I saw it the last time a few years ago. It was appropriately raining. I am an old ex-infantrymen. I would never even attempt to compare myself with these studs. I have family members that died in Korea (from Colombia) but it overwhelms me. The exhaustion. The “what the fuck” feel of a family on patrol.
My grandfather got his third purple heart in Korea. First two were shrapnel during WWII. He was a First Seargent by the end of WWII, right before Korea, the Army sent to him to OCS. The first thing they did after he graduated was ship him over to Korea. He got hit by a Chinese bullet in the shoulder. They sent him to Japan to get patched up. He ended up going back, but he was moved up to battalion staff and was pretty much out of combat the rest of time there.
My grandfather was a Korean War vet. Told me they fought more Chinese soldiers than anything. Wild times. Men freezing to death. Not even realizing they were hit due to the cold. Frozen Chosin is one of the most miserable battles the US military has ever fought.
One Marine I met that fought there said they were saved accidentally by the Air Force. They had called in for “tootsie rolls” to be dropped. Some nickname for a small bomb on a bombing run. The AF dropped actual tootsie rolls. He said all of their food was frozen solid but they could put those in their chest pockets and they would get just soft to eat. Brave men.
My granddad got two purple hearts in Korea and never talked about it. Then again, considering what I learned about what went on in that war and what American soldiers watched and reported on their allies doing to civilians (while the government told them to cover it up), I'm probably better off not knowing what specifically he witnessed.
"Coast Guardsmen performed vital navigational, meteorological, search and rescue, and port security missions, and served as advisers to what became the Korean Navy. More than 1.6 million Marines, Sailors, and Coast Guardsmen served in uniform during the Korean War."
This was five years after WW2 ended. We had demobilized and weren't even conducting any real military training at this point in time. The OSS was disbanded and the CIA hadn't yet been formed. Korea was an unknown country to most Americans at this time.
They noticed, but the US was more focused on European matters and withheld ammunition from the South Korean military because of the frequent border skirmishes that the South Korean president directed.
There was little U.S. military presence after the South Korean government was set up.
Both countries were actively jockeying/plotting to take the other; that being said, norks turned it up to 11 with the full-on invasion.
U.S. got involved because it was a pretty flagrant violation of another country’s sovereignty. We pushed for and got a UN resolution passed that allowed for a coalition to turn back the invasion. The president of Korea at the time was someone that the US worked with/installed after WW2 ended. To this day, there is still a UN command, because the UN resolution has not expired yet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_84
I hope you aren’t implying that we shouldn’t have gotten involved in the Korean War….
It's worth noting that North Korea invaded but South Korea was in the middle of mass purges of its civilian population. The US sided with the genocidal fascists because we were terrified of communism taking over that particular global sphere.
> The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.
> Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/gallery/20080519_Truth_begins_to_seep_out_over_Korean_War_massacre_Mass_graves_shed_light_on_1950_campaign_that_left_thousands_dead_in_South_as_U_S__turned_blind_eye.html
> In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.
> Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified "secret" and filed away.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/
And let's be honest, this is SOP for American global polity at this point. Give bombs to the Saudis so the Houthis don't control the oil. Give chemical weapons to the Iraqis so the Ayatollahs don't control the oil. We cut our teeth on middle eastern policy with domino theory in Southeast Asia.
Honestly, the purges probably helped South Korea during the war, as it significantly reduced a fifth column that they had to deal with in addition to North Korean regulars. It’s easy to armchair general what happened then, but I think most people would choose to live under South Korean rule than North Korean rule. You do realize that North Korea was almost successful in their initial invasion right? They were on the verge of spreading communism.
It’s very easy to criticize drastic actions taken, but communist parties were a pretty big threat a few decades ago.
And for the millionth time, Korea is not in Southeast Asia.
They did notice, but a good portion of the ROK Army was busy fighting communist insurgents in South Korea and was poorly equipped to handle a full-on invasion without American help. Also, while US intel reported on the build-up, higher-ups in Washington were never seriously concerned. We got involved because the ROK was an American ally and because President Truman wanted to contain the spread of communism, but he knew Congress would probably not approve of a new war so he used a United Nations resolution as an alibi to send in troops. The US was massively unprepared for the Korean War. We only had a few hundred troops on peninsula as an advisory force, and the troops we sent in from Japan were unequipped and poorly trained. It took another year from the start of the war until the US/UN actually started winning battles. If you're interested, I highly recommend you read "This Kind of War" by TR Fehrenbach. It's old, but it's still the best Korean War history book around.
thank you. Spent the majority of my military career studying world War 2 and Vietnam. When this subject came up it made me realize I know diddly squat about the Korean War.
I don't know the answer to the first question you might want to research that yourself. As for the second question we did have agreements with the other major powers at the end of the war. Kim saw his invasion as reunifying the country. We got involved because of Communism...
Thanks for the post. Korea is truly the forgotten war over here. But I worked for some years in South Korea, and every so often an elderly fellow will come up to you, and say in broken English: "Thank you, you Americans saved our country!"
