When the
Under Secretary
of Defense
Went to Korea

Here is a magazine article by the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense, Anna Rosenberg (1902 – 1983). One would expect anyone with such a title to write about their visit to an American fighting front in more clinical terms, a language more suitable to a Washington functionary. Yet it is written in a familiar voice – like a trusted aunt might choose to write to a mother when visiting her far-flung niece. Her warmth and sincerity was manifested in person as well – she was a big hit with the troops, as you will see in the attached photographs:

“It’s hard to imagine that men can fight and live in those mountains, especially when you recall that these same men a few months ago were the people you met in your daily life in America. Some were lawyers, some were clerks, some were farmers. Many were boys in school, to whom exercise was something they engaged in for fun. Boys from the Bronx, who used to complain that the subway was four long blocks away; or from the level farms of the Midwest, or from an ice-cream-soda existence anywhere. But all of them took those hills like men who had been born, reared and trained in them…[Our military] stands for all the best qualities of America. It proves what Americans can do when there is need to do it.”

There is nothing I found missing – in spirit, in health, in morale, in food, in clothing, in loyalty or leadership. I had the feeling as I flew home that if all the water I passed over were ink, and every blade of grass a pen, I still could not write enough to tell of the magnificence of our fighting men.”