|
The
following is an abstract from the book, This Kind of War - A Study in
Unpreparedness by T. R. Fehrenbach.
I have included it here because of its relevance to the current
military and political situation in Korea.
-
Col.
Cliff Cloonan, USA, MC
A
STUDY IN UNPREPAREDNESS
"One
of the persistent myths of American arms in the middle of this century is
that technicians somehow are not and should not be soldiers.
But when a man dons the uniform whether he wears crossed muskets,
the wheel, or the caduceus, events are apt to prove the falseness
of such belief. For any man
who wears his country's uniform, of whatever service, should be prepared
to suffer, and if need be, to fight...
WAR...AGAIN
Sergeant
Charles B. Schlichter, 2nd Medical Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, had
been soldiering most of his life....In June, 1950 he was a surgical
technician at Madigan General Hospital.
When the news of the outbreak in Korea came over the air, Charles
Schlichter had a premonition. In
the middle of the night he told...[his wife]:
"Something is going to happen to me - I don't know what, but
something is going to happen..."
In a few days, something did happen.
He was diverted to the 2nd Division [in Korea] on 16 July, and
restricted to post....
OFF
TO WAR
The
9th Infantry, his...unit, went aboard ship for the Far East....Schlichter
and the medics of his unit received no real briefing on the Korean
situation. Korea was
described to them as a minor police action, which might be cleared up
before they arrived....When the regiment debarked at Pusan, the medics
were issued rifles. As
Schlichter put it later, this caused a certain amount of consternation in
the ranks. For here they were
told that the North Korean enemy considered any man in uniform fair game,
whether he wore medic's armband or the chaplain's silver cross, and they
should govern themselves accordingly....
INTO
THE CALDRON
[I]n
the fighting that followed Schlichter went...from the Naktong to the
Ch'ongch'on.... [A]long the Ch'ongch'on... the C.O. told the men:
"We're withdrawing south. This
is not a retreat, but an organized withdrawal."
In
the confusion that was overwhelming the division on 30 November,
Schlichter figured the medics were lucky to be told anything....
[T]he
company formed up on the Sunch'on road south of Kunu-ri.
It was the last element of the regimental convoy...no one expected
trouble.
THE
PRICE IS PAID
At
dusk on 30 November, the medical convoy was...stopped on the road
miles north of the pass....Schlichter could hear heavy firing ahead, see
the pink and red tracers bouncing off the hills....It grew darker, and the
thermometer fell. The firing
reverberated among the hills, and in the convoy men became tired and cold
and scared.
"What's
the matter? Why don't we move
out?"
There
were many young men in the company who had come to Korea with no concept
of war. Panic began to sprout.
Then
an officer - for there were young men wearing bars among this convoy who
were never soldiers, either - ran along the stalled line of trucks
shouting: "It's every
man for himself! We're
trapped! Get out any way you can!"
Men
got down from the trucks and began to run for the circling hills - and the
officers and sergeants followed. Here, thought Sergeant Schlichter later, we committed a grievous error. Here
we broke faith with our fellow soldiers, and fellowmen.
There
were 180 wounded men in the trucks, and no one said anything to these men
as they were abandoned.
LACKING
BASIC COMBAT SKILLS
The
two hundred-odd men of the company spread all over the hills.
Schlichter...[was] in one small group.
[He] knew [he] had to move south to reach safety - but [he didn't
know] where south was in the dark. No
one had any idea of how to move, or how to orient themselves. Men ran into the hills until they dropped from exhaustion;
they ran as long as the panic held them and their legs would carry them.
Others
climbed hills, to try to see about them.
Some saw moving men in the dark, and opened fire with their rifles
and carbines. Sometimes agonized voices answered the shots in English.
All
night the medics, none of whom possessed any infantry training, wandered
aimlessly through the hills fringing the road....[I]n the light...
Schlichter could see he was on a ridge only a little way from the
abandoned vehicles on the road - during the night his party had circled
about like a running hare, ending up almost where they had
begun....Charles Schlichter decided that those wounded men down below
belonged to him. With the men
about him, he held a short powwow.
There
were Chinese moving on ridges to the far side of the road; but the senior soldiers
[underlining mine] with Schlichter's party - but not all of those senior
in rank - agreed that their wounded had to go out with them.
They
started back down the slope toward the vehicles standing forlornly beside
the debris-littered road. But
the decision of what to do for those hurt men was taken from them.
WOUNDED
PAY THE FINAL PRICE
Undamaged,
the vehicles stood starkly by the road, in column, easily visible from the
air. Before Schlichter's
party reached them, Air Force planes screamed out of the south, shooting,
bombing. It was standard
practice for the Air Force to destroy abandoned equipment before the enemy
could profit from it. The
pilots could not know what cargo those deserted trucks still held.
