KOREAN WAR
In the dry and clinical description of the annalist, the Korean War may be defined as a war between North Korea allied with China and the Soviet Union and South Korea allied with the United Nations and the United States of America. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. As always, wars have complex backgrounds. Reasons and factors and inevitabilities are dominoes that later historians set up in the worthy cause of warning the present time and future times not to go down that path.
I will keep this personal and small-scale. My father was a veteran of the Korean War. He was there 1953-1954 with the 7th Infantry Division and was awarded a Bronze Star for meritorious service. He was 23-24 years old there, fresh out of Michigan State University’s ROTC program. We always traded military history back and forth. Late in life he began to tell me stories of his time there — and of his experiences in the Dominican Republic and in Vietnam. As a bookseller I provided him with books on “his” war, which he appreciated for the larger canvas they provided. Here are some of the good ones I have found over the years. I know I don’t have enough of the Korean perspective of the war, and I don’t have many big strategic maps that situate the war within the Cold War. But this listing is a beginning. History is always beginning over. As a discipline, as a way of thought, history never tires of trying to get the story not only right but understandable.
Hold Back the Night
Hold Back the Night
From the author of the classic Alas Babylon comes this riveting story of a Marine captain and his soldiers and their arduous, difficult retreat from Changjin Reservoir to Hungnam during the Korean War—a stirring portrait of courage and sacrifice, now back in print.
“These are not stragglers, sir. This is Dog Company…”
In Pat Frank’s classic 1951 war novel, one-hundred-twenty-six soldiers commence their long, harrowing journey at Changjin Reservoir during the height of the Korean War, but few will survive the grueling fight and eventually reach Hungnam. Vividly bringing to life the bravery, daring, and turmoil a unit of soldiers endures, Hold Back the Night reveals their gripping stories…
Captain Mackenzie, commander of Dog Company, not only bears the responsibility for victory or defeat, but also feels the full weight of the emotional toll that the war inevitably takes on him and his troops. His one consolation to inspire his band of soldiers to keep on going is an unopened bottle of Scotch that holds bittersweet memories of his wife who gave it to him as a gift.
Sergeant Ekland, a cocky, determined communications sergeant, is due for a battlefield promotion and longs for the day his tour is over so he can be reunited with his fiancée—that is if he makes it out of Korea alive.
Private Couzens, finds himself in a precarious situation with the enemy due to circumstances out of his control—a situation that causes his loyalties to come into question with his superiors.
As readers follow the lives of these men and the other unforgettable soldiers, Pat Frank’s epic novel of war, loss, and survival recounts a crucial chapter in American history.