Rating: 
Summary: People miss the point
Review: ...the authors found documentation showing that there were orders to strafe refugees and kill them when they tried to cross lines. The Pentagon report was a whitewash because it acknowledged the killing done by some scared soldiers, but carefully deflected attention away from the evidence showing that the air force and the army were ordered to kill civilians.Returning to the bridge itself, some of the critics don't seem to realize that even the Pentagon acknowledges that a massacre occurred. As for the poor training of the soldiers, it's not exactly a leftist viewpoint to say that America began the Korean War with troops who were very green. It's common knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: plight of civilians during war
Review: As a 65 year old woman who remembers the news over the radio in 1950 that we were at war with Korea, I was shocked to find that in all these many years since that time, I have never found any information that revealed the ineptness and ignorance of the US military in that campaign. I grew up thinking that might was right and that the US could not make mistakes.
Probably equally as interesting to me is the fact that we are now engaged in another war half way around the world and I have no doubt that similar things are happening. In 1950 military reports, the word "village" was replaced with "military target" and "excellent results" described the military opinion when entire bridges full of fleeing refugees were blown sky high.
The similarities are there in any war and if we don't know our history we are bound to repeat it. It makes me wonder who in the Pentagon or in the cabinet has read this or similar books that reveal incredible military faux pas of years past. Civilians suffer inevitably during war, but the I am amazed that Koreans could ever forgive our decisions. I visited Korea twice in 2004 before reading the book. How my perspective has changed after reading this account put together by three journalists AFTER military records were opened to the public in 1999.
Rating:
Summary: Important and true
Review: Hanley's book provides the reader with a view of American war from an antagonist point of view. 90% of causualties during the Korean War were sustained by South and North Korean citizens. Hanley connects the citizens of a small South Korean village to the reader and leads them into the No Gun Ri massacre. The accounts of the villagers are extremely viseral to truly convey the real gore that took place with the landing of the 'Gerryowens'. The book takes many points of view throughout describing both US and South Korean experiences. I recommend this book to anybody wanting to learn more about the Korean War.
Rating: 
Summary: A sad story immersed in a sea of invective
Review: The more books I review about Korea the more emotionally involved I get in the review process. For you the reader this is a mixed blessing. Many of you who contact me express gratitude that I care so much about a war which touched-even traumatized-their lives, only to be forgotten by the Americans whom they served. On the other hand I must struggle to remain dispassionate, scholarly and informative in my reviews. I want to make the book, not the reviewer, the center of my focus.
I lived in Korea for a few years and love its people and culture so deeply. A book like this, describing an assault on Korean civilians, women and children, touches a soft spot.
On the narrow goal of making clear the dimension of tragedy, of atrocity, that occurred at No Gun Ri, the book succeeds admirably. By illuminating the lives of those Korean family members killed at No Gun Ri, the authors enable us to share in the tragedy and darkness of their senseless deaths. By highlighting the backgrounds of the American soldiers, much as in the book We Were Soldiers Once, and Young (ironically about these same Garryowens) we can share the agony for those survivors whose memories of this incident made their lives a living hell.
Unfortunately, the authors were not satisfied just telling the story. Too bad. Again in the book "We Were Soldiers" Hal Moore pleads with the reader: "So please, just this once..." forget the politics, forget the preconceived notions. Just look at the soldiers, on their battlefield without our 21st century living room morals and talk shows and collective sense of guilt and innocence. If Hanley et.al had done this the book would have been fine. But no, no no. Instead what we get are a lot of off-the cuff comments about the conduct of the war, the way the (South) Korean government works, and of course-now you know where all those Pulitzer prizes come from-the USA and the `west' take all the lumps. You know the story from here-western shortcomings line the newspapers, communist shortcomings line the graveyards. Syngman Rhee was just, just so HEAVYHANDED with gosh darned leftist radicals. (Of course Kim Il Sung wore kid gloves.) MacArthur was just, just so ARROGANT! (He promised men and materiel when asked by the Koreans and delivered it. What did Stalin deliver to the Chinese?) And on and on ad nauseum. It is a pity that an Island of such fine research about the Korean War has to sit in such a sea of one sided spite for western values. The authors make reference to South Korea's economic dynamism, not only with an air of apology, but even one of contempt for its success. If it is sheer body counts that measure the dimension of a tragedy at no Gun Ri or elsewhere, what are we to make of the untold thousands, perhaps millions, who have died of starvation, disease, malnourishment in the North? You get the impression reading this book that the authors wish the Americans would just pick up and leave-a long cherished goal of the Korean left-and not once anywhere near a majority in polls of Korean citizens.
Nor are the authors happy that no (American ) military brass was hung out to dry for this atrocity. Again, this outrage is fine as far as it goes; but surely another purpose of investigating and exposing this sort of atrocity is to make sure it never happens again? If so, the authors should make some suggestions about how such incidents can be avoided in the future. Assume General `X' is deemed responsible. How should he be punished? Asssume order `Y' should have been clarified. How so? Assume policy `Z' should have been rescinded. What policy would these three authors have followed in a war zone where civilian refugees were ubiquitous and there was bona fide evidence many were enemy sympathizers and collaborators?
