A Task Force Called Faith

Interservice rivalry is as old as the Republic, although nothing shines a light on that better than a single battle during the Korean War. A Task Force Called Faith is the untold story of the rivalry between the US Army and US Marines in the battle of the Chosin Reservoir in 1950. For seven decades, the Marines have been hailed as valiant heroes and the Army grunts as cowards. In A Task Force Called Faith, Steve Vogel sets the record straight. What he’s learned is the culmination of twenty years of research and outrage, first as a reporter for The Washington Post and now as a leading military historian.

At Chosin, an Army force of 2,300 soldiers–a unit known as Task Force Faith–positioned on the east side of the reservoir to protect the Marines’ flank but was overwhelmed by a Chinese force eight times its size. Almost 90 percent of the Army soldiers were killed, captured, or wounded. Yet, for all the years since the battle, the survivors of Task Force Faith have endured a dramatically different fate than their military brethren as they have been subject to accusations of cowardice and incompetence. The survivors and their families have long sought to clear their names of those terrible charges and reclaim the honor they won at the frozen lake.

A Task Force Called Faith does just that.