KOREA’S ‘INVISIBLE VETERANS’

RETURN TO AN AMBIVALENT AMERICA

by Richard K. Kolb

 

Reprinted from the November 1997 issue of VFW Magazine

with permission to The Korean War Educator from the editors

 

 

For the 1.6 million Americans who served in Korea (1950-53), U.S. society has been less than generous in terms of recognition.  It’s time to rectify this injustice and give credit where it is due. 

 

    Until 1958, the war in Korea was not even officially dignified by the term war.  Even today, the Truman Administration’s euphemisms "conflict" and "police action" hold sway.  Perhaps this is so because, as in diplomat W. Averell Harriman’s words, Korea was considered "a sour little war." 

    Statistics pertaining to the war are muddled.  While the Korean War itself lasted from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, what is known as the "Conflict Period" officially extends to Jan. 31, 1955. 

    During this period, 5,764,143 personnel served in the armed forces worldwide.  Incidentally, about 20% of this number had also served in WWII.  Some 1,789,000 troops (64% of them Army) served in the Far East Command (Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Sea of Japan) during the war.  However, only 1.6 million GIs actually fought on the Korean peninsula.  Peak strength of U.S. ground forces in Korea totaled 302,483 in July 1953. 

    Formerly all-black units were fully integrated by war’s end.  Approximately 13% of servicemen who served under the Far East Command were black.  An all-Spanish-speaking unit—the 65th Infantry Regiment from Puerto Rico—served in Korea, too.  Women planed an indispensable role in the medical field: 500-600 nurses staffed MASH outfits. 

    Christine Sinnott, who served 5½ years as an Army nurse—1½ of them in Korea—and says she still "gets a lump in her throat whenever she watches a parade and sees the American flag pass," is typical of the caliber of women and men who sacrificed part of their youth there.

 

"Selective Service"

 

    Initially, Marine and Navy reservists were called up to active duty to supplement regular Army forces.  These "retreads" from WWII, as they were known, proved to be an invaluable resource in the inexperienced ranks.  In December 1950, 82% of the Army in Korea was made up of regulars.  Exactly two years later, the ratio was 37% regular to 63% draftee. 

    Since the average youth did not spring to the colors, it was necessary to resort to a method of securing manpower that was far from popular.  As the saying went, "there are two things we gotta avoid:  Korea and gonorrhea."  Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey put it most succinctly: "Everyone wants out; no one wants in."   

    All means were devised to circumvent the draft—mostly legal.  (Convicted draft violators during the war years numbered less than 10,000.)  To avoid the infantry, many joined the Navy, Air Force or National Guard.  Others wrested deferments and exemptions with the aid of the very Administration that gave America the war. 

    In March 1951, President Harry Truman issued an executive order deferring students who scored at least 70 on an intelligence test.  The following spring, 65% of the 400,000 students tested were deferred, opening the door to charges of bias. 

    Such draft policies gave preference to what famed newsman Edward R. Murrow called an "intellectual elite."  Some draft board members resigned in protest against a deferment policy that was seen as "un-American and represented class discrimination." 

    Not surprisingly, military service during the Korean War "did not become the model generational experience of young men in the early 1950s," according to one historian.  During the conflict period, 1,751,820 men were drafted, but relatively few found themselves in Korea. 

    As far as socio-economic status, the bulk of ground combat forces were drawn from the lower middle/working class.  These men were generally the cream of a community’s crop, for the U.S. Army rejected 50% of potential draftees.  A tour of duty in Korea depended upon proximity to the fighting.  Rear-echelon forces (67% of Army personnel) served 18 months.  Combat troops (33% of the Army) fought for nine to 12 months. 

    GIs at the front did get a bit extra.  The Combat Duty Act of 1952, enacted on July 10, authorized payment, retroactive to June 1, 1950, of $45 per month to members of specifically designated combat units.  Individuals had to have six days duty in a given month to qualify. 

    Five-day "R&Rs" (Rest & Relaxation) to Tokyo, Japan and the "Big R"—rotation to the states—were instituted to alleviate the stress of static warfare.  Of the 1,587,040 men who served in Korea, only 198,380 actually experienced frequent combat, according to Richard A. Gabriel in No More Heroes: Madness & Psychiatry in War.  The number of U.S. psychiatric casualties admitted to military medical facilities for treatment was 48,002—24.2% of all full-fledged combat veterans. 

