I always read the Pentagon casualty notices and MIA notices. This one jumped out at me yesterday, as it would to anyone familiar with the history of the Chosin Reservoir campaign.

Lt. Col. Don Faith, Jr. was the unfortunate leader of one of the biggest disasters in American military history, taking over command of the Army regiment on the east side of Chosin after the commander of the 31st Infantry Regiment was killed and the other two battalion commanders were badly wounded. The regiment, badly outnumbered and hampered by inept general officers, suffered a 90 percent casualty rate. Its colors now are displayed in Beijing, I am told.

However, the sacrifice of the Army regiment bought much-needed time for the Marine division consolidating on the west side of the reservoir.

Soldier Missing from Korean War Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a serviceman, who was unaccounted-for from the Korean War, has been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. 

Army Lt. Col. Don C. Faith Jr. of Washington, Ind., will be buried April 17, in Arlington National Cemetery. Faith was a veteran of World War II and went on to serve in the Korean War. In late 1950, Faith's 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, which was attached to the 31st Regimental Combat Team (RCT), was advancing along the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir, in North Korea. From Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 1950, the Chinese People's Volunteer Forces (CPVF) encircled and attempted to overrun the U.S. position. During this series of attacks, Faith's commander went missing, and Faith assumed command of the 31st RCT. As the battle continued, the 31st RCT, which came to be known as "Task Force Faith," was forced to withdraw south along Route 5 to a more defensible position. During the withdrawal, Faith continuously rallied his troops, and personally led an assault on a CPVF position. 

Records compiled after the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, to include eyewitness reports from survivors of the battle, indicated that Faith was seriously injured by shrapnel on Dec. 1, 1950, and subsequently died from those injuries on Dec. 2, 1950. His body was not recovered by U.S. forces at that time. Faith was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor­­ -- the United States' highest military honor -- for personal acts of exceptional valor during the battle. 

In 2004, a joint U.S. and Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (D.P.R.K) team surveyed the area where Faith was last seen. His remains were located and returned to the U.S. for identification. 

To identify Faith's remains, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence, compiled by DPMO and JPAC researchers, and forensic identification tools, such as dental comparison. They also used mitochondrial DNA -- which matched Faith's brother. 

Word arrives from across the wide Pacific that the Chinese military conducted a bridge placement exercise at a Yalu River crossing, a hand grenade's throw from North Korea.

This article speculates that this is a move that signals that the Chinese are worried about refugee flows should Lil Kim's regime collapse. They'd need to bridge to insert troops to create a buffer zone along the border. And maybe also quietly collect those nukes (which is a mission I would support -- better they have them than some nut in NoKo).

Speaking of NoKo, a friend asks how FP can rank it 21^st on the list of most failing states. He thinks it should be much higher. I suspect he is correct.

By Joseph Natividad
Best Defense Pyongyang deputy bureau chief

An English literature professor from Southern California by day and a world-class magician by night, Dale Salwak holds the distinction of being the only American invited to perform his act in North Korea. At SAIS recently, Salwak chronicled his experiences in Pyongyang in 2009 and this past April for the Grand Magic Show, the largest ever in the country's history. His perspective on North Korea offered a look beyond stereotypes of a totalitarian system, mass famine, and nuclear proliferation, and focused instead on magic as a great leveler which emphasized entertainment value before political differences between two countries.

--Magic, as a trade, is taken very seriously in North Korea. Similar in structure to the Chinese system, admission into its exclusive society is followed by a father-son bond of lifelong apprenticeship. Isolated from the West and having limited or no access to DVDs, books and the Internet, North Korean magicians have devised their own methods to magic that have long been known to performers like Salwak. A typical range of acts includes balancing telephones on handkerchiefs and life-sized dolls performing choreographed dance routines to traditional music. The local performers Salwak encountered on his trips cherished every new trick acquired and pleaded with him to share current "world trends" on magic.

--The culmination of Kim Jong Il's investment in the arts took place this past April at the Grand Magic Show, a tribute to the late Kim Il Sung. Like his father, Kim Jong Il appears to hold a great interest in magic and the circus, dating back to the country's early history of Soviet influence. In a place where high-tech entertainment is hard to come by, the Grand Magic Show dazzled a crowd of 150,000 at May Day Stadium, which is the site of the Arirang Games, an annual two-month-long gymnastics festival also in honor of Kim Il Sung. As a spectator at the Grand Magic Show, Salwak watched as the country's most famous magician, Kim Chol, appeared in a cloud of smoke and fireworks, forcing a bus full of giddy local residents to levitate several feet above the ground, and later, make a horse, an elephant and a helicopter materialize out of thin air. What would have otherwise invoked a roaring response from a typical American audience, the crowd respectfully cheered with subdued, tepid applause.

I liked King of War David Betz's summary of what we actually learned from the WikiLeaks files so much that I am lifting my ban on the subject to quote it:

1. North Korea, complete arseholes -- even the Chinese have outgrown them.

2. Russia, a whole country run like The Sopranos only with less charm and public spiritedness.

3. Iran, such manifest dips***s that even their neighbours want them dead.

Ok, the ban is back on now.

