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Jim
Webb Reviews:
THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM:
How Americans Are Seduced by War
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Wall Street Journal Articles:
The Bridge at No Gun Ri
October 6, 1999
I
do not know what happened to
the civilians at the bridge
near the village of No Gun Ri,
although it seems clear from
recent Associated Press
reports that many of them died
in the early days of the
Korean War as their country
was being ripped apart by a
communist invasion and the
U.S.Army was thrown into
disarray.
An official investigation
into the incident, in which
members of the U.S. Seventh
Cavalry Regiment are alleged
to have gunned down hundreds
of Korean refugees, is
forthcoming. Piercing
questions will be asked, and
from the gauzy memories of
five decades ago some answers
will be given. Did the
refugees die from American
bombs and bullets? If
so, were the deaths
deliberate? If they
were, were they the result of
battlefield realities that
left them caught in the
middle? Were the American
soldiers ordered to keep
refugees off the road and away
from the bridge so that a
retreating army could move
south before it was
annihilated? Were the refugees
attempting to move, by day or
night, into the American
perimeters. Or were the
American soldiers simply
having a little target
practice, shooting off
precious ammunition to see if
they might kill a woman here
and a kid there as the world
was falling down upon their
heads?
And another question, of
present-day interest: Is some
team of lawyers trying to
squeeze millions out of a
long-ago tragedy of the sort
that seems always to accompany
battles fought where other
people live?
Far More Brutal
For all the talk of
civilian casualties in
Vietnam, the war in Korea was
far more brutal. More
than two million Korean
civilians perished during the
three years of fighting,
amounting to some 70%, of the
overall death toll. The
massive, sudden invasion from
the north flattened every
major city, threw hundreds of
thousands of refugees onto the
roads, and left little time
for American and South Korean
forces to reconstruct firm
lines of defense. A retreat
was underway in 100-degree
heat as the military sought to
regroup far to the south,
around the port city of Pusan.
North Korean soldiers dressed
in the white robes of farmers
frequently mixed among the
refugee columns in order to
disrupt American and South
Korean units. The Army's
logistical lines were extended
and often interrupted.
Hospital care and even
medevacs for the wounded were
usually out of the question.
Whole companies ceased to
exist, and officer casualties
were particularly high.
The casualty figures
provide the starkest evidence
of the intensity and confusion
of that first month. In July
1950 the U.S. Army lost 2,834
soldiers killed (including
those who died while captured
or missing) vs., 2,486 wounded,
probably the highest
killed-to-wounded ratio since
the Civil War. (Ratios by the
end of the war were one killed
for every four wounded.) We do
know that during this period
American air craft
deliberately strafed columns
of refugees on the roads. We
know also that the soldiers at
No Gun Ri were given orders
that no refugees were to cross
their lines, and that they
were to fire at those who
attempted to do so, using
"discretion in the case
of women and children."
Such orders, excised from
the chaos that created their
necessity, fall heavily on the
minds and consciences of those
who have never been called
upon to make the Hobson's
choice of combat: Do I protect
my men and lose my innocence?
Or do I keep my innocence and
lose my men? This thin,
unbreachable line separates
those who went to war from
those who stayed behind.
America is a lovely place to
have such debates as we sit in
brightly lit offices next to
our computers under the whir
of air conditioners and HEPA
filters and sip on herbal tea
or Snapple. What is a war
crime? On whom shall we pass
judgment as we peer back
through the mists of history?
Were civilians killed? Is that
enough for condemnation? What
standard shall we in our
wisdom erect for those who had
little hope of even seeing
tomorrow when the world turned
suddenly ugly and they pressed
their faces far into the dirt
while the mortars twirled
overhead and the bullets
kicked up dust spots near
their eyes.
So, test yourself. Your men
are dying. The lines are
shrinking. You are running out
of food and even ammunition,
trying to hold a position for
a day or two as your army
shrinks ever nearer to Pusan.
Civilians are everywhere,
thousands upon thousands of
them. They are starving and
they are afraid, and some of
them are in fact not
civilians. They clog the roads
as the trucks and jeeps stall
in the heat, trying to wend
past them. They want to go to
Pusan, too. They want to sleep
inside your perimeter. They
need your food. They dream of
your protection. But the only
true protection you can give
them is to defeat the invading
enemy. If you take even 10,
you will be unable to care for
your own people. And if you
take 10, you will be besieged
by 10,000. You have a mission
to perform. But they are
desperate, and you cannot
speak their language. They are
going to swarm your perimeter.
When they come, what do you
do?
Is deliberately killing a
civilian a war crime? It
certainly wasn't when we fire
bombed Dresden and Tokyo,
taking hundreds of thousands
of lives in the name a
"breaking the enemy's
will to fight". Perhaps
the greatest anomaly of recent
times is that death delivered
by a bomb earns one an air
medal, while when it comes at
the end of a gun it earns one
a trip to jail.
Protocols of War
And yet, most importantly,
we are nation founded on
Judeo-Christian principles
that we proudly carry to the
battlefield. The wanton use of
force, and especially the
deliberate killing of any
soldier or civilian who is
under one's actual control is,
indeed a crime. This was the
distinction in My Lai, for
despite the unassailable fact
that most of the villagers
killed in the massacre were
part of a highly
organized communist cadre,
they were under the physical
control of the soldiers who
killed them. In other
circumstances, had any of
these same villagers ignored
the rigid protocols of war
understood by both sides, such
as moving near an American
perimeter at night, running
from a combat patrol or
signaling with lamps after
dark, they would have been
killed with impunity. Every
American who fought in such
highly contested civilian
areas has his own memories.
Few of them are happy. But
wars in populated areas can
not be fought without such
rules.
Those who struggled daily
-- and nightly -- with these,
incredible moral distinctions
were rewarded upon their
return from Vietnam with the
same vitriol that is now being
directed at the soldiers who
fought at No Gun Ri. One hopes
for a greater sense of wisdom
as the facts are assessed and
judgments are made. Otherwise,
the only lessons seem to
be: Make sure you
fight in a popular war.
Make sure you use bombs
instead of bullets. And make
sure you win.
James
Webb was an Assistant Secretary of Defense and
Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan
Administration.
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