Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

How to screw up your PoW situation

I’ve long known that the U.S. military had a tough time with North Korean and Chinese prisoners during the Korean War, including an American general being taken hostage. But I hadn’t really known why things went so badly in this war, aside from the fact that in World War II the U.S. Army in the ...

Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Wikimedia

I've long known that the U.S. military had a tough time with North Korean and Chinese prisoners during the Korean War, including an American general being taken hostage. But I hadn't really known why things went so badly in this war, aside from the fact that in World War II the U.S. Army in the Pacific had little experience with prisoners of war.

I’ve long known that the U.S. military had a tough time with North Korean and Chinese prisoners during the Korean War, including an American general being taken hostage. But I hadn’t really known why things went so badly in this war, aside from the fact that in World War II the U.S. Army in the Pacific had little experience with prisoners of war.

Then I read this quotation in Gideon Rose’s How Wars End: “Anybody who couldn’t make it on the line was sent down to do duty on Koje-do [where the big camps were]. We ended up with the scum of the Army — the drunks, the drug addicts, the nutters, the deadbeats.”

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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