    Chances of surviving physical wounds were greatly enhanced during the Korean War.  Amputation and crippling wounds to the lower extremities occurred at a greater rate than in WWII as a consequence.  Many of the 103,284 Americans wounded in action (only those hospitalized were counted then) owe their lives to the helicopter.  In January 1951, for the first time, "eggbeaters" were used to evacuate casualties from Seoul. 

    A veteran, of both WWII and Korea, observed during the war: "The courage, the absolute sacrifice that these boys have been willing to make and did make, these are the things you’ll always remember." 

    Courage was never in short supply.  Of the 131 Medals of Honors awarded to Korean War servicemen, 70 (53%) were posthumous.  Altogether, 50,358 medals for valor were issued.  And 33,629 Americans died in combat.  Blacks accounted for 3,223 of the KIA, or 9% of the total. 

    Renowned British military historian Edgar O’Ballance wrote of the GI: "His conduct in battle was of an exceedingly high standard."  He also found that "despite the negative effects of home front disenchantment on morale, the spirit and cheerfulness of American soldiers remained amazingly high." 

 

Public Support Lacking

 

    Intervention in the "Hermit Kingdom" was undertaken under the aura of an international moral crusade.  Newsweek called it an act of "…courageous knight-errantry."  Truman confessed that "in the final analysis, I did this for the United Nations."  Yet only 7% of the American people agreed with Truman’s basis for U.S. involvement in Korea. 

    Truman’s description of his crusade as a "police action" evoked considerable cynicism from the average serviceman.  A Marine marching ditty went as follows:  "We’re Harry’s police force on call.  So put your backpack on, the next step is Saigon."  Quite prophetic in light of later developments in Vietnam. 

    Liberal intellectuals vehemently supported this East Asian venture.  Richard H. Rovere, himself a bona fide liberal, later reminded his colleagues that, "there was hideous bloodletting in Korea and few liberals protested it." 

    Indeed, no organized opposition to the war arose.  Left-wing radicalism was smothered by the pall of "McCarthyism."  Although a few rumblings were heard from the Communist Party, Progressive Party, Harry Bridge’s Longshoremen’s Union and writer I.F. Stone, most popular dissent emanated from the other end of the political spectrum. 

    Historian Alonzo L. Hamby capsulized right-wing disenchantment:  "Protest against Korea was spearheaded by a political right outraged by what it considered Administration bungling and a no-win policy.  Fifteen years later, protest against Vietnam found its center of gravity in a political left outraged by the alleged moral depravity of American foreign policy. 

    "Korean War protesters waved the American flag; Vietnam protesters frequently burned it.  Disapproval of Korea was encased in a lifestyle characterized by patriotism and conventional moral behavior; disapproval of Vietnam was inextricably tied to a counter-cultural revolution that defiantly challenged traditional morality." 

    Though the North Korean invasion "…united America, united it as it had not been since that distant confetti evening of V-J", wrote author Joe Goulden, the public mood soon changed.  Attitudes concerning the war were ambivalent—fluctuating from high initial approval when the U.S. was winning to a dramatic dip in enthusiasm after Chinese intervention. 

    The disappointment of deadlock took its toll in support.  Nevertheless, one historian contends: "Throughout the affair in Korea the people of the U.S. remained serene in the conviction that their cause in East Asia, however frustrating, was noble and just." 

    Since only a fraction of the citizenry was touched by the supreme agony of Korea, society remained virtually unaffected by the war.  While GIs fought for their lives 8,000 miles from home, Americans stateside were "relishing the fruits of rampaging prosperity." 

    In fact, the longest (53 days) and costliest strike in U.S. history up to that time occurred in the summer of 1952.  Unforgivable, it denied 105mm artillery shells and other hardware to the men in the field.  The effect on battlefield morale was predictable. 

    Try as they may, the military could not persuade even families of servicemen to display flags in the windows of their homes or to wear lapel buttons in their honor.  "The indifference of some groups of citizens has been noted with regret by returning servicemen from Korea," confessed a Defense Department official. 

    Much of the public considered Korea a mere sideshow to the threatened Soviet showdown in Europe.  And the war’s proximity to WWII combined with increased taxes added to the crusade’s unpopularity.  America came to agree with Robert Taft (R-Ohio), who in 1951, called Korea "an unnecessary and utterly useless war," a conflict "begun by President Truman without the slightest authority from Congress or the people." 

    Further underscoring the utter confusion felt by the general populace was a Gallup poll that revealed 54% of the public favored Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s more aggressive policy while 30% were willing to engage China in full-scale war. 

