“The Communists gathered together all the opposition leaders, those friendly to America, and beat them terribly. Then they tied their hands behind their backs and shot them. More than fifty lay all over a small field in front of a school. When I got there relatives were claiming the dead and washing and cleaning and wrapping the bodies. That was the saddest part of it, mothers, wives, and children crying and screaming. The sight of death doesn’t bother me anymore, but to see the women crying made me feel very bad. You can believe everything you read in American papers about how miserable the Communist leaders treat the people behind the Iron Curtain. If any American Communist ever tells me when I get home that America was the aggressor in this war I think I’ll kill him on the spot.” – Private First Class James Cardinal, I Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment (quoted by Donald Knox in The Korean War: Pusan to Chosin – An Oral History)