For some days now I have been hearing news of that little peninsula protruding out of the under belly of China, known as North and South Korea. All this talk brings back memories of that fractured country. The Forgotten War There has not been much written about the Korean War. It has become known as our forgotten war. The Korean Conflict is little more than a phrase in our history books, yet the war was a traumatic momentous chapter in American History. It was a big, long war during which nearly six million men and women served in the armed forces. Americans fought in Korea nearly three times as long as we fought in WW I and almost as long as we fought in WW II. American casualties in Korea were heavy: 33,629 killed, over 103,000 wounded. I spent fourteen months in Korea, weathered two cold winters there, spent out in the open with no shelters, winters filled with frostbite that sifted down from Manchuria. I experienced their monsoon season, I climbed some of their mountains, I met some of their people. I had good times and bad times in Korea, I knew both fear and joy. Today not much is known about the Korean war. After all, it was a long time ago. Korea was my war, I was there, and I have memories of that time.
I was going to mention that I liked your avatar Bill, so will state that here Its a 'reflective' pose and I guess many thoughts are going through your mind of past times All war is horrific and I'm sorry to hear you have experienced the sadness of it But - we must never forget .............. Bless you Bill
Indeed @Bill Boggs ....a forgotten war by the vast majority of historians and the public alike... It was a terrible war...atrocities meted out to POW's by the Japanese and the Koreans were worse in many ways to the WW2.. My uncle Bill was one of the 100, 000 British soldiers who served in Korea.... Britain lost just over 1,000 men... the USA had catastrophic losses of over 37,000 ...and China and Korea lost over 1.5 million..... I was only little and I remember asking him when I was about 5 years old why he was bald, and he told me he had been a soldier in a hot country before I was born and had to wear a beret all the time in the sun, and it wore his hair away.... I believed him for years!! Anyway this is not me being clever and remembering those statistics ...I got it here.... Almost 100,000 British troops fought in Korea 50 years ago in conflict as bloody as any seen before or since. Yet many veterans still consider it the war our country has forgotten. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1285708.stm Thank you for your service, it was by all accounts a horrendous and vicious battle for our freedom , so a mere thank you doesn't seem in any way sufficient ..but on behalf of my future family and my forebears, I thank you... .... .............lest we forget!!
"The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when anarmisticewas signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war." Isn't that the one where General MacArthur told President Truman that if given permission he could achieve victory? We haven't won a war since then.
@Bill Boggs While living in Phoenix, I got to talking to a guy at one of our favorite restaurants. He was very knowledgeable, owned a machine shop, had a son of about 40 who often met us there. His name was Bob Haines. He revealed he had flown one of the early jet fighters in Korea, F-100 I think it was. He understood electricity very well, described a way for me to run a 3-phase motor with single-phase power. This was in the mid-late '80s, so he must have been over 60, I'd judge. He told me, I'm sure, but I've forgotten. Not wanting to be intrusive, I really wanted to go see him at his shop, only a couple miles north on Central Avenue. Then, I started noting his absence at the food counter. The waitress he had sparred with, he calling her "old bat", she retorting, "you old goat", told me he had died. I decidedly felt a lump in my throat. Missed opportunity, lost forever........ Frank
Bill I thank you for your service and it is a great reminder that no one wins in war except the people who make money off of it. The biggest problem is the people who make money off of it are the ones who want other people to go and die for it. They try and convince you yes we can win and forget to ask the people in the cemetery and hospitals.