Schlichter
was too far away to do anything, but close enough to hear the wounded men
aboard the vehicles scream. Then
the Air Force dropped napalm, the drums bouncing from the frozen ground
and engulfing the dusty trucks in flame.
In
the zero weather, Charles Schlichter's face was suddenly wet with sweat.
Some of the men with him closed their eyes.
And
then they all ran back into the hills.
They went in small groups. There
was no unity. The C.O. was
unable or unwilling to do anything. Some
of the men were now wounded by Chinese fire, and many had thrown their
weapons away.
Yet
there were many who still walked as men.
One, Captain Struthers, M.C. - to whom a general had offered a job
in Japan, and been refused - died in a machine-gun burst, trying to aid a
wounded soldier.
But
most were neither heros nor cowards.
They were ordinary men, and they went with the tide, wherever it
carried them.
CAPTIVITY
Within
a short time, a North Korean patrol had pinned them on a hill, holding
them down with submachine-gun fire. Major
Coers...said, "It's futile to resist."
He stood up, and surrendered himself and his men.
There were fifteen in the little group, including Schlichter.
The
North Koreans marched the captives over the ridge, then halted them before
a long, narrow slit trench that had been dug in the hill. They turned the
muzzles of the Russian-made submachine guns on the group, and in a
blinding moment of fear Schlichter realized the Koreans were going to
shoot them....The North Koreans did not fire.
An officer, apparently Chinese, ran toward them, shouting orders in
a high voice; sullenly the troops lowered their weapons.
The Chinese office barked again, and with motions of their gun
barrels the soldiers herded the captive Americans into motion.
They headed north....For several hours after capture at Kunu-ri,
the troops guarding Sergeant Charles B. Schlichter and the other men from
his medical company marched the exhausted prisoners....The men who were
wounded had received no medical treatment, except for the little they
could give themselves. One of
the surgeons with the party, an American major, declared he had been an
administrator for so long he was not up on the latest treatment.
He was able to do very little to help....They staggered north,
numbed, silent, cold, and exhausted by their ordeal.
But in the little group, Charles Schlichter suddenly felt he would
never again be so afraid of tomorrow.
And of these men, only he would live to see again his native
land."
T.
R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War - A Study in Unpreparedness, (New
York: The Macmillan Co., 1963), 346-350.
|
FOCUSING THE MEDICAL READINESS TRAINING EFFORT
This abstract describes the dichotomy that exists in training military
medical personnel. Excessive
emphasis in peacetime on technical, professional medical skills training
to the detriment of basic combat training resulted in the total breakdown
of command and control and the abandonment to their death of 180 wounded
American soldiers.
On the other hand, the lack of professional medical skills on the part
of the American surgeon demonstrates what can happen when medical
personnel spend an inordinate amount of time training and working outside
their profession. Clearly one
cannot be done to the exclusion of the other.
As medical personnel we owe it to our patients to be medically
proficient and to ourselves, our subordinates, and our patients, to be
proficient in basic soldiering skills.
We do either solely to ours and our patients detriment.
There is clearly a very limited amount of time to train.
Therefore every effort should be made to maximally utilize the time
that is available. To assist
medical units to focus their training efforts I recommend emphasize three
specific areas: (1) Prevention of disease and injury (2) Evacuation and
treatment of casualties within the first two echelons of care (3) Basic
combat skills.
The
primary mission of the U.S. Army medical department is to "Maintain
the Fighting Strength." We
should keep this mission in mind both during peace and war.
Although less glamorous than treatment, prevention is by far the
more effective when it comes to "Maintaining the fighting
strength." I see the prevention of disease and injury to be one of the
primary responsibilities of the Army Medical Department.
The
evacuation and early treatment of the sick and wounded within the first
two echelons of care is another area of focus that can reap great rewards.
Without question the American Army has one of the best systems of
hospitalization and professional medical care in the world.
However, without the ability to properly evacuate and provide early
treatment some casualties will never reach this excellent care alive.
I believe that basic combat first aid skills need to be learned to
perfection and casualty recovery and evacuation need to be repeatedly
practiced night and day in a realistic combat environment.
The final
area of focus that must be emphasized is basic combat skills.
As the preceding abstract from This Kind of War so vividly
demonstrated basic combat skills can be critically important, even to
medical personnel. Of
particular concern to me are communications skills.
Everyone must know how to use the communications equipment
that is part of their TO&E. Communications
are the lifeline for you and your patients.
On the modern battlefield if you can't communicate you and your
patients will die. Another
skill that everyone should have is basic map reading.
Finally everyone should have a familiarity with their personal
weapon and should understand enough about the enemy's weapons to know how
he can find you and kill you.
On the
battlefield it is not enough, either for you or your patients, to simply
be proficient at your medical tasks. |
