The term "Battles of the Outposts" encompasses the fighting that took place in the final two years of the Korean War. In the first year of the war sweeping movement up and down the peninsula characterized the fighting. Combat raged from the 38th Parallel south to the Pusan Perimeter then, with the landing at Inchon and the Perimeter breakout, up to the Yalu, and finally a retreat south again in the face of the massive Chinese intervention. After the United Nations resumed the offensive in January 1951 and stopped the subsequent Communist counter-attacks cold, the front stabilized north of Seoul. With the start of armistice negotiations in July 1951, the ground war settled into a static phase with action characterized by limited regimental or battalion attacks to seize or recover key tactical terrain, aggressive patrolling, and increasingly heavy artillery barrages by both sides. With the exception of the flare-up in the fall of 1951 during a hiatus in truce negotiations, this characterized the war until the signing of the armistice on 27 July 1953. If the grand maneuvers ceased, the fighting did not. In fact, nearly half of the war's 140,000 United States military casualties occurred during the "static" phase. Early in the truce negotiations both sides agreed that combat would continue until they concluded the final agreement. The armistice line would be the line of contact at the time the truce became effective. Since both sides intended to create a demilitarized zone by pulling the opposing forces back two kilometers from the line of contact, their respective strategies focused on the seizure and maintenance of a fine of strong outposts to ensure that friendly forces held defensible terrain when the armistice came into effect. From the standpoint of the men engaged, the relatively small scale battles that engulfed these outposts as the opposing forces engaged in bloody struggles to hold or retake the hills that dominated the main line of resistance were every bit as intense and demanding as any in history. This phase of the war became the small unit commander's fight. Most actions took place at battalion, company, and platoon level, but the intensity and duration of the artillery and mortar barrages from both sides eclipsed those of the trench warfare of World War I. In the bitter combat in and around the Punchbowl, Bloody Ridge, Heartbreak Ridge, the Nevada Cities complex, Hill 717, the Hook, and others in a long, long list, America had asked its young men to endure some of the fiercest combat in its history. The awareness of the continuing truce talks at Panmunjom made it even more difficult for the soldier to deal with the unremitting danger and hardships. At this time, every soldier knew that they fought over tiny pieces of nearly vertical real estate while an armistice could be signed at any time. No one wanted to make the list as the last casualty of the war. This presented an obvious challenge to leadership at every level as they sought to minimize casualties while accomplishing the mission. The endurance of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines of the United Nations forces who saw it through day after day of mortal combat against an implacable foe, when international politics denied them a traditional battlefield victory, testified to their valor and fidelity. Americans have appropriately called the Korean War "The Forgotten War." The "static" phase has been the forgotten part of the forgotten war.

Ziarko, Casemir, PFC