From Hill 92 to Nui Hon Ba

Acknowledgments 5
Preface 6
Introduction 13

PART I INITIATION: INTO THE JUNGLE 21
Chapter 1
KMA as the Bastion of National Defense 23
Chapter 2
The Road to Vietnam 34
Chapter 3
Why They Went to Vietnam 45
Chapter 4
Organizing and Training of Combat Troops 55
Chapter 5
The Voyage: Busan to Quy Nhon 66
Chapter 6
The Vietnam War: “A Formless War against a Formless Enemy” 75

PART II ENGAGEMENT: HOW THEY FOUGHT 91
Chapter 1
Class of 1955 to Class of 1957: The Pathfinders 93
Chapter 2
Class of 1958 and Class of 1959: Into the Fire 116
Chapter 3
Class of 1960(16th Class): Company Commanders 137
Chapter 4
Class of 1961 to Class of 1963: In the Midst of Politics 153
Chapter 5
Class of 1964 and Class of 1965: Platoon Leaders 175
Chapter 6
Class of 1966 to Class of 1968: In the Footsteps of their Elders 197
Chapter 7
Class of 1969 to 1971: Toward the End 235

PART III CONSIDERATION: ISSUES 267
Chapter 1
The Vietnam War as a War of Platoon Leaders 269
Chapter 2
Combat Motivation: What Makes Them Fight? 278
Chapter 3
Dehumanization of War 289
Chapter 4
Appearances and Realities in the Vietnam War 305
Chapter 5
War and Humanism:
To Humanize an Inhuman War 318
Chapter 6
The Korean Soldiers Reflected upon the Americans
and the Vietnamese, and Vice Versa 336

PART IV RETURN: HOME 353
Chapter 1
From Fort Hwarang to Dongjak-dong 355
Chapter 2
The War that has Never Ended: The Living and the Dead 370

Conclusion: Legacies of the Vietnam War 383
Notes 392
Glossary 410
Selected Bibliography 414
Index 418

A Brief History of KMA
The history of Korea Military Academy goes back to 1946 when it was founded. It was a year after the liberation from Imperial Japan in 1945 and four years before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. The Korean War divided the KMA into two different institutions: KMA before the war from 1946 to 1950 and KMA after the war from 1951 to the present. The former KMA was a short-term institution, and the latter was a four-year collegial one. The former’s educational cycle ranged from one month to six months for the First to Tenth Classes. The latter started with the Eleventh Class (Class of 1955), who entered the Academy on January 1, 1952, when KMA was normalized as an institution of higher learning, modeled on the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The five years from August 1945 to June 1950 were a transition period in the formation of the Korean Army and its Military Academy, the most turbulent period ever in the history of 20th-century Korea.
During the colonial period(1910-1945), numerous patriotic young Koreans fled to Manchuria and other parts of China. They fought against Imperial Japan for independence, some as members of the Chinese army and others as members of their military organizations, including the Korean Liberation Army. Several hundred Koreans graduated from the Huangpu Military Academy of China, established by Sun Zhong Shan in 1924, and were commissioned as Chinese army officers and assigned to its units. Many other young Korean men were forcefully mobilized for Imperial Japan’s war effort, most as enlisted men and some as officers who graduated from its Army Academy. These Koreans returned home after Japan’s surrender and became the human resources for building the national armed forces.
The project of founding the Korean army with all these people from home and abroad was carried out by the U.S. Army Military Government, the then-official ruling body on this land. Its commander was Lieutenant General John R. Hodge, the U.S. Army 24th Corps, who landed at Incheon on September 8, 1945, to disarm the surrendered Japanese forces remaining in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. General Hodge felt a strong need to create the Korean army in preparation for the official Korean government soon to be established, together with a military institution to produce officers who would become its leaders. And he founded the South Joseon National Defense Constabulary Academy on May 1, 1946, the precursor of the present Korea Military Academy, the bastion of national defense. This date is observed as the founding day of KMA.