Hard Guys & Softies?

It was a black week for the tired soldiers of Syngman Rhee's Republic of Korea. The heart to fight Chinese Communists seemed to have gone out of them.

The once elite R.O.K. army's II Corps (R.O.K. 6th, 7th and 8th Divisions) on the Tokchon-Yongdong-Okchon line disintegrated under the first Chinese attack. R.O.K. troops threw away their weapons and ran; some fled 20 miles southward in the first 24 hours of the attack.

Said a U.S. colonel: "The enemy has made hard guys out of his Koreans. We've made softies out of ours." Said a U.S. correspondent: "We have so overarmed, over-equipped and over-coddled the South Koreans that now they wouldn't think of going into battle without fur-lined parkas, prophylactic kits and the latest edition of supercomics."

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