Remembering The Forgotten War

Both Vietnam and Korea were very unpopular wars among US citizens. There's an immense irony in that it's as understandable as it is mad that we tend to remember and scrutinize Vietnam much more than Korea.

While it's easy to see why Vietnam is looked on as a failure, it's yet another irony that, despite the continuing and stark division (possibly the starkest in the world) of Korea, and the practical "stalemate" result of the "police action", those fighting in the Forgotten War achieved a demonstrable, honorable, and significant success, and one that is too seldom acknowledged and too little praised.

"If you look at South Korea today...we were absolutely right in doing what we did to help save them."

"I have a crusade about this, because for a long time they called it The Forgotten War. We've now coined a phrase The Forgotten Victory. It stopped the Communists. They were bound and determined they were going to take over South Korea. We stopped them. As a matter of fact, the Koreans, the [South] Korean Government has a program, which they started in 1975, that they bring the Korean War veteran and their families back to Korea, they pay their way, it's a subsidized tour -- very few people know that -- to thank them, to thank *us* for saving their country..."

"When we got to the airport at Seoul, they had South Korean officers take our bags for the bus, carried them. The South Korean children, each class has a section of the American cemetery on the outskirts of Seoul, they cut the grass with scissors, and take any dirt or anything like that, and this is their job. They'd wash these statues and stuff like that, put fresh flowers out there. This is their job for the year, each class gets a certain section so the whole cemetery is covered....The Korean people showed every kind of grace and thank you that you can think of. They really appreciated what we did."

Quotes from interviewed Korean War veterans in the documentary Chosin.

It's not a special day, not an anniversary of any of the war's battles, but this is just to say "thank you" to all the vets, both US and otherwise, who fought to allow at least part of Korea to be as free and prosperous as it is today.

Praying for their inhumanly and unbelievably suffering brothers and sisters to the north....