    Perhaps as a means of venting their frustration over what they perceived as a no-win policy, the American people gave the fired MacArthur a rousing welcome home.  A parade held in New York City in April 1951 included 1,700 miles of ticker tape, 2,852 tons of confetti and attracted 7.5 million viewers. 

 

Stigmatizing the Veteran

 

    In contrast, the average Korean veteran received virtually no recognition.  By 1952, Korea had left not only newspaper front pages but also the public mind.  Several months before the war ended, a prominent veteran in Iowa admonished an apathetic public for stigmatizing its countrymen for fighting in a "question mark war" not of their own making. 

    Donald E. Johnson, destined to become a VA administrator, was moved to ask, "Can you blame our troops for low morale?  They are dying and shedding their blood in a hopeless war, while they are forgotten at home."  Johnson’s admonitions fell on deaf ears. 

    As early as January 1953, the Army Times editorialized: "Certainly—in many respects—it [Korea] is the most ‘forgotten war,’ and the men who fight it are lonesome symbols of a nation too busy or too economy-minded to say thanks in a proper manner." 

    When the war came to its inconclusive end, for the most, part, "There were no celebrations.  News of the armistice signing flicked across the news lights of Time Square; people stopped to read the announcement, shrugged, and walked on; no cheering throngs assembled," wrote Joseph C. Goulden in Korea.  Gen. Mark Clark simply remarked, "I cannot find it in me to exalt in this hour." 

    There was one consolation, however.  "They didn’t stage any parades for us," remembered author and Parade columnist James Brady.  "But then neither did people spit at us." 

    "When I came home from Korea," recalled former Marine Fritz Heistermann, "your family welcomed you and that was it.  I never talked about the war.  People weren’t interested, and wouldn’t know where it was even if you told them." 

    Some communities ignored the outcome of the war and paid tribute to their native sons.  One such place was Piermont, N.Y., a tranquil village of 1,800 inhabitants nestled in the Hudson River valley.  In October 1953, the town held a parade and the mayor gave a speech in honor of the 21 area vets who fought in Korea.  Twelve of them took part in the ceremonies (nine had not yet arrived home).  Exactly half were counted among the war’s casualties.  The parade passed by the city hall plaque bearing the names of the 11 Piermonters killed in WWII.  When the crowd dispersed, the war and its veterans quickly faded from the town’s collective memory. 

    In the next 30 years, only one article pertaining to Korean War vets was published in a popular periodical.  Shortly after the war, an incisive but unflattering portrait of the Korea vet appeared in the New York Times Magazine.  Indifference probably best summarizes the adjectives used by this particular writer to describe what was then America’s newest crop of war veterans. 

    The profound fatalism reportedly exhibited by these vets was capsulized in a special phrase heard often in Korea—"That’s the way the ball bounces."  If Korea vets kept a low profile and accepted their fate in a matter-of-fact fashion, there were reasons for it.  As products of an impersonalized pipeline system known as rotation there was little basis for unit pride.  An unclear and inconclusive war lacking public consensus was hardly good for morale.  The youthfulness of the war’s participants must also be considered. 

    Korea vets were unconsciously inaudible because of the stigma attached to a war gone awry.  Charles Moskos, an internationally respected military sociologist, observed: "The eventual stalemate of the Korean conflict contributed to an inverted placement of blame for the war’s unsatisfactory outcome.  The American soldier himself was held up to question. 

    "After the Korean conflict, defamatory images of the American soldier were propagated by right-wing spokesmen…Significantly, it was among the staunchest patriots that the calumnious portrait of the American soldier was most readily accepted." 

    For one reason or another, Korea vets quickly submerged their identity into the larger community.  As far as is known, readjustment to civilian life for most of them was relatively smooth.  But then again, there were no studies conducted on the psychological impact of a non-supportive society upon its citizen-soldiers after the Korean War. 

 

Myth of Collaboration

 

    Those defamatory images Moskos spoke of derived primarily from the alleged collaboration of the 7,140 American prisoners of war.  Of those captured, 4,418 were returned, but 2,701 (38%) died while in captivity. 

    For almost a decade after the war, collaboration stories were widespread and accepted as gospel.  Damnation sprang everywhere from the pulpit to the press.  Misconceptions, distortions and cynical evaluations abounded. 