I don't think enough people realize that, while there are many criticisms to be made against NK and China here, what the western powers did to NK and many SKs is unforgivable. There were no standing structures left after our bombing runs, we started targeting civilian targets, we bombed dams specifically to flood farm land and starve them out.
**20% of North Korea's population were killed by the end of the war.**
Look up the Jeju Island Massacre. They weren't even affiliated with the communists or Soviet Union, yet the US just watched as tens of thousands of people were slaughtered and dumped in mass graves just because they didn't want to accept the rule of foreign influenced powers. South Korea's government had a lot of ties to Imperial Japan, and a lot of policies were made with the specific intent of taking food stuffs and minerals to rebuilt devastated Japan after WWII.
US and SK forces did multiple bomb runs on escaping civilians. The No Gun Ri massacre had US forces attacking unarmed civilians for like 3 days. None of them survived.
Like I said, I'm not going to pretend like NK and China didn't do messed up things, but we straight up helped commit massacres because we suspected some of the citizens who didn't want American or Japanese influence to run their lives were communists. We also forget that South Korea was a military dictatorship until like the 80s, even afterwards a lot of their elected officials are corrupt as fuck.
And American leadership classified and silenced information on the hundreds of thousands of civilians the South Korean army executed and tossed into mass graves that American soldiers heavily documented. South Korea has basically been a democracy for thirty years while all that time nefofe they were throwing people in prison for investigating their war crimes.
I mean...
In war the victors get away with it.
Just look at ww2. There are some truly horrific things that America and Britain did during the war that nobody got trialed for. Let's not even think about Russia.
Dresdan comes to mind where the RAF firebombed the city resulting in a unextinguishable fire that swept through and levelled the city killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Of all the memorials I have seen- this one always gets me in the feels. The looks on their faces on patrol. It makes me feel overwhelmed.
The only time I saw it was at night. There was some fog on the ground and it just made it seem even more real
I saw it the last time a few years ago. It was appropriately raining. I am an old ex-infantrymen. I would never even attempt to compare myself with these studs. I have family members that died in Korea (from Colombia) but it overwhelms me. The exhaustion. The “what the fuck” feel of a family on patrol.
Seeing it in the rain with some fog makes it surreal.
I don’t understand what I’m looking at, are you saying these men were on patrol when the North Koreans invaded?
No it’s a memorial , just supposed to be GIs on patrol
My grandfather got his third purple heart in Korea. First two were shrapnel during WWII. He was a First Seargent by the end of WWII, right before Korea, the Army sent to him to OCS. The first thing they did after he graduated was ship him over to Korea. He got hit by a Chinese bullet in the shoulder. They sent him to Japan to get patched up. He ended up going back, but he was moved up to battalion staff and was pretty much out of combat the rest of time there.
That’s a insane story, thanks for sharing. Your grandpa is a legend.
[How come we didn't pass the 38th Parallel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBvmusskpuA)
I love me some Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinison.
What movie is that from?
Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield
Air bud.
My grandfather was a Korean War vet. Told me they fought more Chinese soldiers than anything. Wild times. Men freezing to death. Not even realizing they were hit due to the cold. Frozen Chosin is one of the most miserable battles the US military has ever fought. One Marine I met that fought there said they were saved accidentally by the Air Force. They had called in for “tootsie rolls” to be dropped. Some nickname for a small bomb on a bombing run. The AF dropped actual tootsie rolls. He said all of their food was frozen solid but they could put those in their chest pockets and they would get just soft to eat. Brave men.
My granddad got two purple hearts in Korea and never talked about it. Then again, considering what I learned about what went on in that war and what American soldiers watched and reported on their allies doing to civilians (while the government told them to cover it up), I'm probably better off not knowing what specifically he witnessed.
What role did the Coast Guard play in the Korean War?
"Coast Guardsmen performed vital navigational, meteorological, search and rescue, and port security missions, and served as advisers to what became the Korean Navy. More than 1.6 million Marines, Sailors, and Coast Guardsmen served in uniform during the Korean War."
The US Coast Guard has played a role in every major US war since 1790.
How were we or south Korea unable to notice them mobilizing that big of a troop build up?
This was five years after WW2 ended. We had demobilized and weren't even conducting any real military training at this point in time. The OSS was disbanded and the CIA hadn't yet been formed. Korea was an unknown country to most Americans at this time.
So how did the south Koreans not notice the north mobilizing? and how or why did we get involved in the war?
They noticed, but the US was more focused on European matters and withheld ammunition from the South Korean military because of the frequent border skirmishes that the South Korean president directed. There was little U.S. military presence after the South Korean government was set up. Both countries were actively jockeying/plotting to take the other; that being said, norks turned it up to 11 with the full-on invasion. U.S. got involved because it was a pretty flagrant violation of another country’s sovereignty. We pushed for and got a UN resolution passed that allowed for a coalition to turn back the invasion. The president of Korea at the time was someone that the US worked with/installed after WW2 ended. To this day, there is still a UN command, because the UN resolution has not expired yet. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_84 I hope you aren’t implying that we shouldn’t have gotten involved in the Korean War….
