On this day after Memorial Day, I was thinking about our last winter golf session. We always cover a number of subjects and one that seems to come up often in these sessions is \u201cwars.\u201d Of course there\u2019s always been a war to talk about \u2014 the world has never been completely at \u201cpeace.\u201d
But one \u201cwar\u201d we all remembered wasn\u2019t a war \u2014 it was a conflict, or maybe a police action or something else. It was the first war that couldn\u2019t be called a war because Congress never declared it to be one.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what I wanted to talk about today is that during our discussion we remembered that some of the terms and phrases we use today actually originated during the Korean \u201cwar.\u201d When Communist North Korea attacked Haesong, South Korea, in 1950, the United Nations demanded the attackers withdraw completely. When that demand was ignored, the Security Council decided to send in the troops. The problem was that the U.N. didn\u2019t have a police force as such, but they recommended that member nations take action, and 30 of them agreed to do so. President Harry S. Truman called out U.S. air and sea forces. The President was acting without a vote of Congress because he was responding to a security measure recommended by the U.N. At a press conference, a reporter asked the president if the war could be called a police action under the United Nation\u2019s supervision, and Truman agreed that it could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone mentioned that the term \u201cto bug out\u201d originated during the Korean conflict and no one disagreed, but later I checked, and it actually originated during World War II, but it was popular during the Korean War and it\u2019s meaning changed a bit \u2014 it didn\u2019t just mean a retreat or withdrawal, but a fast pulling out, to avoid being killed or captured. Since the war, it\u2019s been used more loosely for any rapid departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Airstrike became popular in Korea \u2014 this was the first war in which jet fighter were widely used and that gave rise to the term airstrikes for attacks on enemy positions. An interesting term that most of us hadn\u2019t thought of was \u201cbuy the farm.\u201d Since Korea was partially an air war, it required training flights \u2014 those were generally carried out in American rural areas. When an air force training flight crashed on a farm, the farmer could sue the government for damages sufficient to pay off his mortgage and therefore buy the farm outright. Since the pilot in these crashes usually died, he \u201cbought the farm\u201d with his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though aircraft were used extensively, Korea was primarily a ground war. When General MacArthur\u2019s headquarters sent a dispatch to the Twenty-fourth Regiment to ask if they had contact with the enemy, they responded, \u201cWe is eyeball to eyeball.\u201d The message was widely quoted, and later it was used with reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis \u2014 when the cold war threatened to become a hot one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the conflict, some four hundred thousand casualties were inflicted on U.S. troops. Treating casualties was the job of the mobile army surgical hospital, M.A.S.H. \u2014 a new term at the time that inspired a motion picture and television series of the same name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sick and wounded that were taken prisoner by the Chinese were subjected to brainwashing to indoctrinate them with Communist beliefs. The technique involved both physical and mental torture to break down a soldier\u2019s loyalties and family ties. The word itself is a translation from a Chinese term for \u201cthought reform.\u201d The term is used today to mean changing someone\u2019s outlook or opinions, usually by underhanded means. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While we were on the subject, someone mentioned that General Douglas MacArthur had been \u201cfired\u201d during the Korean conflict \u2014 and that led to his famous \u201cold soldiers never die, they just fade away\u201d statement. Most people can sympathize with MacArthur\u2019s plight\u2026.. The U.N. instructed its forces to only expel the aggressors and to do nothing more. Supplies were flowing to the communists from Manchuria, behind the Chinese border, but the U.N. troops were not permitted to bomb enemy bases, airstrips, or supply centers because it might provoke an all-out war with the Soviet Union. Commander-in-chief MacArthur voiced his frustration loudly and publicly. In response, President Truman replaced him with General Matthew B. Ridgway \u2014 in effect ending MacArthur\u2019s military career. In a farewell speech to Congress, the general quoted a barracks song about old soldiers like himself. On this day after Memorial Day, I was thinking about our last winter golf session. We always cover a number of subjects and one that seems to come up often in these sessions is \u201cwars.\u201d Of course there\u2019s always been … Continue reading
The term \u201cbamboo curtain\u201d was coined by Time<\/em> magazine \u2014 it referred to the barrier of mistrust between China and its allies on one hand and the noncommunist nations of Asia and the West on the other. The bamboo curtain was equivalent to the iron curtain between the Soviets and the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was also the first war that helicopters saw a lot of action \u2014 they were nicknamed choppers, probably from the \u201cchop-chop\u201d noise made by helicopter rotors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Korean War, or conflict, was the first war the U.S. fought with such constraints assigned by another party. It added a few new phrases to our language, but it took the lives of nearly 4 million Korean people \u2014 10% of the population at the time, while the Chinese suffered about 1 million casualties.
Nearly 55,000 Americans died in the conflict.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"