Charlie:

In this section you can see the disconnect between the battalion and division level. General Almond comes down and tells front line soldiers to “not let laundry men defeat you.” If I was a soldier that had been slugging it out against the Chinese as US forces were getting overrun, I would’ve been infuriated by General Almonds comments. It shows that General Almond didn’t really understand what was going on at the front lines at the time. On top of this, General Almond throws Silver Stars just for the sake of giving an award. The men that got the award didn’t even understand why they received it.

At the Company and platoon level, I think the soldiers respected their leadership because “their officers were tough-minded, because their discipline was tight, and because their spirit–that indefinable emotion of a fighting man for his standard, his regiment and the men around him, was unbroken–weak and strong alike, they would face it well.”  One great example of leadership is LT Yancey. Yancey fought relentlessly with his men right along side him and led the charge on numerous counterattacks. It is hard not to follow a leader that says, “Come with me!” and runs off shooting back at the enemy. In other cases, I think it is also possible that soldiers lost faith in there leadership. US forces suffered such great losses and guys on the front lines were being asked to fight with terrible equipment in terrible wintery conditions.