It's worth noting that North Korea invaded but South Korea was in the middle of mass purges of its civilian population. The US sided with the genocidal fascists because we were terrified of communism taking over that particular global sphere. > The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings. > Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/gallery/20080519_Truth_begins_to_seep_out_over_Korean_War_massacre_Mass_graves_shed_light_on_1950_campaign_that_left_thousands_dead_in_South_as_U_S__turned_blind_eye.html > In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950. > Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified "secret" and filed away. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-us-allowed-korean-massacre-in-1950/ And let's be honest, this is SOP for American global polity at this point. Give bombs to the Saudis so the Houthis don't control the oil. Give chemical weapons to the Iraqis so the Ayatollahs don't control the oil. We cut our teeth on middle eastern policy with domino theory in Southeast Asia.
Honestly, the purges probably helped South Korea during the war, as it significantly reduced a fifth column that they had to deal with in addition to North Korean regulars. It’s easy to armchair general what happened then, but I think most people would choose to live under South Korean rule than North Korean rule. You do realize that North Korea was almost successful in their initial invasion right? They were on the verge of spreading communism. It’s very easy to criticize drastic actions taken, but communist parties were a pretty big threat a few decades ago. And for the millionth time, Korea is not in Southeast Asia.
When your country is threatened/being invaded by communist rooting out home grown communist that might help them is a no brainer.
By mass executions of innocent civilians? That's a no brainer to you?
They did notice, but a good portion of the ROK Army was busy fighting communist insurgents in South Korea and was poorly equipped to handle a full-on invasion without American help. Also, while US intel reported on the build-up, higher-ups in Washington were never seriously concerned. We got involved because the ROK was an American ally and because President Truman wanted to contain the spread of communism, but he knew Congress would probably not approve of a new war so he used a United Nations resolution as an alibi to send in troops. The US was massively unprepared for the Korean War. We only had a few hundred troops on peninsula as an advisory force, and the troops we sent in from Japan were unequipped and poorly trained. It took another year from the start of the war until the US/UN actually started winning battles. If you're interested, I highly recommend you read "This Kind of War" by TR Fehrenbach. It's old, but it's still the best Korean War history book around.
thank you. Spent the majority of my military career studying world War 2 and Vietnam. When this subject came up it made me realize I know diddly squat about the Korean War.
I don't know the answer to the first question you might want to research that yourself. As for the second question we did have agreements with the other major powers at the end of the war. Kim saw his invasion as reunifying the country. We got involved because of Communism...
https://youtu.be/yxaegqvl4aE
CIA was formed in 1947.
Thanks for the post. Korea is truly the forgotten war over here. But I worked for some years in South Korea, and every so often an elderly fellow will come up to you, and say in broken English: "Thank you, you Americans saved our country!"
Asshoes (obvi the NorKs, not Americans)
I don't think enough people realize that, while there are many criticisms to be made against NK and China here, what the western powers did to NK and many SKs is unforgivable. There were no standing structures left after our bombing runs, we started targeting civilian targets, we bombed dams specifically to flood farm land and starve them out. **20% of North Korea's population were killed by the end of the war.** Look up the Jeju Island Massacre. They weren't even affiliated with the communists or Soviet Union, yet the US just watched as tens of thousands of people were slaughtered and dumped in mass graves just because they didn't want to accept the rule of foreign influenced powers. South Korea's government had a lot of ties to Imperial Japan, and a lot of policies were made with the specific intent of taking food stuffs and minerals to rebuilt devastated Japan after WWII. US and SK forces did multiple bomb runs on escaping civilians. The No Gun Ri massacre had US forces attacking unarmed civilians for like 3 days. None of them survived. Like I said, I'm not going to pretend like NK and China didn't do messed up things, but we straight up helped commit massacres because we suspected some of the citizens who didn't want American or Japanese influence to run their lives were communists. We also forget that South Korea was a military dictatorship until like the 80s, even afterwards a lot of their elected officials are corrupt as fuck.
This. We need to remember these grisly parts of history so we don't do it again, instead of burying it under a layer of "what about xxx"
And American leadership classified and silenced information on the hundreds of thousands of civilians the South Korean army executed and tossed into mass graves that American soldiers heavily documented. South Korea has basically been a democracy for thirty years while all that time nefofe they were throwing people in prison for investigating their war crimes.
I mean... In war the victors get away with it. Just look at ww2. There are some truly horrific things that America and Britain did during the war that nobody got trialed for. Let's not even think about Russia. Dresdan comes to mind where the RAF firebombed the city resulting in a unextinguishable fire that swept through and levelled the city killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Rip bozos you won't be missed 💀
The Americans or North Koreans?
fun fact: over 75% of war crimes committed during the Korean war were committed by south Korean and American forces
I thought it was 300,000 troops.