Journal of Military Ethics (2004) 3(1): 75
/78

BOOK REVIEWS

Editor’s note: Normally Journal of Military Ethics reviews very recent books. The Bridge at No
Gun Ri was released just before the attack on September 11, 2001, and so did not receive all
the attention it otherwise might have.

Charles J. Hanley, Sang Hun Choe, and Martha

Mendoza. The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden
Nightmare from the Korean War. New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 2001. ISBN 0-8050-6658-6. 313 pp.
The Bridge at No Gun Ri is not a read for the fainthearted. The central event of the
book is the massacre of about 400 South Korean refugees in July of 1950 at the
outset of the Korean War. The refugees became trapped in a railway bridge
underpass and for three days were subjected to fire from the 2nd Battalion of the 7th
Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, as well as artillery and mortar bombard-
ment, and bombing and strafing by aircraft. Few survived.
Interviews with survivors and soldiers provide vivid and compelling narrative
details for this book. While there is no attempt to sensationalize or shock, it is very
difficult for the reader to escape the horror of this event and the impact it had on
both the civilians and the soldiers who participated in the killings. Neither is there
an attempt to canonize the victims nor demonize the perpetrators. Both groups are
portrayed as ordinary people caught up in the events unfolding around them. While
it is obvious that these killings were not premeditated it is also obvious that they
were not accidental or the result of aberrant behaviour. Compelling documentary
evidence is offered that makes it clear that official policy authorized killing of
refugees and that written orders to do so were issued. There is no doubt that the
blame for this incident rests entirely with the US military and its personnel.
The Bridge at No Gun Ri demonstrates how easily the veneer of humanity and
civilization can be stripped away from soldiers in war. However, the book illustrates
that war only completes a process started by the soldiers’ society. The soldiers at No
Gun Ri were products of an American society which accepted and institutionalized
discriminatory and racist attitudes and behaviors. Thus, the conditions which
facilitated the killings were created long before the men became soldiers or the
orders were issued in Korea. These conditions were amply demonstrated by
American occupation forces’ attitudes and behaviour in Japan towards the
Japanese. Asians were seen as less than human and this attitude was easily
transferred to the Koreans and reinforced by the Japanese treatment of Koreans in
World War II as well as the Koreans’ brutal treatment of each other over political
and ideological differences. Not surprisingly then, American soldiers almost
universally pinned the crude word ‘gook’ on all Koreans, whether enemy or allied,
soldier or civilian (71). More disturbing, however, was the attitude: ‘They’re just a
bunch of gooks. Shoot them’ (179). These attitudes were so pervasive that they
even extended to Chinese-American soldiers. One such soldier, Cpl. Suey Lee Wong,
remarked that he always felt that he was fighting two wars
/ one against the
enemy and one against the bigots around him (178).

ª 2004 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/15027570310004942

76 Book Reviews

The book devotes considerable effort to examining the effects of the incident on
the survivors and the soldiers involved. The South Korean victims have suffered
immensely. Their lives have been shattered and the psychological, social, and
economic effects are vividly described. Their stoicism and courage have been
remarkable. Incredibly, they do not appear to seek retribution. Rather they seek
only recognition that what occurred was wrong. A frank admission and a sincere
apology by the US government would appear to provide them a resolution which
would permit the ‘spirits of the dead’ to rest. The soldiers have suffered as well. Their
suffering is primarily psychological: feelings of guilt resulting from following orders
that their consciences tell them were morally wrong. The book details stories of
physical and psychological problems illustrating how few of the returned soldiers
were able to adjust and lead normal lives. Both groups need official recognition of
what happened to allow them to put the nightmare behind them. For the soldiers,
however, this also involves the larger issue of their society’s recognition of their
participation in the Korean War in general. As the book illustrates, until America
reconciles itself with the men who participated in the Korean War, the soldiers will
not be able to effectively resolve their own nightmares. Unfortunately for the South
Korean victims, until America comes to terms with its own soldiers’ actions it will be
unable to issue the apology they seek.
The Bridge at No Gun Ri is not anti-war or an attack on American policies.
However, the ageless dilemma concerning war is clear
/ war can achieve beneficial
results at the same time as it visits harm on humanity. The most telling comment
about this comes from the South Korean survivors who acknowledge that, in war,
innocents are often accidentally harmed and yet express genuine gratitude for the
American efforts which prevented the establishment of a communist regime in
South Korea. The authors make considerable effort to ensure that neither war nor
the men who fight it, even those who participated in the killings at No Gun Ri, are
rejected out of hand. Clearly they do not condone what happened at No Gun Ri, but
they accept that even good men can do bad things. What they want the reader to
focus on is why the incident occurred and what can be done to ameliorate this one
and prevent future ones. There are, however, no illusions that every such future
incident can be prevented. What the authors seem to feel is necessary when such
incidents occur is, at a minimum, to openly admit them. To do otherwise, the
authors imply, is less than honorable. Therefore, it is difficult to reconcile the
documentary evidence with the official American position that the incident was a
tragic accident and no one was to blame. A strong sense of disbelief arises from the
continued official reticence and obscuration.
The events of several decades later, in the jungles of Vietnam, are darkly
foreshadowed and there is a lingering suspicion that there may be more than a few
hidden nightmares left to surface. The book deserves to be read to remind those in
the profession of arms as well as the nation at large that in war grave mistakes can
be made. It is vital that those mistakes be dealt with so that they don’t become
prolonged nightmares.

