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February 1971
total of 23 days. A whole new pattern
of battle emerged during the stcuggles
for Heartbreak. On the contested ter–
ritory, which could be very small in
itself, the battle would be utterly
cataclysmic. A rain of artillery fice such
as had never been experienced was
massed against single hiJis, day after day.
Because the objectives were limited,
troops were frequently committed piece–
meal, in limited increments. And they
were quickly shot to pieces, to be
replaced by an equal number of troops.
While a vicious battle raged in one
point of the Iine, men within one mile
!ay quietly, looking over the murky,
brooding hills before them, knowing a
tough, tenacious enemy !ay waiting
there, but totally uniovolved in the
fighting they could easily hear only
hundreds of yards distant.
The North Korean People's Army
lost 35,000 meo atop Heartbreak in the
bizarre game of "King of the Moun–
tain." And to prove they could take a
hill, and "lean on the enemy" in a
move to convince him he must talk,
5,600 men of the U. S. Seventh Divi–
sion lay dead or maimed on Heartbreak
Hill.
But perhaps the
t"eal
heartbreak was
in the knowledge among the survivors
that nothing - nothing whatever
had been accomplished by it all.
Talks But No Peace
An
American officer, surnrning up his
assessment of the battle, said, ' 'The
heart to fight, though oot gone, was not
the bright light it had once been."
Once the talks began, the public back
borne could not understand the contin–
uiog oumbers of telegrams beginning
with those horrible words, "We sin–
cerely regret to inform you ..."
Peace talks were under way. Battle–
field casualties became unacceptable. No
one wanted to
be
the very
/a¡t
man to
die. No one wanted to die, no matter in
what
chronological order.
General Matthew Ridgeway was
informed in Tokyo that the public
could accept the end of the war in sight
- it could accept the truce in place of
victory, but it could
NOT
accept contin–
uing casualities.
American field commanders agonized
The
PLAIN TRUTH
over orders which, to them, were tan–
tamount to being an order to
"Fight the
war, b11t don't get anyoue killed
!"
No
such orders were actually issued, but
everyone tacitly understood them.
Americans had proved they were
willing to die to make meo free. They
were willing to fight, and if need be,
die for their own homeland, or for the
preservation of their own way of life,
their freedoms and liberties, their loved
ones, and their sons and daughters.
But Americans were becoming un–
willing, in Korea, to die for a piece
of real estate ten thousand miles from
home when they
KNEW
their govern–
ment would eventually
suRRENDER
that
same piece of real estate to the enemy.
Battlefield commanders knew it was sui–
cide to cornrnit troops piecemeal into
battle. They recognized victory would
be accomplished only if sufficient forces
to achieve a victory were employed.
Yet practically every time-honored
and hard-earned military lesson was
ignored at one time or another during
the long, protracted "peace talks" at
Panmunjom.
Time and again, the weird game of
"king of the mountain" was played.
The Communist Chinese or the North
Korean people's army attacked with suf–
ficient strength to throw U.N. forces off
a particular hilltop. The U.N. forces,
mostly American, committed sufficient
men to launch an attack against the
hill.
If
heavy fire-fighting developed
and a number of the meo we.re wiped
out, a suffiáent number to replace them
were hurriedly placed in the front lines.
Gradually, in this weird testing of
wills, the lines stabilized.
To Kili A People
The ensuing mooths aod years which
began the peace talks at Kaesong and
Panmunjom were no doubt the most
frustrating years for the American
people in their history, but nowhere
near so frustrating and debilitating as
for the American army. The continued
failure to achieve either tangible políti–
ca! results or definitive military victory
at huge expense and terrible sacrifice
wore thin on civilians and the military
alike.
Not only were meo in uniform being
47
killed - a
people
was having its
wilt,
its
resolve,
its
impertut"bable belief in
the right
slowly kllled.
To kill a people, you must first
break
their spirit,
and then give them too
much. Make their purposes only selfish,
personal ones. Make Iife and peace and
the materialistic goals of an affiuent
society more urgently impo.rtant to them
thao sacrifice for transcendental cause.
io
kill a people, you must have them
greedy, sick with lust, insatiable with
desire for orgiastic abandon. You must
continually wear down their national
pride, their God-given purpose, their
deep loyalty to the whole family living
within one concept of government, one
blessed Jand they call borne.
Begioning with Korea, not only
young sons and fathers were being
killed - a people was being prepared
for death.
Great leaders innovate. They create.
They plan, they have vision and imagi–
nation - they move. Weak meo strive
for solutions to problems as they arise,
rarely preventing problerns
before
they
arise.
Once America was deeply committed
in Korea, and once America illustrated
she was willing to negotiate at the con–
ference table with an unyielding, crafty
Communist foe, and once America had
committed herself to a policy of "condi–
tioned response" to force in battle, she
was no longer innovating. She was
scrambling for temporary solutions to
problems already set in motion through
earlier lack of innovation. Política! lead–
ers, just as in the case of the past three
administrations in Washington, fretted
and worried over public reaction to such
a costly and unvictorious war, and
attempted to react accordingly.
But on the battlefields, American
commanders knew that vigorous action
wins victories - that seizing the initiat–
ive, invading an enemy's territory, cut–
ting off his supply lines, and denying
him his rea.rward bases, were the ele–
ments for decisive victory.
History had proved to the armies of
all nations that he who hesitates on the
battlefield is usually lost.
Yet, somehow, the United States in
the early 1950's decided that battle-