<span style=”color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif; font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;”>Able: Which “Lesson” from the author do you most strongly agree or disagree with? Why?</span>

Just as LT Wint, I am inclined to agree that the lesson learned from Fehrenbachs perspective in regards to readiness is one I agree with most; however, I don’t agree that readiness will ultimately lead to humility or holocaust. As we saw at the onset of the conflict, the US was not prepared for a conflict against an enemy with as great of armored assets as the North Koreans, obtained by way of the Soviets. We along with the South Koreans were pushed to the brink of failure, retreating or “giving ground” all the way until Pusan. At that time Fehrenbach’s argument of Holocaust/Humiliation would have been applied; instead, as history shows, we overcame our failures and shortcomings and ultimately drove the nK army back north of the originally designated armistice line.

Readiness is of the utmost importance to this day, and it can be argued our continual occupation along the DMZ has proved useful and a powerful deterrent against a second assault across the border of North and South some 60 years after the initial conflict. With recent events, and an increasing risk to the armistice signed in 1953, we as soldiers cannot do more than our due diligence to be more prepared for war than those before us; because, in doing so, we may be able to say hundreds of thousands of lives we saw lost in the original conflict. “Almost all things have been found out, but some have been forgotten”. We must not forget the lessons learned and lives lost because of the lack of thought, consideration, or care of leaders in the past.