Lieutenant Commander Gregg Hannah, Assistant Professor,

Royal Military College of Canada
 Book Reviews 77

Shannon E. French. The Code of the Warrior. Exploring

Warrior Values Past and Present. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0-8476-
9756-8. 304 pp.
This excellent volume by Professor Shannon French of the United States Naval
Academy offers insights into the moral constraints warriors in a variety of contexts
impose upon themselves. The book’s conclusions gain force from the eclectic nature
of the subjects French analyzes, ranging from Greek heroes such as Achilles and
Hector to Roman statesmen and philosophers, from Native American warriors to
Chinese warrior monks and Japanese Samurai. There is even a chapter on Vikings
and another (by Professor Felicia Ackerman of Brown University) on medieval
chivalric values expressed in Malory. Surely, the reader senses, values demonstrated
by such a wide variety of cultures must be at or at least near the heart of what it
means to be a warrior. Beyond this confidence in the emergent profile of the
honorable warrior, the reader comes away from the concluding chapter impressed
not only by the range of French’s study but also its depth: the book is neither purely
anthropological nor historical nor philosophical in its approach, but a stimulating
mix of those and other methods of analysis.
Beyond her ability to assimilate and present such a wide variety of case studies,
French also shows a fine flare for varying her presentation according to the nature
of the subject at hand. So detailed is its analysis that at times the book’s second
chapter, ‘The Homeric Hero’, reads more like a work of literary criticism than a
didactic lesson in warrior culture. French takes pains to explain the cultural context
in which the siege and destruction of Troy occurred as well as to examine the
psychologies of warriors such as Hector and Achilles. She does this through a close
reading of Homer’s Iliad . Similarly, her analysis of Viking mores is tied to her
reading of the characters in The Saga of the Volsungs. By contrast, her chapter on
‘The Soul of the Samurai’ naturally relies less on analysis of individual characters
revealed by a single author. French approaches this different hermeneutic challenge
with confidence and skill, walking her reader through key lessons of the
Budoshoshinsu .
Reading the book put me in mind of Nietzsche’s declaration: ‘I mistrust all
systematizers. I get out of their way’. The complexity of warrior mentalities across
vast historical and geographical expanses renders complete systematization
impossible. While the reader might expect that in her final chapter French would
attempt to distill a set of unifying conclusions from the smorgasbord she had offered
in previous chapters, her restraint is a relief. She never purports to have definitively
and exhaustively revealed a set of values which, descriptively speaking, are
common to all warriors in all cultures at all times. Rather, the book is true to its
title’s intention of exploring warrior values: powerful and fertile though her analysis
is, French avoids oversimplifying her raw data for the sake of creating a neat
schematic. In her normative recommendations French’s position seems unassail-
ably reasonable: ‘Modern American warriors should only resurrect those traditions
that cohere with the letter and spirit of the Constitution they have sworn to uphold
and defend. For example, they can emulate the humility, integrity, commitment to
‘‘might for right’’, courtesy and courage of a Round Table knight without taking on
78 Book Reviews

board his acceptance of an undemocratic, stratified society (where most of the

population is disenfranchised and women and serfs are treated as property) or his
determination to ‘‘pursue infidels’’’ (232).
In a book of such breadth it is of course impossible to offer an exhaustive
analysis of the literature on any given topic. For example, the last chapter, ‘The
Warrior Code Today: Are Terrorists Warriors?’ offers a gloss on jihad that cannot be
as nuanced as a specialized study of the issue. Such a study
/ Hilmi Zawati’s Is Jihad
a Just War (Edwin Mellen Press 2002), say
/ would no doubt take issue with certain
of French’s factual claims. But no matter. One of her book’s strengths is that she
does not hesitate to make clear claims about cultural mores and warriors’ outlooks
in order to build a foundation for philosophical analysis; even if she might cause
some specialists a moment or two of factual indigestion, most readers will be
grateful that she offers philosophy which is not empirically starved.
Perhaps best of all, Professor French begins and ends with a laudable goal that
clearly animates her entire presentation: helping warriors find the right code that
will not only help prevent them from harming the innocent but also allow them to
survive the traumas of warfare ‘intact in body and soul’ (243)
/ to ‘come home with
their shields’ in her appropriation of an ancient metaphor.

Dr. James Cook, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force Academy