OT: Korean Veterans Day

[Targan]

Today is Korean Veterans Day in Australia. Respect to all veterans of the Korean War, and lest we forget those who gave their lives in that conflict.

Australia's contingent to the Korean War performed extremely well, our soldiers notably held their positions with dogged determination against Chinese counter attacks in many battles. From what I've read it must have been a hellish war to be involved in.

[headquarters]

lest we forget.

[Raellus]

I think it's cool that you Aussies devote an entire day to Korean War vets. Here in the States, we have Memorial Day, which covers the dead from every American War and Veterans' Day, which is similarly generalized. Korea has been called the "Forgotten War" by some American scholars because:

A. It wasn't an outright win for the U.S./ROK/U.N. and...

B. It was squeezed in between the much larger/longer WWII and Vietnam Wars.

It's too bad because a lot of Americans fought, were wounded, or died there. It was the seminal armed proxy conflict of the Cold War. My dad earned his purple heart there. The U.S. still has thousands of service men and women stationed there and, the two Koreas are still technically at war. Considering that the NKs have at least a couple of nukes, and several types of ballistic missiles, I think that Americans should know a lot more about the last 100 years or so of Korean history.

[Graebarde]

Pulled my second combat tour in Korea... Dec 70 - Jan 72.. I say combat tour because:

1. Upon my arrival at the unit (located on the Yellow Sea 60 km north of Kunsan, well below the DMZ) on Christmas Eve '70 the ROKAF was trying to sink a NKP gunboat on the western horizon... red rockets down in the dark, green tracers going up... frying pan into the fire... I got diverted from Nam to ROK on second tour.

2. Aug 71... encounter unknown number who fired AKs at my patrol. Fire returned, including two 40mm HE. Blood spoor, but no bodies.. ROK army took over, and we RTB.. next day there was hell to pay in a fishing village where the infiltrators were back trailed to. Had I not led the patrol in the irregular manner, rather than like the other section did up the valley EVERY time, we would have been wasted... we came into the BACK of the ambush set up for us. But the incident never made any news.. as did the majority of the 375 incidents in 71... guess it was because there were no bloody mangled bodies to take pictures of or what ever.

Combat patrols STILL go on.. incidents STILL happen.. NKP STILL try to infiltrate... and ROK army STILL kicks ass.