Word: gauntlet
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...RIVER AND THE GAUNTLET (385 pp.) S.LA. Marshall-Morrow...
Historian Marshall is at the top of his technique in The River and the Gauntlet, and his official account of the defeat of the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea by the Chinese in November 1950 bears comparison with anything written about Americans in war. Marshall makes some things clear that will have many a U.S. reader trembling. Here was a whole modern army on the move caught completely by surprise, its units scattered, its communications faulty, its foremost elements short of ammunition to fight off a primitive army that could move only at night and on foot. How it happened...
...company. Historian Marshall describes the tragedy of defeat. The crescendo is reached in the last 80 pages, which describe the pullout of what was left of the 2nd Division. By this time it was every man for himself. For six miles, men and vehicles ran a one-road gauntlet lined by steep hills occupied by the Chinese. The valley became a shooting gallery and a common grave. Heroism was as common as death, but heroism was not enough. What broke out of the gauntlet was perhaps the most completely smashed division in U.S. military history...
During the winter of Valley Forge, Washington lost 3,000 of his 7,000 men. Historian Marshall says that 2nd Division's losses in the gauntlet were roughly comparable, "but it all happened in one day." Except for the bravery of U.S. men & officers, only one redressing fact emerges from this harrowing story: the rout ended on Dec. 1. "By Christmas Day, 2nd Division was again a going concern, en route to a new battlefield...
...predicting this year's major league standings: Look to the East. For the last five years, the Eastern teams in each league have consistently walked away with more first division finishes than their midwest cousins. No longer do the Brooks regard a western swing like a run through a gauntlet, to be tried only after fattening up on the Phillies. The Senators and Athletics have been moving...