Weighing the generals in the Korea War

Infantry Magazine, Summer, 2002 by Robert P. Kingsbury

I am writing to comment on the Expert Infantryman Badge item in the Career Notes section (Infantry, Spring 2002, page 48) and the book reviews on General Douglas MacArthur (page 49). During World War II, I served in combat as a first scout of a rifle squad of Company E in the 376th Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division, XX Corps (commanded by General Walton Walker). The 376th was the first regiment in which all soldiers qualified for the EIB. At that time, the EIB required a 25-mile road march and a "forced march" of nine miles in two hours in full field gear. Today it is 12 miles instead of 25 and no mention of a forced march for the EIB. Is this badge still for males only?

After World War II, I went back to school and graduated from college in 1950. When the war in Korea started two weeks later, I re-enlisted for Infantry OCS and was commissioned. When the war started, General Walker commanded the ground troops, until he was killed in an accident the following December.

I served in combat under General Walker, and my opinion of him is far superior to that of historian Stanley Weintraub. I realize that hot and negative things like hero-bashing sell books. But in my opinion, Weintraub has gone too far in bashing Walker and MacArthur (and too far in praising General Matthew Ridgway).

In Korea, MacArthur and Walker stopped the advance of the Noah Korean Army and then defeated it. When the Chinese Army came over the Yalu, MacArthur and Walker slowed it down and stopped it at about the 38th parallel. They did those things with a relatively small fraction of the total losses in Korea.

The vast majority of the American lives lost in Korea occurred while General Ridgway was in command. This puts Ridgway at the bottom of my list of all the generals who ever wore an American uniform. And yes, I had been a rifleman under General Patton. Patton had about half the losses other commanding generals had in Europe (on the basis of losses per 1,000 men, per day of combat, FM 100 series).

ROBERT P. KINGSBURY

LTC, Infantry

USAR, Retired

Laconia, New Hampshire