I’m getting a little tired of the Korean War being referred to as “The Forgotten War”. Ever since I’ve been old enough to have any historical knowledge at all, I’ve know that the US fought a war in Korea between WWII and Vietnam. Hell, what about M.A.S.H., the hit television series that was set during the Korean war fer Chris’Sake!
I submit that the Korean conflict is only “forgotten” by the segment of Baby Boomers to whom Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam was everything.
Is there a question in here?
None of us who are historically aware have forgotten Korea–even among the boomers. However, if you look about, you will find a serious lack of monuments to Korean veterans and a lot of people (mostly among the post-boomer generation) who are not aware of either the reasons it was fought nor the magnitude of the fighting (37,000 deaths in three years).
So. What’s the question?
I think it got that monicker for several reasons:
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We lost a lot of men in that war, but it was sandwiched between the catacysmic(sic?)WW2 and the society changing VietNam War. The Korean War, in a historic poerspective, didn’t have as much impact at home.
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The was really kind of ended in a tie. For this reason, I think many Americans put it out of their minds.
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It was not a popular war, in that five years after losing 100s of thousands of American boys, here we were fighting another war again.
I agree with you Lumpy. I dont think Korea should be “forgotten”. And if you want to make a case for it not being the “Forgotten War”, you are right. I think the right term is “underpubclicized”.
All I can say is this: Kim Il Song (or Jung- I forget which one of the creeps it is) launches a nuke over Los Angeles or orders his 500,000 troops to climb out of those tunnels, we’ll stop “forgetting” about Korea real soon!
“Don’t tell me about the American Way, I fought for it in the war! What war? The big one: Korea. Well it was big to me.”
Sonny Paluso (played by Walter Matthau) in a phone conversation in “The Survivors”