Re: Wars

["swan" <swan@haysco.net>]

Had it not been for my best friend offering me a cigarette I would probably
not be here. He and I, and the rest of our company were pinned down behind a
levee, by the enemy holding the high ground. I was looking over the top of
the levee, like a big eye doctor, looking for someone to shoot at. "Get your
head down, you dumb SOB," he said. "Here, have a cigarette." I rolled over
to take one from his pack  when BURP, an automatic weapon took the top of
the levee where my head had been only a split second before. I have
forgotten a lot of things about the war. But that close brush with death
remains vivid in my memory.

Bob Dove



----- Original Message -----
From: "unclgene" <unclgene@pacbell.net>
To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 3:08 PM
Subject: RE: Wars


> Had it not been for napalm I would not be here. I would never ever want to
> be an infantryman without air superiority.
>
> Gene
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu
> [mailto:owner-KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu]On Behalf Of Joe Brennan
> Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 12:03 PM
> To: KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: Wars
>
>
> I think it shows "won" all depends on the goals and they're often changed
> not only during the war but after.
>
> The goal of the Mexican war wasn't to anihilate Mexico or somehow change
it
> to be the same as the US but to secure the US felt it was its "manifest
> destiny", in the phrase of the time, to control. The US completely
succeeded
> in that goal. I find it a stretch to turn that one around based on what,
> immigration issue? 150yrs later.
>
> Two more interesting examples are the Persian Gulf War and I'd say WWI
could
> be put in the same category. We completely succeeded with the original
goal,
> but it didn't eliminate the threat (Saddam or German militarism
> respectively). and so people have subsequently, with some reason, changed
> the goal in analyzing those successes.
>
> In Korea, we like many combatants successful in the initial phase of a
war,
> changed our goal in midstream from saving SK from communist domination to
> eliminating communism from the K peninsula, at which larger goal we
failed,
> while salvaging success in the original goal.
>
> More on topic than earlier parts of note, I find it very debatable that it
> was within our power to completely defeat China in Korea, non-nuclearly. I
> don't think it's plausible at all to say use or not of napalm on any
> paritcular mission made any difference. The whole problem before the CCF
> intervention was reconnaisance and intelligence failure, not ROEl. And
later
> ROE issue about air operations north of Yalu can be exaggerated too. It's
> not obvious that complete freedom of our air to operate north of the Yalu
> (our F-86's apparently *did* operate pretty freely over China to the limit
> of their range from April 52) would have had a dramtic impact on the
overall
> war, esp. considering the effect of the communists breaking their side of
> the implicit bargain and seriously bombing our bases in SK and Japan.
>
> Joe
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "swan" <swan@haysco.net>
> To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
> Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 1:56 PM
> Subject: Re: Wars
>
>
> > The last time I noticed, the Mexican government is still the same one
they
> > had before the Mexican War. And It poses an even greater threat to us
> today
> > than when we went to war with them. Spain isn't really a threat to
anyone.
> > But their government is the same.
> >
> > Bob Dove
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Marc James Small" <msmall@infi.net>
> > To: <KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu>
> > Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 11:01 AM
> > Subject: Wars
> >
> >
> > At 10:56 AM 9/23/02 -0500, swan wrote:
> > No, Lee, we reached a stalemate. All we really accomplished is that we
> > repelled the invaders. We did not defeat them, because they still
control
> > the same territory they controlled before the invasion. And they still
> pose
> > the same threat, or an even greater threat  than they posed before the
> > invasion. We won the American Revolution. Y'all won the Civil War. We
won
> > World War I and World War II. That is all the wars the United States has
> > ever won.
> > -------------------
> >
> > Interesting point, Bob.  What about the Mexican War, the
Spanish-American
> > War, and the Indian Wars?
> >
> > Marc
> >
> > msmall@infi.net  FAX:  +276/343-7315
> > Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
>


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