Action!(1)
I think there’s a perception of army life that only lets us think of active combat. You know, the Hollywood battlefield with tanks and explosions and hordes of enemy soldiers attacking the good guys. While combat is a reality, the facts remain that there are just regular days…of cleaning up, of resting, of just trying to make some semblance of life in the front lines. I can remember being in Iraq myself and doing inventories of my toolboxes while waiting to move out. I’m sure if you are a veteran, you can understand what I’m saying.
The Korean war was no different. Soldiers waited around, walked around and generally tried to get along as best they could. I found some pictures at the National Archives tonight to help illustrate this point:
Eating Rice(2)
Field marching to assembly area(3)
Attending Services(4)
One of the best ways the soldiers found to break the montony was to eat! Granted, army rations were nothing to write home about, but they could always be traded, improved with hot sauce and could even be used as weapons. What follows is a great article from Popular Science on Google Books that might help illustrate this:
Have a great weekend!
Links:
US Army Quartermaster Foundation
Sources:
(1-4) National Archives (keyword: Korean War)
(5) Google Books
