7th Infantry Division

This objective was Majuro, which would serve as an advanced air and naval base and safeguard supply lines to Kwajalein 220 miles to the northwest.

Because it was believed to be very lightly defended, only the Marine 5 Amphibious Corps Reconnaissance Company and the 2nd Battalion 106th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division were assigned to capture Majuro.

To support all of these thrusts, there would be a massive assemblage of U.S. Navy ships, carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and an astonishingly varied array of transports and landing craft.

These warships provided a maximum potential for intensive pre-invasion aerial bombing and ship-to-shore bombardment.

The same softening-up process was used on D-Day, 31 January, with a large force of warships and planes pouring on a blanket of high explosives.

The Navy, for instance, fired 7,000 shells.

Because of the location of the islets immediately surrounding its main objective, the 7th Infantry Division was able to follow a plan identical to the Marines, with the 17th Infantry Regiment clearing the way for placement of close-by supporting artillery.

The 145th Field Artillery Battalion then proceeded to inundate the target with 28,000 rounds.

Today, I am interviewing retired U.S. Army Major General Robert W. Mixon.

General Mixon served 33 years in the Army, commanding the 7th Infantry Division and Division West of the First Army.

After transitioning into corporate and nonprofit leadership, including helping create the Warrior Salute Program for veterans with TBI and PTSD, he now advises organizations on leadership, culture, and veteran workforce success.

General Mixon is co-founder of Level 5 Associates and author of the best-selling The Power of Being All In.

the moon had risen higher and floating in the sound was a triangle of silver scales trembling a little bit to the stiff tinny drip of the banjos on the lawn i was still with jordan baker we were sitting at a table with a man about my age and a ruddy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter i was enjoying myself now i had taken two finger-bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant elemental and profound at a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and smiled your face is familiar he said politely weren't you in the third division during the war why yes i was in the ninth machine-gun battalion

I was in the 7th Infantry until June 1918.

I knew I'd seen you somewhere before.

We talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in France.

And that was right before the Iraq War in Kuwait in February 2003, just weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom started.

My next guest was in the field with me, or I was in the field with him, as he was commander of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry, which made the initial assault from Kuwait into Iraq all the way to Baghdad.

He actually took me to the open field and tried to teach me how to shoot.

He's taking on the he's taking on the Iraqi Special Republican Guard, capturing Baghdad International Airport, making history in the process.

4,599 battled deaths, 12,058 wounded, 401 reported captured, and 2,107 reported missing in action.

The bitter weeks of retreat and death would soon change, however, with MacArthur's hammer against the anvil, the breakout from the Pusan perimeter coupled with the landing at Inchon by the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 7th Infantry Division during the third week of September.

FURTHER READINGS Appelman, Roy E., South to the Naktang, North to the Yalu, United States Army and the Korean War, Washington, D.C., U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1961.

Blair Clay, The Forgotten War, America and Korea, New York, Time Books, 1988.

A secondary but significant consideration was Seoul's psychological importance as the traditional capital for all of Korea.

MacArthur believed a landing at Incheon, combined with the Eighth Army's northward advance, would blunt the enemy's offensive.

as a result the retreating enemy would either be cut off or forced to make a slow and difficult withdrawal through the mountains farther east the nature and location of the planned landings dictated that it be directed by a tactical headquarters separate from eighth army to that end macgartha created the xth corps headquarters from members of his own staff naming his chief of staff major-general edward m ahlmann as corps commander the xth corps was activated on twenty sixth august nineteen fifty as a separate command under the general headquarters far east command Although pressed in meeting Eighth Army's troop requirements, MacArthur was able to shape a two-division landing force consisting of the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division.

In Japan, performing occupation duties, the 7th Division had contributed key personnel to the 24th and 25th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions as they loaded out for Korea.

So that's okay, I guess.

Stilwell was the commanding officer of the 7th Division at Fort Ord, California in this period.

He... became known as vinegar joe and he would go on after this to be sent to china in 1942 after pearl harbor he spoke chinese he had been posted in china before he served as a military advisor to the chinese leader chiang kai-shek who we've talked about before as part of american efforts to keep china in the war you know to divert some of the japanese forces in that direction He was the U.S. commander of the China-Burma-India Theater and later the deputy commander of the Southeast Asia Command.

But because the China-Burma-India Theater was not an official quote-unquote theater of operations and did not have an overall U.S. commander, Stilwell largely commanded Chinese troops and he had to work closely with British and Chinese leadership.

So, you know, of the 12 infantry divisions that we have here, a bit of a misnomer, the 2nd Infantry Division is actually forward deployed to Korea, and it's a combined division between us and the Republic of Korean Military, so they're kind of stuck in Korea.

The 7th Infantry Division, really interesting unit there.

They're actually being transitioned to this multi-domain command task force thing for the Pacific Air Force.

And even though they do have brigades they manage underneath them, they don't really actually deploy anywhere as a maneuver element.

And, uh, s- uh, Army had better things, best, best things in mind for me.

[laughs] And instead of going to Ranger Battalion, um, I went to 7th Infantry Division and became a, a l- Uh, junior team leader there, squad leader.

Um, eventually ended up going to Panama with, uh, the guys I was training there, my squad.

Um, but yeah, it was a, it was...

It ended up to be...

It's not where I wanted to be.

Nobody, I, including myself before then, didn't know about the 7th Infantry Division and what they were doing.

Um, but it ended up to be one of the best things ever.