(The following was written a few days before the horrible events of Sept.11 . Since then there has been a surge of patriotism. Many want to serve in some way perhaps even to join the military. Others may think as I do that modern war is too horrible to imagine and the prospect of more body bags tempers our enthusiasm. Hunting, capturing and prosecuting terrorists is warranted. However, war is not a solution for our political and diplomatic failures.)
Watching the ghastly, but realistic enactment of the invasion of Normandy in the opening scenes of the movie "Saving Private Ryan," I wondered, like many people probably did, how we could ever again think of sending our boys away to be slaughtered.
If you are ever unlucky enough to be called to war, its best to be a General behind the lines pushing little markers around simulating troops attacking the enemy. The poor grunts at the front charging machine guns don't have much of a chance and don't live long. The generals get the medals and the praise by sending others up steep hills against withering fire.
Fifty years ago I was drafted into the U.S. Army and after basic training was promptly shipped to Korea. In those days people didn't wonder why, they did as they were told. There were very few conscientious objectors and they were often thought to be un-American. I quickly went through training and then sailed out of Seattle to Korea accepting my fate without question.
It took 12 days to cross the Pacific. On the 11th day a second lieutenant, about my age, came down into the ship's hold where we were bunked and gave us a lecture on why we were being sent to Korea, a place most of us had never heard of before 1950.
"You are going to Korea to fight Communists," he told us. "If we don't stop them they will be in California next." This seemed a bit far-fetched even in those days of Communist hysteria but I hadn't given much thought about why I was there. Harry Truman had told us it was just a "police action," not really a war.
Well, in less than three years Harry's little police action resulted in some 40,000 American deaths, two million dead Koreans, plus the bombing, napalming and complete devastation of the Korean countryside.
Looking back, I think I should have questioned that second lieutenant's reasoning in his ship- board pep session. Korea was an unlikely place to make a stand against Communism. It had been a Japanese colony from 1910 until WWII and was about as far removed from Evansville, Indiana both geographically and culturally as you could get. The small peninsula jutting out from mainland China was divided with the North, a socialist dictatorship, and the South, a right-wing dictatorship.
It was not easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. While we were figuring it out, a lot got killed, and a lot got scared, and most were counting the days until their hitch was up.
I remember leaving Inchon, Korea in July 1953 sailing for the States. My war memories were fading with the receding Korean coast. We were two hours at sea when word spread on the troop ship that the peace treaty at Panmunjon had just been signed and the war/police-action was over.
Gazing at the distant shore, I mused, "well, nobody can say I left the job unfinished, I stayed till the bitter end."
Now the question is, was it worth it? All the death and destruction and the havoc we left there. I think the answer is no. The Communists could never have reached California. We should have let the Koreans settle their differences among themselves. Ironically, they are about to do that now, a half century later
The other question is will mothers and fathers ever again send their boys off to war to be slaughtered, particularly to lands we never heard of and to wars we don't understand? Not my boy…maybe yours.
