U.S. Military Veterans Visit South Korea 73 Years After Serving in the Korean War
This must be pretty surreal for these Korean War to see what South Korea has become today decades after the Korean War:
Seventy-three years after fighting in a devastated South Korea, Marine veteran Patrick Finn returned this month to a country he could hardly have imagined while exhausted, dirty and frightened on the battlefield. Finn, of Minneapolis, served as a corporal with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines during the 1950-53 Korean War. “I couldn’t put a lot of things together until later,” he told Stars and Stripes in a Sept. 18 interview at the Ambassador Seoul hotel. “We were exhausted. We were tired, dirty, and I was scared.”
Finn was among six American Korean War veterans who toured South Korea from Sept. 14 to 19, visiting U.S. military installations and taking part in events commemorating the alliance between the two countries. Three former commanders of U.S. Forces Korea — retired Army Gens. Robert Abrams, Paul LaCamera and Burwell Bell — also participated. The group visited Osan Air Base and Camp Humphreys on Sept. 16 and 17. Humphreys is headquarters for USFK, United Nations Command and Combined Forces Command.
You can read more at the link, but I wonder if I will ever be an old veteran like this and return to Iraq and think the same thing? Afghanistan I know there is no such chance of that place getting their act together. In Iraq I still think it is possible if they can get Iran to leave them alone.
