Mark W. Clark Quotes

But the foundation of ROK military power was the South Korean infantryman, courageous, tireless, hungry for the knowledge that would give him more power as a fighting man, disciplined and willing to die in the service of the cause for which his country fought and bled. You didn't have to tell a South Korean that communism was evil. It was an evil that had blighted his country and he saw it all around him, wherever he went.

This book is dedicated to the men and women of many nationalities who fought and died serving with the Fifth Army and the 15th Army Group, in Italy. Never did a commander have more to be proud of than I in being associated with these selfless individuals.

The ROK Army military school system was patterned exactly after ours, as was their naval training system. The ROKs during the war developed a Korean West Point and a Korean Annapolis. They created their own war college to give their officers more education as they showed the capacity for higher command. All the senior instructors and most of the junior instructors have been through our schools as well as their own. They taught by our American methods, with our American weapons and from translated versions of our American military texts and manuals.

World War II was an era in which America came of age as a world power. We had and we still have many lessons to learn. It was not surprising, perhaps, that we celebrated a victory when in reality we had not won the war. We had stopped too soon. We had been too eager to go home. We welcomed the peace, but after more years of effort and expenditure, we found that we had won no peace.

The story I would like to tell, I thought then, is the story of the men who lie here. Nothing can blur my memory of their tenacity and devotion to duty, of their refusal to be awed by seemingly insurmountable odds, by the swirling dust of the Salerno, by the treacherous mud of the Liri Valley, or by the stinging snows of the high Apennines. Some chapters of their story I could not hope to tell. No one could tell them who was not there day after day in the foxholes that filled with water before they were half dug, and on the rocky peaks where not even a pack mule could gain a footing. But I can tell a part of the story. I can tell how and why the turn of the wheel of war took the men of the Fifth Army to Italy and what was behind the orders that sent them into battle at Salerno, on the Volturno, at Cassino, and on the flat and barren little strip of hell known as the Anzio beachhead; and I can give at least a glimpse of the bravery and sacrifices, not only of the Americans but of dozen other nationalities who fought their way into the not-so-soft underbelly of the Axis. They are men who paid heavily for their page in history. Testimony to their courage is the fact that they won 56 of the 255 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to our Army during the entire war. I am proud to have had an opportunity to share in their calculated risk in the Mediterranean.

I emphatically disagree with statements of so-called military experts that victory was ours for the taking at any time during my period of command with the limited forces at our disposal and without widening the scope of the conflict. Korea's mountainous terrain literally soaks up infantry. We never had enough men, whereas the enemy not only had sufficient manpower to block our offensives but could make and hold small gains of his own.

My doubts were based on my conviction that the Communist enemy is a voracious beast. The more he is given, the hungrier he becomes. And as long as we of the free nations continue to lead from fear, to react from fright, he will be a well-fed enemy.

This new kind of war, this contest between the benefits of two ways of life, may foreshadow the nature of the final world struggle between the democracies and communism. Perhaps both sides, with the frightening instruments of total destruction in their hands, may decide that these terrible weapons must never be used. I pray fervently that this is true, not only because of the lives that would be saved but also because I know America can reap a greater harvest from peace than can her enemies. But peace will be granted us only if we are strong if the Russians and their followers know we are strong and if they are convinced that we have the determination and courage to use that strength to achieve a military victory the next time we are called to war against communism.

After I went to the Far East I witnessed this same concentration-time after time in the schools the Koreans established for their officers and noncoms. The students would squat on their haunches for hours listening to an instructor explain something like the care and use of a light machine gun. They would focus their eyes on the instructor almost without blinking. Never once did a single student that I saw let his gaze wander. I even tested them. They knew who I was, and in addition, the short-statured Oriental has a compulsion to look at a tall man. During the class sessions, I witnessed I deliberately strolled behind the instructor, looking at the students. I thought certainly some of the Korean students would break their concentration on the instructor and sneak a glance at me. I didn't catch a one. I made it a practice to make this test often during visits to ROK training schools. Never once did I catch an eye looking my way. I have never in my life been so impressed with the intensity of military students.

Having seen the Red Army and Russian diplomacy in action, my own belief is that there is nothing the Soviets would not do to achieve world domination. But I am convinced that also that they respect force; perhaps they respect nothing in the world except force. And when confronted with strength and determination, they stop, look, and listen.

Our difficulties with the Russians increased, but I never really blamed Konev. He obviously was merely carrying out instructions. He even had a sense of humor about it occasionally. Once when we were discussing Austrian politics, the name of the Communist party leader, Ernst Fischer, was mentioned. Jokingly, I said: "Well, I don't like him because he is a Communist." Konev grunted. "That's fine," he said. "I don't like him either because he's an Austrian Communist."

Once I said to Konev, "You've made ten demands at this Council meeting that we can't meet. But suppose I should say, 'All right. We agree to all ten demands.' Then what would you do?" "Tomorrow," he said, "I'd have ten new ones."

A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades. The rifleman crawling through the rubble of a bombed-out street must decide on the best moment to escape enemy fire as he dodges from one doorway to the next. He must take a chance. The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".

No war is ever fought exactly like any other before it, and history is full of stories of commanders who came to grief trying to follow an old pattern of victory once too often. Whatever is new in tactics, equipment, or method must be taught at the squad level before a soldier gets into combat.

I remember an incident when, as Chief of Army Field Forces, I went to Fort Benning, Georgia, to watch the instruction of the first class of Korean officers sent to America. I have seen a lot of training in my years of experience in the Army, but never had I seen more attentive concentration on the instructor. Not a Korean shifted his eyes from the instructor once during the session. It appeared to me that each Korean officer felt that in some way the mere physical process of unbroken sight of the instructor would speed the process by which he learned from the American teacher.