I decided to put this into the Dungeon since it will probably go wonky before it's over. I don't know if I'm changing or just suffering from old age and a severe case of mellowing. In the past I've seen a few documentaries on Vietnam and Korea but this last couple of days I've seen some stuff that I had not seen before and it has changed me. While watching the special on Korea for example, along with the interviews of some men that had fought in that war, I learned some details about the battle of Chosin Reservoir that I did not know. It was the first big battle of that war. Fighting in weather conditions of down to -40 degrees, from November to early Jan of 1950/51, often with no shoes or other proper cold weather clothing, many of the men suffered as much from the weather as they did from the fighting. Men would go to sleep exhausted and freeze to death. Many lost feet, hands, ears to the weather. Some suffered eyesight problems because their eyes froze. Plus, because of faulty intel and other mistakes, our soldiers ended up being surrounded by the Chinese on all sides and we were outnumbered by about 8 to 1. What was even more disturbing is that our soldiers were better off than the Chinese soldiers who would attack in waves of humanity with only the leading soldiers armed. As those soldiers fell the followers would pick up the rifles and continue. A lot of them had no shoes at all. After a month of desperate fighting, freezing, and dying from both, our soldiers had to fight their way south to the coast to where our ships lay and many Battalions were reduced to just a few men. Although we did stop the advancement of the communist North I wonder if it was worth it. Would all of Korea be like North Korea is now or would things developed similarly to what happened in Vietnam? They are now an ally of ours. Mankind's tendencies to kill each other is just a saddening affair. Why do we do it?
$ We do it for money. The sons of the poor go to war and die to support the balance sheet of the wealthy. They mask it all with words like honor, courage, freedom, and hero, but in the end it's all about money.
Good reading on Chosin As a 20 year old Officer in the Korean (KATUSA) army, my Father-in-Law lived through that battle through something merging fortune and force of will that is almost unimaginable.
How interesting. Are both of your parents Korean? I had a couple of Korean KATUSA friends that were stationed at Camp McNair (1st Cal. Division Arty) when I was there in 1964/65. (Sgt. Kim and Sgt. Moon) They were both excellent people and as tough as a nail.
Not $, but rather resources. Man warred before currency. He warred for pelts, or meat, or women. Resources, of which currency became one. Ultimately, he wars for survival as resources are survival.
That used to be true. Still is but to a lesser extent. Industry has found that there's greater money in making warring hardware. A conflict, any conflict is profitable and more so if one supplies both factions.... Politicians have found great campaign contributors and jobs for their constituents.
With a name like Sapsis? My wife's name is Eun. She is the oldest of four kids, all born in Korea. The family came to the west (Calgary) in 1971, then moved to Orange County in 1973. John (Yoon Suk) died in 2012 at the age of 81. I miss the old dude.
Resources are resources. Paper money is worthless it is the goods that matter. Right now energy happens to be the resource we fight over most frequently.
Yes and no. Prior to the Napoleonic era, the soldiers doing the fighting were able to reap some of the spoils. In exchange for your risk, you could rape and pillage to your hearts content. Now, soldiers do the dying, politicians and industrialists reap the rewards.
Here is a tough read... http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19951207&slug=2156455 And... http://www.leenks.com/link509163.html
I wonder though if back in the days of yesteryear there was as much opportunity for war profiteering as there is today. Warring to obtain resources goes without saying, but when you take into consideration all the backend profiteering that is done by the military industrial complex. Jobs created, lobbyists lining pockets of those whose strings they pull to make things happen. Privatization of armies and soldiers, etc etc. I can't imagine it was ever this complex and the vastness of ancillary parties making money off the killing of people (both soldiers and civilians).
Sure, there is 'profiteering' from wars, but you can't say with any degree of certainty that wars are created for the sake of monetary profit; a proper study would include the costs to society in terms of taxes, deaths, loss of wages, etc.
They tried to bring Howard Hughes up on war profiteering charges for the Spruce Goose. I think that the Ford company was also looked in to. My guess is that it wasn't as rosey as it seemed among manufacturers during WWI & II. I'm sure there were many payoffs to keep things quiet.
I tend to think that those with the power/influence to initiate war are not terribly concerned with its effects on the little guy, as long as its beneficial to them. This same mentality could be applied to many other things that have deleterious effects to mankind as a whole but are profitable to the same percentage of those at the top. Think hydro-fracking and how it destroys our land and water supplies.
Yup I remember that, but I think that was more of a witch hunt against Hughes personally due to political crap between him (TWA) and Pan Am. As he mentioned in that hearing (and in that movie they did about him), that Lockheed, Douglas, Northrop and Boeing all took much larger payouts from the government to develop planes/weapons for the war that never saw action either.