    The facts were quite different.  U.S. troops were almost universally invulnerable to Communist indoctrination.  Legal collaboration charges—cases considered for trial—equaled only 4% of all U.S. POWs.  And of these, only a small number were actually convicted. 

    Beyond doubt, the record shows that Korean War POWs behaved as well as Americans captured in any previous war.  Yet all POWs were somehow painted with the brush of betrayal.  Perversely, even the men who succumbed to death during their captivity were blamed for their own fate. 

    Instead of blaming the appalling conditions and brutality which truly accounted for the high death rate, some claimed it was due to the inherent weakness in the character of the GI. 

    Ironically, the Communist captors were thus absolved of guilt for the atrocities they had committed.  Some 75 American POWs, for example, were massacred near Pyongyang in 1950.  By the end of the war, North Korean war crimes had resulted in 5,639 U.S. deaths. 

    After being raked over the coals by the mass media, the negative stereotype rooted in alleged POW misbehavior rubbed off on all Korean War veterans. 

 

Hollywood’s Portrayal

 

    Popular culture also stigmatized GIs of the early ‘50s.  Between 1951 and 1965, more than 50 films were produced using Korea as a backdrop.  Combat in Korea was cinematically depicted as totally grim with little heroic compensation.  And in total contrast to WWII, Hollywood directly criticized battlefield valor in Korea. 

    The Hunters (1958) best summed up the public’s view of the war when star Robert Mitchum said: "The only trouble is Korea came along too soon after the big one.  It’s hard to sell anyone on it." 

    Novels generally followed the same pattern.  Literary characterizations were of resigned, if not fatalistic, men stoically accepting their fate.  To this day, only a handful of works have delved into the innermost feelings of the Korea GI. 

    Other mediums have fared little better.  The movie MASH dealt only with a select group—mostly doctors.  It never really gave the audience a glimpse of what everyday life was like for the infantryman.  The TV version of MASH was inspired more by Vietnam than Korea.  It hit the airwaves three months before the 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi.  Dr. H. Richard Hornberger, author of the novel and a veteran of the 8055th MASH unit, felt the CBS series "sometimes trampled on my memories."  He explained:  "My characters weren’t so liberal.  The series seems to make the North Koreans heroes and the Americans bad guys." 

 

GI Bill Less Generous

 

    Both symbolically and materially, Korea vets were denied their full.  Yet they did receive tangible benefits.  As appropriate, the needs of wounded veterans were the top priority of postwar assistance planners.  Disabled vets were taken care of under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1950.  An estimated 77,000 vets of the era with disabilities used its programs.  It created a Vocational Rehabilitation and Education Advisory Committee, too. 

    Public Law 550—the Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952—saw signed by the President on July 16, 1952.  An ex-GI received 1.5 times his active duty time up to a maximum of 36 months.  Schooling had to begin within two years of discharge.  A single vet received $110 a month, from which he paid for his tuition, books, supplies and on-campus housing. 

    The Korean War GI Bill was less generous than its WWII counterpart.  Korea vets had to pay their tuition out of a monthly stipend rather than having it paid separately and entirely.  As a result, only half as many of them, on a per capita basis, were able to attend private colleges.  Still, 43% of eligible Korean War-era vets used VA-sponsored educational benefits.  Total cost of the Bill was $4.5 billion. 

    VA also guaranteed 649,000 of their home loans in 1955 alone and more than 1.5 million before eligibility expired in January 1955.  The act provided other assistance, too.  Mustering-out pay of $100-$300 was given to each vet.  Job placement and unemployment insurance were handled through the states.  Unemployment compensation was set at $26 for 26 weeks. 

    States in this era were not as prone to offer bonuses.  For instance, in 1962, New York proposed a bonus of $50 to $250 that would cost $100 million to be financed by an increase in the state’s cigarette tax.  As Newsweek reported, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller "bucked the well-oiled, persistent veterans lobby" and won. 

    Veterans preference in federal employment, however, was well-entrenched.  Congress passed a bill on July 14, 1952, extending preference to Korean War-era vets, regardless of whether they actually served in the war zone. 

 

History’s Verdict

 

    If postwar right-wing scapegoating accounted for the denial of recognition of Korea’s vets in the past, then left-wing revisionism is largely responsible for that denial in the present.  After the fall of South Vietnam, some historians attempted to rewrite the history of the Korean War. 

