Remembering the Forgotten War 60 years after the armistice

It was 60 years ago today that the guns fell silent in Korea. Three years of fighting was over, although, technically, it wasn’t the end of the war; it was just an armistice that continues today.

In the years from June 1950 until July 1953, 54,269 Americans died at places such as the Pusan Perimeter, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Pork Chop Hill, Heartbreak Ridge, and all along the peninsula through South Korea and North Korea. Not meaning to be disrespectful, but I sometimes wonder how Americans would react if we had such casualties today in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dad narrowly escaped being one of those casualties. He was called up from the reserves in 1950, shipped to Fort Hood, Texas, where he became a member of the First Cavalry Division. The First Team already was in action, having been pulled out of Occupied Japan to go up against the North Korean invaders. Dad joined up with them that fall, after the Inchon landing. He was in Co. F, Second Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment.

Although he’d share a few stories, it wasn’t until later in life, during the ’90s when he hooked back up with other members of his unit at First Cav reunions, that Dad really began sharing more of what it was like in Korea. And even then most of his stories, and those of his comrades, were about the humorous occasions, the “good times” they remembered then about battles and fighting. That’s not to say they didn’t have those stories, it’s just that they shared them among themselves more than with others. I’ve found that’s often the case with veterans; those who saw a lot tend to talk about it the least.

They were at the front as American and United Nations forces drove the North Koreans back to the Yalu River. They were there when China intervened and attacked across the Yalu that awful winter, forcing the allied troops back down the peninsula and into the seesaw war along the 38th Parallel. During that time, Dad earned his first Purple Heart when he was wounded in the shoulder.

They were there when President Harry Truman fired Gen. MacArthur. They were there when Gen. Matthew Ridgeway launched a series of campaigns to push the Chinese and North Koreans back across the 38th Parallel. It was during one of those drives, in April 1951, that Dad almost became one of the 54,269. His unit was fighting for a hill when a mortar round landed next to him. His rifle was destroyed, his right hand was mangled and he was severely wounded. Decades later, Dad still occasionally picked out tiny pieces of Chinese shrapnel and Korean rock from his arms and legs.

He and his company commander, who also was wounded, were evacuated from the hill. Dad wound up being shipped to a Danish hospital ship where doctors amazingly were able to save his hand. (Dad once told me there were some who wanted to amputate his hand, but were overruled.) From there, it was on to a hospital in Japan, then ultimately back to medical facilities at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and months of rehab therapy. Despite nearly having his right hand nearly blown off, Dad managed to develop an astoundingly strong grip in it.

Dad didn’t talk that much about what happened in Korea —although he readily told tales of Army life and non-war escapades —it always stayed with him. There were times when he had dreams, and whenever you woke you did so carefully. Although I came along in 1954 and my memories didn’t really start sticking with me for a while, I still recall Dad not being too fond of fireworks for many years. Mom told me that one time someone set off a whistling chaser, and Dad nearly jumped under the car at the sound.

Dad probably wasn’t a lot different from many other veterans who came home from Korea. Having served there forged a bond, a brotherhood, among them all. They didn’t come home to national parades, or welcoming throngs of people greeting them. Ironically, as far as I know, MacArthur was the only one from Korea to get a ticker-tape parade. It wasn’t until 1997 —43 years after the armistice —that Korean veterans got a national memorial.

Dad’s gone now, and like the World War II veterans, Korea’s veterans also are fading away. And as with the WWII vets, we can’t let the memories and sacrifices of those who served in Korea be lost, and we can’t forget them. They, too, answered the call for freedom and stood against aggression in the first post-war test of the free world’s resolve to stand up to communism. They made sacrifices for a people they didn’t know in a land most had never heard of in the name of liberty.

Today, at the Korean War Memorial, faces of those who served look back from an etched wall at visitors who may wonder why they and our country went to war on a peninsula halfway around the world. All we have to do is look at the words on the Pool of Remembrance at the end of that wall for the answer —“Freedom is not free.”