Where I Stand -- Mike O'Callaghan: It's time to remember

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

This week, after 50 years, the veterans of the Korean War are receiving much more attention than they did back in 1950 through 1953. It's probably just as well because during those years the most important goal of the veterans was to get home and pick up the lives they had left behind. There were no parades and none were expected or wanted.

June 25, 1950, was the day Soviet-armed North Korean troops raced south toward Seoul. Four days later the first U.S. troops arrived as a unit of 35 men with anti-aircraft guns, which were used to immediately shoot down an enemy propeller-driven fighter plane. Also the first American blood was shed when five soldiers were wounded in action that day. Two days earlier a Fifth Air Force fighter pilot had shot an enemy plane from the air over Seoul. From that day forward our planes fought for, gained and maintained air superiority.

This was the beginning of a bloody war which Americans didn't want to recognize because the "war to end all wars" had been won less than five years earlier. Nevertheless, it soon turned into our country's first and toughest challenge to the spread of Communism.

It wasn't a popular war, but it once again showed us that in less than five years we had let down our guard, and our troops and equipment weren't ready for the first several engagements on the ground. They were especially costly and bloody. Also, recalling veterans of World War II, who had just settled down to work and raise their children, wasn't appreciated.

Americans, raised during the Great Depression and taught the meaning of duty as citizens during WWII, again answered the call of a military draft. A former tank company commander, and later author, T.R. Fehrenbach recalled:

"Few of us wanted to die for Korea, and nobody did a good job of making us understand why we were ordered to defend it.

"Yet, most of us went without shirking or complaint. Our early failures were predictable and well publicized. What was not predictable, not even so well told, was that Americans fought so well.

"In bitter campaigns from stinking, deadly rice paddies to the frozen sides of horrendous mountains, in as hostile terrain as Americans have ever fought, through dubious battles of the night to murderous artillery duels and pitched close combat, American soldiers performed as well -- and better -- than any troops in any war.

"We responded less to calls for patriotism or glory than from a sense of duty. That alone is something for which we can be proud."

The Chinese army entered the war in late 1950 with its troops who were battle hardened from fighting the Japanese invaders for 20 years. Poor leadership resulted in our troops being caught short and trapped in North Korea that winter and paid a heavy price in lives. But, as Fehrenbach recalls, the Americans were quick learners and responded effectively:

"We fought -- and once bloodied -- fought damned well. From first to last, the Chinese rated Americans as the deadliest foe they'd ever met. Other armies marched better or showed more flags; but the Chinese enemy said we harried and killed their hordes with a deadly proficiency that the survivors still remember. We did our job. No one can ask more of a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine."

Wars are fought by people, not by nations, and most of our memories, after fighting in Korea, are about our comrades. Tom Modisett, Johnny Estrada, Charlie Shields, Tom Funakoshi, "Doc" Ivan Utter, Tetsuo Nakahama, Bob Smith, Tom Daley and Ray Brennock always come to my mind. War also teaches lessons about loyalty and the realization that no matter what the color of a man's skin, the blood from an artery is bright red. In Korea, during its final 18 months, the war became very personal when units patrolled and defended the same area for a month or more. More casualties were suffered the last 18 months of the war than the first 18 months.

Long months in hospital amputee wards taught us that the soldier who lost his arm in a training accident or legs to a shark when swimming in Panama hurts just as much, or more, than the soldiers who lost limbs to land mines or enemy mortar shells. It also provided the opportunity to look at nearby beds and see others who were more severely damaged than us. The double amputees and blind were treated as special buddies by the other patients.

Fifteen years ago I returned to South Korea to see happy and healthy little children on their way to school, women bathing babies and washing clothes in a river, peppers drying by the road and people working in the rice paddies. That's when I concluded we did the right thing at the right time by entering the fray in 1950. This doesn't remove the pain we feel for those who died or were left behind when answering the call to serve with us.

Last week in South Korea we saw another spate of demonstrations demanding the closure of a U.S. Air Force bombing range. These outbursts are not uncommon in our own country when military and civilian needs for public lands clash. We shouldn't be upset over these young demonstrators yelling "Yankee go home." Nevertheless, the sooner the two Koreas settle their differences the better off all of us will be and our troops should come home.

This war and peace cycle will then be complete.

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