Korea

Told that the 19 stainless steel statues on the Mall in Washington, foot soldiers on permanent patrol, are a memorial to those who fought, and died, in Korea more than half a century ago, the young man asked:

"We actually fought in Korea? ... I thought that was just a TV show."

This story, which first appeared in American Legion magazine, may be apocryphal; it nonetheless underscores an irrefutable point: the Korean War, or police action, was our first Forgotten War.

It was, writes John Burgess in the Washington Post, "The first big shooting war of the Cold War ... a very different kind of fight. It was limited, unpopular, fought under the United Nations banner on the periphery of two superpowers (USA and Russia), prosecuted at the risk of atomic holocaust and, ultimately, brought to an end without clear victory."

Today, along the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea, American soldiers guard the border and, on occasion, are shot at by fanatical enemy troops.

Fifty-one years ago, as a draftee, I traveled as far as Yokohama, Japan. Here, GIs in fatigues were called to a camp clearing where service numbers were read aloud by an all-business sergeant. Those who heard their number were then shipped to Korea, to fight. I was assigned to the Pacific Stars & Stripes, in Tokyo, and became a reporter.

As patriotic men and women again prepare for Veterans Day, to be celebrated November 11th, it is this old soldier's mission to review and remember the forgotten war. I began by visiting Washington and, on a sunny, wind-swept weekday, sat alone on a stone bench closeby the dramatic memorial that first opened in July 1995.

The centerpiece of the 2.2 acre site is the line of statues, battle-clad troopers moving up a slope, or through a rice paddy, each one carrying a combat weapon or radio. The soldiers are "caught not in poses of victory, but in the midst of some endless, dangerous, perhaps futile patrol," explains newsman Burgess. The statues "sum up many veterans' feelings about the war."

It proved a brutal, even primitive war in which 1.5 million Americans served, some 103,000 were wounded and 33,600 were killed. (An estimated 3 million Koreans and Chinese were killed or wounded.) Korea is a 400-mile long Asian peninsula and, to the GIs who fought there between 1950-53, proved a hellish place of punishing extremes, from the draining heat and humidity of summer to winter's limb-killing cold. It is fitting that inscribed at the memorial is the message:

"Our Nation Honors Her Sons and Daughters Who Answered the Call to Defend a Country They Did Not Know and a People They Had Never Met. Korea, 1950-53." The official Memorial theme remains: "Freedom Is Not Free."

In my scribbled notes from that recent day, I read: "Onlookers become quiet as they approach the line of solders-even most adolescents. You simply must stop ... to stare, and to study. This, then, is the tribute that our absent, and forgotten, GIs deserve. Would that every American could come here ... to reflect ... and remember."