Also, if you liked Fehrenbach and want to explore these issues further, you might want to take a look at Sam Huntington's *The Soldier and the State*, his discussion of the difficulty of maintaining the uneasy balance of civil-military relations in a liberal democracy:
When I was a kid, I checked out THIS KIND OF WAR from the library. It had a big impact on me at the time. What struck me was how brutal that war was, not just the fighting, but the terrain and harsh winter as well. There’s a reason why Hollywood has made so few films about the Korean War. There are probably more films about Vietnam than Korea.
A number of people on the Internet have put together “A Reading List for Men.” While these lists cover only fiction, I would add THIS KIND OF WAR to such a list.
My first girlfriend in HS her father was a Ranger and their basic mission during the winter was to cross the lines then look for the warming fires of the Chinese soldiers. They would then move on them and gun them all down. I found that Korean war vets you could not get to shut up about the war versus the WWII vets would barely talk about their service.
If anyone is interested in a first hand account of the Old Army from 1934-WWII I would recommend "Soldiers of the Old Army" by Victor Vogel. Mr. Vogel enlisted in 34 and described how the Army worked and how it changed once war was upon them. He enlisted when it was still horse and mule powered and when they went to trucks he describes how one old soldier just up and left since it was not his army any longer. As WWII approached Victor took the Army up on the offer to go officer and retired in 1955 as a Lt Col..
There's a tenth volume in the *There Will Be War* series:
https://www.amazon.com/There-Will-Be-War-Historys/dp/9527303249/
Also, if you liked Fehrenbach and want to explore these issues further, you might want to take a look at Sam Huntington's *The Soldier and the State*, his discussion of the difficulty of maintaining the uneasy balance of civil-military relations in a liberal democracy:
https://www.amazon.com/Soldier-State-Belknap-Press-ebook/dp/B07FK2PXP9/
There's another book on the same topic that was published more recently, titled *Armed Servants*, but I confess I've not read it:
https://www.amazon.com/Armed-Servants-Oversight-Civil-Military-Relations/dp/0674017617/
When I was a kid, I checked out THIS KIND OF WAR from the library. It had a big impact on me at the time. What struck me was how brutal that war was, not just the fighting, but the terrain and harsh winter as well. There’s a reason why Hollywood has made so few films about the Korean War. There are probably more films about Vietnam than Korea.
A number of people on the Internet have put together “A Reading List for Men.” While these lists cover only fiction, I would add THIS KIND OF WAR to such a list.
My first girlfriend in HS her father was a Ranger and their basic mission during the winter was to cross the lines then look for the warming fires of the Chinese soldiers. They would then move on them and gun them all down. I found that Korean war vets you could not get to shut up about the war versus the WWII vets would barely talk about their service.
If anyone is interested in a first hand account of the Old Army from 1934-WWII I would recommend "Soldiers of the Old Army" by Victor Vogel. Mr. Vogel enlisted in 34 and described how the Army worked and how it changed once war was upon them. He enlisted when it was still horse and mule powered and when they went to trucks he describes how one old soldier just up and left since it was not his army any longer. As WWII approached Victor took the Army up on the offer to go officer and retired in 1955 as a Lt Col..