20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exhaustive command history of a forgotten war..., October 1, 2003
This review is from: The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (Paperback)
The Forgotten War: America in Korea is an exhaustive study of command level combat in Korea. While the title claims to cover the war for 1950 thru its conclusion in 1953, in reality only perhaps 25 pages cover the last two years of the war.
Blair states in his introduction that he was especially interested in command level decisions, and the influence of West Pointers in specific. There is very little detail of 'soldier's stories' or any popular or oral history. To some degree, this renders the book a bit sterile although the combat descriptions, especially quite early in the conflict during the retreat to the Pusan perimeter, are thrilling. Further, every time a new commander is introduced, Blair gives a short biographical sketch. I found these redundant and annoying later on in the book. Further, Blair is not shy about criticizing political decisions behind the policy decisions. In particular, his treatment of Truman, many of Truman's political appointees, and MacArthur is scathing. To be fair, while Blair shows eventual Eighth Army commander and MacArthur's replacement, General Ridgeway, as a true hero, to the author's credit he does not refrain from criticizing Ridgeway for dangerously obstructionist behavior during the eventual peace talks. True or not, a lot of this criticism would be more effective had some attempt been made to give a 'man in the trench' perspective. Blair gives a lot of detail of Medal of Honor recipients, but not much besides that.
The basic criticism of the book is that Korea was not a vital part of America's strategic design, and that the decision to intervene was done without thought to preparedness or ramifications. According the Blair, Truman resented, mistrusted and then gutted the military... and then sent them to Korea with little thought as to 'why.' Its an interesting thought, and reading the book I couldn't stop thinking of the parallels to the present. MacArthur is treated as just being publicity hungry, irresponsible and past his prime. It doesn't sound serious until you consider the number of corpses left behind. The book never touches the interesting question of was, given 20-20 hindsight, the war a success? The U.S. didn't win per se, but South Korea is certainly a success story. I suppose each person is left to himself to reach his own conclusion as to whether it was worth it. In any case, despite the massive size, and lack of 'personal' perspectives to the war, The Forgotten War is well worth the trouble. I don't think I ever fully understood the war until after I read this book.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very detailed book..., September 15, 2001
This book on the Korean War is very complete and very detailed. The book gets down to the battalion level, getting into the battles, the cold, the terror, the heroism and the mistakes. It even touches on the treatment of the black soldiers within the American units. The only problem a reader might have is the amount of details. It is 1136 pages long, the first 976 pages cover the war, the last hundred or so covering sources and notes.
While there are few pictures, each one is powerful, no doubt carefully selected.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
COMPREHENSIVE ORDER OF BATTLE AND UNIT HISTORY INFORMATION, September 6, 2001
This book reflects a colossal effort at detailing virtually a day by day and unit by unit account of the Korean conflict. If you need to know what happened in Korea at a particular time or place or to a particular military unit or commander, this book will tell you. Although well written and organized, I personally was bothered by the author's emphasis on the command level personalities and actions. This book could more accurately be titled 'A History of West Point Graduates and Their Careers in Relation to the Korean Conflict'. Reading this book could leave the impression that there were no enlisted men, non-commissioned officers or field grade officers involved in the war. Excepting mention of Medal of Honor recipients during the conflict, there is very little use of personal accounts or activities of participants below the rank of colonel. The author's ritual of calculating average ages of commanders during every command change was at first irrelevant and then became irritating. I also would have appreciated inclusion of a little more contextural information along with the battle outlines. Despite an enormous amount of command and maneuver information, very little information is included on weapons systems, civilian populations, and the opponent forces and strategy in North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union.
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