T.R. Fehrenbach > Quotes

“In July, 1950, one news commentator rather plaintively remarked that warfare had not changed so much, after all. For some reason, ground troops still seemed to be necessary, in spite of the atom bomb. And oddly and unfortunately, to this gentleman, man still seemed to be an important ingredient in battle. Troops were still getting killed, in pain and fury and dust and filth. What happened to the widely-heralded pushbutton warfare where skilled, immaculate technicians who never suffered the misery and ignominy of basic training blew each other to kingdom come like gentlemen?
In this unconsciously plaintive cry lies the buried a great deal of the truth why the United States was almost defeated.
Nothing had happened to pushbutton warfare; its emergence was at hand. Horrible weapons that could destroy every city on Earth were at hand—at too many hands. But, pushbutton warfare meant Armageddon, and Armageddon, hopefully, will never be an end of national policy.
Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud. ”
― T.R. Fehrenbach

“Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“A nation that does not prepare for all the forms of war should then renounce the use of war in national policy. A people that does not prepare to fight should then be morally prepared to surrender. To fail to prepare soldiers and citizens for limited, bloody ground action, and then to engage in it, is folly verging on the criminal.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“For his own sake and for that of those around him, a man must be prepared for the awful, shrieking moment of truth when he realizes he is all alone on a hill ten thousand miles from home, and that he may be killed in the next second.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Americans have never admitted that guns may serve a moral purpose as well as votes.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“America is rich and fat and very, very noticeable in this world. It is a forlorn hope that we should be left alone.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“But while Americans are well conditioned to death on the highways, they are not ready to accept death on the battlefield for apparently futile reasons.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“As a construct, history is too often revised to match contemporary views. It has been said that each generation must rewrite history in order to understand it. The opposite is true. Moderns revise history to make it palatable, not to understand it. Those who edit “history” to popular taste each decade will never understand the past—neither the horrors nor glories of which the human race is equally capable—and for that reason, they will fail to understand themselves.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans

“There was and is no danger of military domination of the nation. The Constitution gave Congress the power of life or death over the military, and they have always accepted the fact. The danger has been the other way around—the liberal society, in its heart, wants not only domination of the military, but acquiesence of the military toward the liberal view of life.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“None of them were equipped, trained, or mentally prepared for combat. For the first time in recent history, American ground units had been committed during the initial days of a war; there had been no allies to hold the line while America prepared. For the first time, many Americans could understand what had happened to Britain at Dunkirk.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Wars of containment, wars of policy, are not. They are hard to justify unless it is admitted that power, not idealism, is the dominant factor in the world, and that idealism must be backed by power.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“War was to be entered upon with sadness, with regret, but also with ferocity.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“If war is to have any meaning at all, its purpose must be to establish control over peoples and territories, and ultimately, this can be done only as Alexander the Great did it, on the ground.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Americans should remember that while barbarians may be ignorant they are not always stupid.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“In 1950 a Marine Corps officer was still an officer, and a sergeant behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none. And Marine leaders had never lost sight of their primary—their only—mission, which was to fight. The Marine Corps was not made pleasant for men who served in it. It remained the same hard, dirty, brutal way of life it had always been.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Citizens fly to defend the homeland, or to crusade. But a frontier cannot be held by citizens, because citizens, in a republic, have better things to do.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Soviet strategy, like Soviet thinking, has always been devious where American has been direct.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Collective security had a fine sound, but it was still little more than a word; it would still be the United States, and the United States alone, that held the far frontier. No one else had the will or the power.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“A free press is equally free to print the truth or ignore it, as it chooses.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“If another war follows Korea, if American policy is threatened anywhere on the globe, it will not be years and months, as in the two world wars, or days, as in Korea, but only hours until American troops are committed. In battle, Americans learn fast—those who survive. The pity is, their society seems determined to make them wait until the shooting starts. The word should go out sooner.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“There had been many brave men in the ranks, but they were learning that bravery of itself has little to do with success in battle.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Marine human material was not one whit better than that of the human society from which it came. But it had been hammered into form in a different forge, hardened with a different fire. The Marines were the closest thing to legions the nation had. They would follow their colors from the shores of home to the seacoast of Bohemia, and fight well either place.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“During the Korean War, the United States found that it could not enforce international morality and that its people had to live and continue to fight in a basically amoral world. They could oppose that which they regarded as evil, but they could not destroy it without risking their own destruction.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“It has been said that each generation must rewrite history in order to understand it. The opposite is true. Moderns revise history to make it palatable, not to understand it. Those who edit “history” to popular taste each decade will never understand the past—neither the horrors nor glories of which the human race is equally capable—and for that reason, they will fail to understand themselves.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans

“An army in the field, in contact with the enemy, can remain idle only at its peril. Deterioration—of training, physical fitness, and morale—is immediate and progressive, despite the strongest command measures. The Frenchman who said that the one thing that cannot be done with bayonets is to sit on them spoke an eternal truth.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“These men had not accepted the fact that culture and weaponry, or even culture and plumbing are not synonymous, and while a society may lag a hundred years behind in comforts and ethics, it may catch up in hardware in a human lifetime.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“liberal society, in its heart, wants not only domination of the military, but acquiesence of the military toward the liberal view of life.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“And, caught in a Communist trap, the moral courage of some leaders grew less. The pressure on Tokyo to hold down the loss never ceased. In Korea, on tile ground, it intensified. It was no longer possible to permit juniors any latitude, or any possibility for error. What Boatner foresaw happened. Soon battalion commanders led platoons, and general officers directed company actions, for the loss of one patrol could ruin the career of a colonel. In one way, it was an efficient system. It worked, for the lines were stable, and no senior officer had enough to do. But the damage done to the Army command structure would be long in healing. If a new war came someday, there would be colonels and generals—who had been lieutenants and captains in Korea—who had their basic lessons still to learn.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“Fortunately, there was government by consent of the governed in America—but just as unfortunately, such governments dearly hate to admit a mistake.”
― T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War

“The United States will be forced to fight wars of policy during the balance of the century. This is inevitable, since the world is seething with disaffection and revolt, which, however justified and merited, plays into Communist hands, and swings the world balance ever their way.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: The Classic Military History of the Korean War