    Americans have been told that the U.S., after all, negotiated in bad faith and was certainly capable of engaging in "germ warfare."  "Indiscriminate saturation bombing" was designed to achieve "genocide."  U.N. treatment of enemy POWs was far worse than that meted out to American prisoners by North Korea.  And "brainwashing" was a Western fabrication. 

    Maybe this is why America’s verdict on the Korean War is still out. A consensus of opinion on its outcome has yet to be reached.  A poll taken in 1993 revealed that 51% of Americans did not regard the war as a worthy cause. 

    Marine Corps hero "Chesty" Puller offered the harshest judgment:  "Stalemate, hell!  We lost the first war in our history, and it’s time someone told the American people the truth about it.  The Reds whipped the devil out of us, pure and simple." 

    Historian Richard Rovere has suggested something quite different:  "We accomplished in Korea what we set out to do—repel armed aggression and demonstrate the efficacy of collective security.  In terms of Truman’s war aims, a victory of sorts was won in Korea…"  He added that history "will cite it [the Korean War] as the turning point of the world struggle against communism." 

    Despite the continuing debate, Korea vets long ago became part of an honored tradition.  Partly in recognition of these new war vets, the first Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day) was held Nov. 11, 1954.  That same day, the Marine Corps Memorial was dedicated by Vice President Richard Nixon in Arlington, VA. 

 

Enduring Recognition

 

    Recalling the sacrifices of Korea’s veterans in some permanent fashion was a long time in coming.  But at least one early step was taken.  From among the unknowns in Hawaii’s "Punchbowl," Sgt. Ned Lyle chose the remains to be placed in the nation’s capital.  On Memorial Day 1958, The Unknown Soldiers of WWII and Korea were laid to rest in what one writer called "the last time that Americans were to see or hear a public ceremony of national significance honoring the American warrior." 

    Oddly enough, in August 1979, a group with the gaudy title of "Consolatory Mission to Korean Veterans in Hospital/Korean-American Goodwill Visiting Mission" came to the U.S. ostensibly to honor and thank Korea vets confined to VA hospitals. 

    For some, the sight of retired South Korean generals parading through the wards of a New York City hospital resurrected some deep-seated memories.  "Korean War," said one aged vet, "Jesus, you know, I was there for eight months, almost nine, and I have to think awhile to even let you know what outfit I was with." 

    Indeed, it wasn’t until July 27, 1985, that the U.S. Postal Service issued a 22-cent commemorative stamp honoring Korean War vets. 

    Six years later, June 21, 1991—the 41st anniversary of the war’s start—9,000 Korean War veterans marched down Manhattan’s "Canyon of Heroes" on lower Broadway as 250,000 spectators looked on.  The parade ended in Battery Park where a 20-foot, black granite monument was dedicated. 

    The national Korean War Veterans Memorial finally became a reality in July 1995.  Authorized in October 1986, it took nearly a decade to become an enduring symbol on Washington’s landscape.  An estimated 50,000 onlookers were on hand to observe the ceremony.  Though names are not engraved in stone, a nearby kiosk makes available information on each casualty of the war.  VFW, incidentally, contributed $600,000 to the memorial fund. 

    Because of their submerged identity, few Korean War vets felt the urge to organize.  Besides, strong veterans groups like the VFW already existed to fight for their rights.  It would be 30 years before the first separate association appeared.  The Chosin Few, strictly for vets of that 1950 battle, was founded April 22, 1983.  It counts a few thousand members, mostly Marine veterans. 

    The Korean War Veterans Association appeared on the scene July 27, 1985.  It was formed by the late William T. Norris and 37 other founding members, most of whom came from a VFW Post in Clifton Park, N.Y.  Its publication is called the Graybeards.  Membership totals about 10,000 and is open to all era vets, as well as those who served in Korea for at least 90 days after 1955.

 

Matter of Respect

 

    Organized or not, most Korean War veterans simply want respect.  When it comes right down to it, the outcome of a geopolitical conflict is no measure of the performance of the men who fought it.  The Americans who served in Korea fought as valiantly as any before or since.  And they deserve to be remembered for it. 

    Korea vets are now in their mid-‘60s, and have long since melted into the mainstream.  The veteran quoted earlier who could not recall his outfit is testimony to this fact.  Nonetheless, their entitlement to national respect is as valid today as ever. 

    As famed war correspondent Eric Sevareid concluded in 1953, the GI’s performance in Korea "outmatches the behavior of those who fought our wars of certainty and victory.  This is something new in American society.  This is something to be recorded with respect and humility."