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Summary Of On Desperate Ground By Hampton Sides

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The book On Desperate Ground was written by Hampton Sides, best known for his stories of war and daring expeditions. The topic of On Desperate Ground is the chilling tales of Marine soldiers who fought in the Korean War in the 1950s. The author’s purpose for this story is to educate readers through engaging, exciting Marine soldiers’ stories that the Korean War was one of the most dangerous and heroic operations in US history. I chose this book because I realized I knew very little about the Korean War and its importance in US history. Also, my grandfather later went to South Korea as part of a garrison there after the war, and seeing the pictures of what the area looked like made me even more interested in what had happened there years prior. …show more content…

He is a frequent contributor to National Geographic and is on the board of the Society of American Historians. This shows that Sides has knowledge about historical events, how best to research and analyze them, and what credible resources to use. He used a lot of primary sources in his book, including archives from libraries dedicated to specific people in the book as well as personal papers that these people wrote. Sides also used.org and.mil websites, veteran publications, military pamphlets, and documentaries to understand the war and the details involved with it. He was qualified to write this book because having a bachelor’s in history gives him credibility to write on the topic of the Korean War. The sources that he used were credible primary sources used to verify the stories he …show more content…

An example of this is, “Smith had learned an important lesson: In the future, he was going to have to walk a fine line with General Ned Almond. Whenever he got an order from Almond, he would sift and scrutinize. He would have to find a way to respect the X Corps commander while taking his own precaution” (pg. 47. The nlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnln This shows bias as this was not a direct quote from Smith; it was the author's opinion of what he believed he was thinking; however, he had no idea if that was true or not. I believe he had a bias toward Smith, as he portrayed him as the savior who would not listen to commander Almond’s order. This shows only the good in Smith but never the bad, and only the bad in Almond but never the good. Another example of the bias in this book was when he explained Mao’s entry into North Korea. The text says, “Mao believed that his armies had something the Americans lacked. Fighting spirit. In the end, Mao scoffed that America’s supposed superiority—even its atomic weapons—were no match for China’s fighting spirit. America, he thought, was but a paper tiger” (pg. 68. The nlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnlnln Though this passage seems to show Mao’s thoughts about America, not one of these was a direct quote from Mao. Also, when the author included a direct quote from Mao, it was never specifically tied to

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