I personally think we should ignore North Korea to the degree possible, and respond only indirectly, at times and places of our choosing. Like just freezing the regime's personal accounts whenever they are detected. Or quietly messing up luxury goods being shipped to North Korea.

Here's a take of one of my CNAS colleagues.

By Bailey Culp
Best Defense East Asian provocations deputy bureau chief

Things are certainly heating up on the Korean peninsula. Just yesterday, it was reported that North Korea had killed two South Korean soldiers and wounded three civilians after firing artillery rounds onto Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. This provocation comes a few days after the revelation of a modern nuclear enrichment facility and only a few months after the sinking of the Cheonan, when North Korea is reliably reported to have torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel and killed 46 sailors.

As it happens, on Monday I strolled over to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to see what the illuminati were thinking about NoKo. The discussion began with an analysis regarding North Korea's recent nuclear development, publicized in a report by scientist and Stanford professor Siegfried S. Hecker, who visited Yongbyon Nuclear Complex earlier this month. According to one panelist, this news "confirms our worst suspicions." Nevertheless, while it comes as a surprise that the facilities are much more sophisticated than we expected, it is no surprise the North Koreans were seeking to advance their nuclear capabilities and have improved upon existing infrastructure.

Bottom line is that North Korea seeks survival as its core interest, but we don't know quite what the regime is willing to do to achieve survival. Recent provocations help gauge the levels of vulnerability felt by the North Korean regime and are indicative of how far the regime will go.

Ultimately, the United States is going to have to accept North Korea for what it is, a small, troublesome possessor of nuclear weapons, rather than what we want it to be -- a denuclearized, internationally compliant nation. This does not mean the recent actions of North Korea will be excused or that neighboring countries will acquiesce to its continued provocations. It is difficult to take the offensive with a regime so shrouded and unpredictable, and that has nothing to lose and everything to gain, so it is likely the international community will remain on the defensive, seeking to contain this mess until it eventually, sooner or probably later, somehow collapses.

Dunno what they mean but it made me think of this song.

It looks like the crazy NoKos did indeed sink the South Korean ship, killing 46 sailors. Anyone have a good idea how Seoul should respond to this? I wonder if a year-long international ban on all North Korean ship traffic, including merchant ships, might be the way to go.

By Daniel Saraceno
Best Defense deputy chief, worrisome Korean incidents bureau

Panel discussions over hot button issues often devolve to polarized extremes, though sometimes offering that special moment where you realize all is not lost in the world of politics and reason. Such was the case at last week's "what if?" session at the Korea Economic Institute, which focused on regional reactions if North Korea were to be definitively blamed for the destruction of the 1,200-ton South Korean naval corvette Cheonan and the death of 46 sailors. By the way, North Korean culpability is a possibility which for 80% of South Koreans is an unquestionable fact, according to the panel.

Surely this topic would promise to elicit worst-case Apocalyptic scenarios of retaliation, Taepodong nuclear strikes, four horsemen and the obligatory nod to the Mayans for getting it right in regards to 2012 -- the date which North Korea has been looking forward to as the 100th birthday of its Great Leader Kim Il Song. Or so I thought.

Read on

I'm interested that in all the e-mails I've gotten, and responses posted on this blog about triple-dipping retired generals getting paid to "mentor" the active duty military while at the same time working in the defense industry, and also collecting their pensions, not a single person has contended that, yes, George Marshall would approve of this behavior. As a friend of mine says, this is a good gut-check: WWGMD?

Also, another friend points out that one of the dangers of this whole "mentoring" this is that if you are not careful, you wind up bringing in people who simply reinforce existing prejudices, instead of challenging them. For example, just how well mentored was Gen. Tommy R. Franks in his mishandling of Afghanistan in 2001-02 and then in his bungled invasion of Iraq in 2003? (And while we're on the subject of money, who remembers that Franks charged a group $100,000 to help them raise money for wounded vets -- and that it later turned out that the group only delivered 25 percent of its funds to its supposed beneficiaries?) WWGMD?

Department of Defense

I said I was gonna ignore North Korea, and I still intend to. But I was struck by this comment by proven provider John McCreary in his NightWatch:

During the past 40 years North Korean leaders have been blustery but fundamentally risk averse. They have done nothing that would risk the total destruction of their state -- which means Pyongyang for all practical and symbolic purposes -- until now.... The actions in the past two days represent risk accepting behavior, defiance bordering on recklessness. This behavior began shortly after Kim Chong-il's stroke in August 2008. If Kim is ordering these actions, he has had a personality change, which can occur if dementia follows a stroke, according to medical authorities."

The surprise of 2009 may be the collapse of North Korea. I know this has been predicted before, including by me, but smart guys I know are saying it more. "Once we see the loss of military coherency and the ability of the Kim Family Regime to have central governing effectiveness we are likely to see regime collapse," comments an old friend who is an Army officer.

Of course, there's also Cuba. Which ancien regime goes first?

KNS/AFP/Getty Images