“No sound came from the land except the low snoring of the Marine curled up in the next foxhole. Then in an area that the Army had assured us was cleared, a Red artillery barrage burst among us, and it became a night of trying to worm deeper, tail first, into the earth. The heavy stuff [artillery] was the worst when it came walking along our ridge seemingly bent on shoving its stinking fist into every hole … We cursed our carelessness, for we had dug our hole too short, and there was no place else to go as the explosions moved all around us … [in] that dismal world of whistling steel.” — From “Where 27th Held, Marines Launch Attack,” LIFE, August 21, 1950
“The Communist attack in Korea forced the U.S. Government to get going, though all too slowly, with an arms program worthy of the name instead of the pale pretense of one that had been fobbed off on the country up to then. It brought home to millions of Americans, and especially to lily-liberals of [Secretary of State under Harry Truman] Mr. [Dean] Acheson’s type, the stark fact that the Soviet Communist alliance is the deadly, shooting enemy of the U.S., of everything the U.S. stands for, and of every nation which stands with the U.S.” — From “What’s the Use of Korea?” in LIFE, August 6, 1951
“About 150 miles to the rear of the Korean battle line, in the misted hills and twisted valleys of the peninsula’s rice bowl, there is a war within a war. Waged in territory officially held by U.N. forces, fought without truce lines or quarter, it is a war that Dwight Eisenhower will not see when he is in Korea…. But for the past several weeks LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White has been in the thick of this war of terror…. She watched [Korean National Police 'guerrilla hunters'] bring back their foes, living or dead, for trial or burial. Sometimes the bodies are dragged in on poles. When it is too difficult to bring the corpses back, only the grisly heads are retrieved, not as trophies but to be identified and the names checked against the names of known guerrillas.” — From “The Savage, Secret War in Korea,” LIFE, December 1, 1952
“The morale of our troops is ‘good’ if resigned point-counting, and bravery whose sole motive is self-preservation, can be called morale…. Our plan for getting a cease-fire is simply to apply more pressure. The recent stepped-up bombings were a step in the right direction. We need a series of such heightened pressures, spaced at two or three week intervals, like the turns of a thumbscrew; and each turn should be preceded by an ultimatum…. The millions of Americans who want a Korean truce are not military experts and are easily silenced by their own ignorance. In this case, however, their instinct for a truce seems to represent a higher political and strategic wisdom than Washington’s pussyfooting. Where there is no will, there is no way. If Washington has the will for a truce, it has not exhausted the ways to get it.” — From “An End to the Korean War,” an editorial in LIFE urging U.S. politicians to negotiate a truce, Sept. 15, 1952
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http://life.time.com/history/korean-war-rare-photos/#ixzz2CuMlQzJ9