I may be missing something when American and UN troops were attacked by the Chinese.  Why exactly did we not go to all out war with the Chinese.  Was there a larger issue here?  Thanks

Bybon, here is the short version.  Truman had allowed the military to fall into complete disarray after WWII.  The military was under-funded, under-manned and had little espirit de corps.  MacArthur was a glory hound who refused to believe intelligence reports that the Chinese were involved in any great numbers.  The South Korean Army was a joke and led by imbeciles.  There was little support among Congress, the American people or our allies for the war effort.  What was not known then, but is now, is that Mao was in charge of the war from the beginning and Kim Il Sung was nothing more than a Chinese puppet.  Mao was prepared to lose one million men and guessed correctly that the U. S. would not use nuclear weapons against the Chinese in North Korea or Manchuria.  As Omar Bradley said early in the war, "This is the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time with the wrong enemy."
For an excellent work that is pretty up-to-date and gives a good overview of all aspects of the conflict, read John Toland's, "In Mortal Combat".

Do you thing the Chinese would have attacked if we hadn't pushed up to their border?

We should have nuked the Chinese while we had the chance.

Jim, absolutely.  Mao wanted a unified Korea with Kim as the puppet leader.  The Chinese had been infiltrating into North Korea for quite some time before the attack began in June of 1950 and were indeed collaborating with Kim's army.  After Inchon, the Chinese build-up in the north accelerated on a massive scale in preparation for an assault on the allies.  MacArthur was repeatedly warned by American and South Korean intelligence that massive numbers of Chinese soldiers were entrenched in the north.  When the Marines advanced along Chosin the attack was launched all along the northern theater against the Marines and Walton Walker's Army forces.  It was Mao's belief that he could destroy the allied armies and their will to fight.

We have all heard the term "forgotten war" for Korea.  It was a very brutal war that most of us from the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era could never really appreciate.  I have just finished reading the book quoted above (In Mortal Combat) and could not believe the savage fighting dipicted.  I think the commie push during TET in Vietnam was nothing compared to what our GIs went through in the early months of the North Korean ofensive or the retreat under fire from the Chinese.

If I ever get to the point where I'm feeling sorry for myself because of the lack of respect I got from being in Vietnam, I just have to think about our poor GIs in Korea.  

When I was growing up, I heard, knew. little of it while it was happening.  But one of the home delivery drivers had fought there.  

Later I wound up taking his route.  As I grew to know the families, then I realized how it affected damn near every home in some way or another.  

I met several who lost one of their own sons there, many more who had one who'd been injured, and it seemed like a bunch who had some relative who came back in a bad way.  I learned this while VN was warming up, where I later had an indirect part.

Did these guys ever get their memorial?

Yes.  From what I understand, it's directly across the reflection pool from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, not too far from the Licoln Memorial.  I probably should go, but I just don't want to.z

Fox
Thanks for the info and I will indeed get the book.  I visited Washington and did see the memorial to the Korean War.  It really was something else.  FYI the info concerning the memorial is, if I remember correcly, the accepted number of men killed was about 55,000.  "They" now believe that number to be greatly exagerated. Thanks

Yeah, the larger issue was if we would wind up going to all out war with China's buddy at the time, the Soviet Union.  That was the big concern in the end.  There were also plenty of other countires interested in what was going on as well as they would have been fried early on in any WWIII.

Ross

[img]http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid29/pbe00602b147b9328683cefb93931ee55/fdf4e47b.jpg[/img]
Me in a rice paddy in the ROK

[img]http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid29/p274dc4b29f32bd6602546f1d2604048d/fdf4e47a.jpg[/img]
The bad guys (NKPA) are in brown in this picture at Panmumjom.  The actual border is the line of concrete slabs that run through the midle of the blue buildings.