In summary, read the book and cry for the Koo-pils and Choon-jas, the Buddy Wenzels and Arts Hunters. But forget the rest.
Rating:
Summary: Proof that anyone can get a Pulitzer
Review: This book (now thoroughly discredited by several, most notably Major Bob Bateman) is stunning proof of how badly wrong you can get it....and that the more you can trash Americans, whether truthfully or not, the more likely you are to win a Pulitzer.
Rating:
Summary: Left Wing Propaganda
Review: This book has been proven to be inaccurate. The primary American witness has been proven as a fraud and was not even in Korea. For the real story - see the book about No Gun Ri written by Bateman also available through Amazon.
Rating:
Summary: Important and true
Review: This book is an important document of an otherwise unknown atrocity of war. Mendoza teaches at my school, and I have spoken with her on the issue of the credibility of the North Korean events at No Gun Ri described in the book. The truth is that their main witness (who was only main after 60 minutes chose to focus on him) is in fact fraudulent. This, however, is one unfortunate event and one person in the huge process of research and interviews that has gone into this book and it has received far more press than it is worthy. One mentally disturbed man should not discount the hours and years of effort on behalf of the journalists and the suffering of countless Koreans. Don't let the yellow press mislead you into believing that this may not have happened. It did, and everyone with a conscience should read this book as it is the best available report on this event. Let me tell you first hand that Martha Mendoza's credibility is NOT questionable. She is a jounalist with the highest ethics, and this is a book worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A STUNNING STORY
Review: This is an important--and extremely well told-- book about a massacre of Korean civilians by U.S. troops during the Korean War. If the story of the killings at No Gun Ri had been made public at the time instead of covered up for 50 years, the atrocities that happened during Vietnam might never have happened. This book, written by the reporters who discovered the documents that prove there were official U.S. military orders to kill Korean refugees, reminds me of Iris Chang's excellent Rape of Nanking. The reporting is fair to both sides, and draws from interviews with Koreans and U.S. veterans who were there. Terrific reporting, a riveting story.
Rating:
Summary: This story cannot be dismissed.
Review: Though, the follow up response by Major Robert Bateman did discredit several of the many witnesses that were part of the Associated Press' story, there are still many unfilled holes that are left unanswered by both accounts.
I have read both Bateman's and the AP accounts, as well as anything that I could get my hands on in regards to No Gun Ri, and the fact of the matter is that though they both dispute the numbers of dead, there is still the matter of the orders that were passed on (these were never even disputed in the Army official report on the No Gun Ri incident http://www.army.mil/nogunri/) to shoot civilians who were attempting to cross lines. Also, there have been numerous reports of similar incidents which occurred throughout the peninsular war similar to No Gun Ri perpetrated by US, ROK, and DPRK forces. I lived in Korea for several years and actually visited the site under that bridge, and the fact is, the bullet holes are there (this was before the Korean Government had them cemented over in an attempt to stop further investigation in 1999) the people there believe it happened, regardless of numbers. Bateman's book is thorough in its coverage and a must-read in regards to this incident, and the contrast which exists between the two books only shows that there is never really one rendition of history, that to understand events in our pasts is not to choose sides and to close our minds. They both give differing sides to one story, and the truth must lie somewhere in between.
There may be no real answer to the exact numbers of people who died under that bridge, but in the confusion of that war, only three years long, millions of civilians were killed. With scared, unprepared, under-lead, under-equipped young soldiers fighting tooth and nail for their very lives, with orders to fire on civilian refugees who were ubiquitous throughout the battlefield, many of those killed were a result of American fire. Though this book has brought a lot of heat on American actions in the war, the fact is we should take it as an indictment of ¡°War¡± it self. It shows that when war is determined to be the method of resolving conflict, people make mistakes, people die, and often times the lives of ¡°others¡± of another race, come second to ones own.
Rating: 
Summary: It's just tip of iceberg
Review: Well, I just can't understand why some people take this book as 'trashing US' stuff. As a native Korean with whole bunch of still alive relatives telling horror stories during the Korean War, I can guarantee that the only problem with this book is "drawing it mild". Yes, communists from the North Korea were totally cruel, but there were so many horrible crimes committed to common innocent civilians by our own side(US & South Korea), too. No Gun Ri is not the only tragedy of that kind. And if one lost his own family members by the bullets of Democracy, not by the bullets of communism, his remaing life would be really a living hell, because he couldn't request the mere explanation of "the Accident", not to say justice. He just kept silence. For 50 years. If not, he would be suspected as a communist spy during the 50-year lasting Cold War period in Korea. He had to mourn his family in secret. That's the story of the modern war, and the reason we Korean are so reluctant to take part in any kind of war, domestic or abroad.
| 
