The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association

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Remarks made at The Korea Society Commemorative Gala June 25, 1999 at George Washington University featuring Seoul’s Metropolitan Dance Team. Distinguished guests, fellow Korean War veterans, ladies and gentlemen: I want to thank the members of the Korea Society for arranging this wonderful commemorative event to begin to put the Korean War into a clearer perspective for the American people. I am honored by the opportunity to speak to you tonight on behalf of the thousands of men and women from 20 nations who beginning on this date 49 years ago, joined with their comrades from South Korea and the United States in fighting and winning the United Nation’s historic first battle to stop and rollback totalitarian communist aggression against a free and democratic people. I have long been puzzled why historians, writers and the national media have given such an inordinate amount of extensive attention to the unsuccessful effort to save South Vietnam from a communist attack from the North; while consistently forgetting our successful effort to save South Korea from attack by communist North Korea. The hard, bloody 37 months of fighting in Korea has largely been ignored and it has unjustly been labeled “The Forgotten War.” Well I’m here tonight to tell you that it has never been forgotten by those of us who served there. American presence in Korea didn’t begin with the war. United States troops first entered Korea on September 3, 1945 to enforce Japanese surrender and meet advancing Soviet troops at the 38th Parallel. Today, nearly 54 years later, 37,000 U.S. soldiers remain near that same Parallel where the Korean War began on this date in 1950 and ended on July 27, 1953. I remember what that geographic map line actually looks like on the ground. Because during the bitter cold winter of 1946 - shortly after my 17th birthday - I served as an infantry buck “Korean War For Freedom” “The Korean War was a clean-cut victory for the United States and the United Nations. It stopped a major communist lunge southward, and may well have saved Japan from being engulfed.” And it made possible today’s modern South Korea. Oxford History of the American People private rifleman on the 38th Parallel at the Korean town of Kaesong. And for the next two years I spent my days and nights pulling outpost guard and patrol duties along that dividing line between North and South Korea, sometimes exchanging fire with Russians and North Koreans. And ironically, later during the war, it was in that same rugged area that I climbed out of a sandbag bunker and left Korea in 1952. The last prewar U.S. occupation division was withdrawn to Japan in 1949. My enlistment was up and I returned to the states to enter college under the GI Bill. Like other World War II veterans, upon discharge, I was assigned to the Army’s inactive reserve list. Few of us expected to ever have to serve again. Imagine my shock, when in July 1950 shortly after President Truman unilaterally ordered U.S. forces back into South Korea to meet the surprise North Korean attack, I was recalled to active duty. So instead of finishing my summer college course and enrolling for the fall semester, I like thousands of other hastily recalled Army Marine, Air Force and Navy reservists got out the old, stored-away uniform, said my good-byes, and headed back to camp and the troop ships waiting in California. No one went to Canada. America’s citizen soldiers would fight the Korean War. This sudden involuntary recall of thousands of civilian inactive military reservists -most of whom were decorated World War II veterans only four short years away from long dangerous service in that war and just getting education, jobs and families started - is perhaps one of the most poignant untold stories of the Korean War. With little or no refresher military training, many were rushed pell-mell into battle as individual replacements to depleted American units desperately fighting for their lives in the Pusan Perimeter. They called themselves “retreads”. And they went on to storm ashore at Inchon, defeated the North Korean Army, then with South Korean and UN Allies fighting off the sudden attack of overwhelming Chinese forces in the subzero weather in North Korea, shoot the MiGs out of MiG Alley, save the Hungnam beachhead, and ultimately preserve South Korea’s freedom in the battles of the “Iron Triangle,” on “Heartbreak Ridge” and “Pork Chop Hill”. Sadly, a great many of these brave citizen soldiers did not survive their second war. Freedom had a high cost in lives. They, and thousands of hurriedly called-up and hastily trained teenage draftees and National Guardsmen, along with young UN soldiers, became part of the 54,246 killed, 103,284 wounded and 8,177 still missing in action from three years of bloody fighting. And for those of us that did survive, it was return home after another year or two away at war, store away the uniform, and once more start looking for a job, or to get back into school to start over trying – as some had been since 1946 – to get lives and new families together. No official welcomes. No parades. America took little notice of our going or our return. The war was quickly forgotten by all but ourselves, and our families. As the years have passed I, and I’m sure many of my comrades, have often wondered just what did our service and sacrifice achieve? Perhaps Samuel Eliot Morrison best summed up the outcome of the Korean War in this passage from the 1965 edition of the Oxford History of the American People: “The Korean War was a clean-cut victory for the United States and the United Nations. It stopped a major communist lunge southward, and may well have saved Japan from being engulfed.” And it Page 44 The Graybeards
made possible today’s modern South Korea. So, tonight on behalf of all my aging veteran comrades here from the United States, South Korea and 20 other nations, I ask that you remember the sacrifice of the many young lives and so much of our youth that was given to save South Korea from communist tyranny. It is my hope that on the brink of a new century and the 50th anniversary of the United Nation’s first victory in defense of democratic freedom, that my fellow Americans will finally remember the sacrifices made and recognize what we did not as “The Forgotten War”. But rather as a vitally, necessary “Korean War For Freedom” to defend and preserve for South Korea and the world community, the democratic freedoms that we as a nation hold so dear. Thank you, Ed King, Life member KWVA (It was your editors privilege to attend this function and hear Ed’s stirring remarks. Ed. King just retired from the U.S. Senate. Thank you Ed for your kind remarks about our association and the Graybeards.) 11th Engineers Reunion The 11th Engineers: (front row) John Latham, Fred Boelsche, Charles Scott, William Van Ort, Carl Baswell, Ernest Reeves, Edward Robillard, Albert Marin, David Galka. (2nd Row) Jim Loose, Joseph Clem, Delmar Thornton, Jimmy Bell, Harry Heiney, Richard Fischl, Ernest Seymour, Edwin Breed, Edward McEniry, Dennis Canant. Back Row Leonard Pavell, Mayford. Myers, Allan Eubank, Melvin Fiegen, Leslie Davis, Leon Bowen, William Butchart, Fred Boehle, Russell Meredith, Dominick Mazza The outbreak of the Korean War found the 11th Engineers in Japan. The 11th was the first complete TO&E unit to deploy to Korea in July 1950. At various times during 1950/53, the unit was committed as Infantry. Between 1950 and 1953, the 11th Engineers supported various divisions, the 24th, 25th, 2nd, 7th and the 1st Marine Division. It also supported the 27th British Brigade and the British Commonwealth Brigade. The 11th continued to serve in Korea until 1971. The 11th earned 10 Battle Stars and was awarded two Meritorious Unit Commendations for the periods 1950/51 and 1953/54. (Thank you Fred Boelsche for photo.) January/February, 2000 Page 45
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