A U.S. veteran of the 1950-53 Korean War salutes in front of the graves of deceased fellow soldiers at the U.N. Memorial Cemetery in Busan, 453 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Oct. 24, 2017, the 72nd United Nations Day. A total of 2,300 people are interred at the cemetery that honors U.N.-led coalition forces who fought with the South in the conflict. (Yonhap)
Here is an interesting story from the Korean War that I had not heard of before about an orphaned baby that was taken aboard and cared for by sailors on a US ship:
Father Riley looks on as Genevieve Keenan holds her new son in 1953.
Life could only get better for Danny Keenan after a Navy medic found him as an abandoned infant on the steps of an infirmary at a U.S. base in South Korea in 1953.
His luck changed so much for the better that it must have rubbed off on a gambling chaplain who won him a Korean passport in a poker game, wagering a bottle of the captain’s best scotch as the final, winning bet.
Before that, however, it appeared as though the baby might die of neglect in an orphanage, until Navy seamen, including two from La Crosse, took him aboard the USS Point Cruz (CVE 119) and doted on him.
“I never would have survived if not for the intervention of the skipper and the men of the Point Cruz,” the 64-year-old Keenan said during an interview last week in La Crosse. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link, but the baby was eventually adopted by a Navy surgeon and brought back to the US where he became Danny Keenan who attended Washington State University and became a sports journalist.
This photo, provided by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs on Sept. 16, 2017, shows South Korean and U.S. Korean War veterans pledging allegiance to their national flags during a ceremony in the United States to mark the 67th anniversary of the Incheon landing operation. The historic operation, led by MacArthur and code-named Operation Chromite, was staged from Sept. 15-19, 1950, and turned the tide of the war in favor of the U.N. troops by successfully cutting the North’s supply and communication lines. (Yonhap)
Flowers are laid at the tombs of Chinese soldiers, killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, in the city of Paju, north of Seoul, on Sept. 12, 2017. China fought on the North Korean side in the war against South Korea aided by the United States-led Allied Forces. (Yonhap)
This is a pretty amazing sequence of events that reunited two Korean War buddies:
Marine Corps veterans Jim Cunningham, left, and Don McIntyre, talk on Aug. 19, 2017 in Warrenton, Va. Both served together in the Korean War and reunited for the first time in 63 years. (Adele Uphaus-Conner/The Free Lance-Star via AP)
One day in July, he decided that he wanted to plant some sweet corn. He borrowed a corn planter from a friend and started to drive it home, but he unintentionally hit a car that was parked on the right side of State Route 208.
Virginia State Trooper Greg Finch responded to the accident. It was a hot day and he invited Cunningham to come and sit in his car while he wrote up the citation.
“We got to talking. It took him an hour and 15 minutes to write up the ticket,” Cunningham said.
During the conversation, Cunningham mentioned that he’d served in Korea.
“I told him I had a real good friend in Korea and I was still looking for him,” Cunningham said. “I told him his name was Don McIntyre. He said, ‘I know Don McIntyre!’ ” [Army Times]
An event to console the families of American soldiers missing in action and prisoners of war during the 1950-53 Korean War at a hotel in Washington on Aug. 10, 2017. The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) and South Korea’s veterans affairs ministry co-organized the event. (Photo courtesy of DPAA) (Yonhap)
Lt. Gen. Thomas Bergeson, commander of the U.S. 7th Air Force and deputy commander of the United Nations Command Korea (UNC), speaks during a UNC-hosted ceremony at the truce village of Panmunjom on July 27, 2017, to mark the 64th anniversary of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. (Yonhap)
During a recent interview with Defense Secretary James Mattis conducted by a high school journalism student; Secretary Mattis recommended that people read a 2013 article in the Atlantic by James Wright that discusses what was learned from the Korean War. The main point the article makes is that the Korean War began a trend of the US becoming involved in military conflicts before settling on political objectives:
Korea established a pattern that has been unfortunately followed in American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These are wars without declaration and without the political consensus and the resolve to meet specific and changing goals. They are improvisational wars. They are dangerous.
The wars of the last 63 years, ranging from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq (but excepting Operation Desert Storm, which is an outlier from this pattern) have been marked by:
Inconsistent or unclear military goals with no congressional declaration of war.
Early presumptions on the part of the civilian leadership and some top military officials that this would be an easy operation. An exaggerated view of American military strength, a dismissal of the ability of the opposing forces, and little recognition of the need for innovation.
Military action that, except during the first year in Korea, largely lacked geographical objectives of seize and hold.
Military action with restricted rules of engagement and political constraints on the use of a full arsenal of firepower.
Military action against enemy forces that have sanctuaries which are largely off-limits.
Military action that is rhetorically in defense of democracy–ignoring the reality of the undemocratic nature of regimes in Seoul, Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul.
With the exception of some of the South Korean and South Vietnamese military units, these have been wars with in-country allies that were not dependable.
Military action that civilian leaders modulate, often clumsily, between domestic political reassurance and international muscle-flexing. Downplaying the scale of deployment and length of commitment for the domestic audience and threatening expansion of these for the international community.
Wars fought by increasingly less representative sectors of American society, which further encourages most Americans to pay little attention to the details of these encounters.
Military action that is costly in lives and treasure and yet does not enjoy the support that wars require in a democracy. [The Atlantic]
The evacuation of Hungnam during the Korean War is a well known event, but I will have to read up more about Colonel Edward Forney’s part in the evacuation when I have the time:
The descendants of U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Edward Forney who helped evacuate about 100-thousand Koreans during the Korean War visited South Korea on Thursday.
The First Marine Division announced on Friday that it invited Forney’s granddaughter Alice Krug and great-grandson Ben Forney to mark June, which is the Month of Patriots and Veterans.
The two guests viewed a road named after Forney inside the unit in Pohang on the southeastern coast and an exhibition hall honoring his achievements.
Forney is considered to be a war hero because he persuaded then Commanding General of the U.S. X Corps, Edward Almond, to evacuate roughly 100-thousand refugees during the Hungnam evacuation in December 1950 from North Korea to the South.
He stayed on for three years after the war to serve as a senior adviser for South Korea’s Marine Corps. [KBS World Radio]
The U.S. has an enduring friendship with a democratic South Korea, forged by the sacrifices of those who served in the ‘Forgotten War.’ pic.twitter.com/qTiXrBcG2n
