cheaper than it could be made in the States and sent across the Pacific.
Thousands of American military vehicles, damaged or worn out in Korea, were rebuilt in Japanese shops, some as many as three times, far more cheaply than they could have been replaced. The Japanese, under contract, could manufacture ammunition, tools, equipment, almost anything. They could produce millions of tons of food for Koreans and Americans in FECOM. All in all, the Japanese economy hummed. They made big money.
The benefits did not all accrue to the Japanese, however.
Without its solid industrial base in Japan, in privileged sanctuary from the battles, the United States would have found it as difficult to fight the Korean War as it would have been to land on Normandy on D-Day, had Britain not been there.
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