Book Review: the Forgotten War by Clay Blair

Blair began his book with an all out attack on President Truman, specifically Truman’s distrust of military officials and his decision of cutting back on the military’s budget; which, Blair claimed, cost many American lives. The book is in many ways a critical overview of the leadership of the American forces in Korea The Forgotten War is probably the most detailed book on any war that one could find; it also seems to be very critical of every military or political official involved in the Korean War. Blair’s book explains the placement, objective, and every command level decision. Generally summarizing the Korean War as in Blair’s Forgotten War – At the end of World War II the western half of the world (the Capitalist side) and the eastern half of the world (the Communist side) divided the Korean peninsula into two nations, the northern half communist and the southern half American occupied and capitalist. The two nations were divided at the 38th parallel. The Korean War itself began when the communist North Koreans invaded their South Korean neighbors by advancing over the 38th parallel boundary, on the 28th of June 1951 when the North Korean army, using Russian equipment and advisors, had conquered much of South Korea, a poorly equipped and poorly led U.S. Army came to the rescue of the South Koreans. President Truman had basically stripped the U.S. Army’s equipment and manpower down to nothing for budget reasons, believing that his military advisors spoiled, dumb, and “big spenders”, (sparing no expense to win a battle). Truman believed that he could do better than any military official. General Douglas MacArthur, on whom Blair spares no criticism, had been overseeing the occupation of Japan, and was a decorated general during WWII in the Pacific theater, he was the obvious choice to be appointed commander of the U.S. forces which were to hold back the North Korean army at Pusan – the tip of the Korean peninsula. MacArthur was in command of