Reddit reviews The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today

The Battle is famous for the extreme difference in results for the Marine and Army participants, both on different sides of the reservoir.

The marine commander Chesty Puller had saw they were overextended and prepared, creating multiple stockpile temporary bases. When the Chinese attacked, they were able to create an ordered withdrawal with multiple defense points.

The army was not as fortunate and less prepared, and suffered horrendous losses. It's really a textbook example on preparing for all situations. I learned all about this from the book The Generals

EDIT As u/Dis_mah_mobile_one pointed out, the majority of credit for the Marine's success in the battle goes to Oliver P. Smith, who commanded the 1st Marine's at Chosin

>Political Climate around how badly we were losing in Vietnam ended the Vietnam war.

The urgency of withdraw had everything to do with war weariness and public perception, and absolutely nothing to do with how the war was actually going.

The US wasn't "badly losing" as you put it, in fact the opposite was true. Tet shattered the northern army. At the same time Westmoreland and his costly/ineffective search & destroy was out, while Abrams and his extremely effective clear & hold strategy was in. The metrics illustrating the loss of control the North had between 1966 and 1970 are staggering. You can find them in The Generals by Thomas E. Ricks.

Thank you, and from my knowledge of Pershing (mostly from the book The Generals) I very much agree it sounds out of character.

If asked again I'll cite that argument.

Since 1951

I highly recommend The Generals by Thomas Ricks.

The book compares the performance American general officers in WWII to later conflicts, mostly Vietnam and the War on Terror. It may give you some insights to how quality and competence were measured in WWII vs. the later conflicts.

To summarize:

In WWII, generals had a short period to prove that they were competent commanders; if they didn't perform well, they were either relieved of command or they died in combat. Importantly, many commanders were given a 2nd chance at command later to correct their deficiencies.

In the Vietnam / Post-Vietnam US Army, generals were often only relieved for reasons of morality; breaking the law, fraternizing with subordinates, etc. Nobody wanted to ruin someone's career just because they were a bad commander.

This video shows the author giving a summary of the book, and he also goes into his research methods and answers questions from the audience. It's an hour long, but worth the watch.

Spot on, ViolatedChimp.

There seems to be a lack of understanding here about how people rise in the chain of command in the military. Many points have been made about a lack of job feed-back, no evaluation of job performance, etc. But the reality is that you don't get to that rank in the military unless you are extremely qualified for the job and execute it extremely well. Essentially the job title itself is it's own authority. Or at least, you don't get to evaluate a general's unless you are as qualified as he is. There is a reason military officials are not elected. :)

The last 80 years of history of how American military officials are hired and fired is detailed very well in the book The Generals by Thomas E. Ricks. I recommend it highly.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Generals-American-Military-Command/dp/0143124099

A good book on this phenomena (The Marshall System) is "The Generals" by Tom Ricks
https://www.amazon.com/Generals-American-Military-Command-World/dp/0143124099

This isn't anything new, in fact there is an excellent book about how post WWII General officer ranks have been bloated at the expense of the people who actually do work.

This one is a good one if you're looking for a semi-political perspective of military men.

Stephen Hook also has a great textbook on Post WW2 political theory.