Veterans of Korean War

I am a Korean War veteran who is fast becoming fed up with all the Vietnam veterans and with the various groups sanctifying their plight, whatever that is.

Your paper has pages covered with items about the Vietnam veteran, also a feature article concerning a state memorial.

The Korean War was one of the bloodiest ever fought. There were 54,246 killed, 103,284 wounded and 8,177 missing. All this in one-third of the length of the Vietnam War (three years for Korea, nine years for Vietnam).

We never hear a word about the 8,177 missing in action from Korea. We only hear about the 2,477 MIAs from Vietnam (3 to 1 MIAs from Korea over Vietnam).

We fought a mountain war in a climate that ranged from monsoons, with mud slides that make the PCH-Malibu slides pale by comparison, to bitter cold that froze the coffee in our canteen cups. Our M-1s froze up and wouldn’t fire, mortar barrels cracked and became useless.

The wounded had to be carried so far that they often bled to death before medical attention was available.

We have no memorial. We returned to apathy. We were ridiculed as being “Part of Truman’s Police Force.”

Thirty-three years have passed and we still have no memorial. There are two bills in the House (HR 2205 and HR 2588) and one in the Senate (S 1223), which call for a Korean War Memorial. Yet nothing is being done about these bills. There is too much apathy. No one seems to care.

My question is: When will the injustice shown to Korean veterans be corrected? Who will commemorate the patriotic sacrifices that we, the Korean veterans, made? Will someone please welcome ME home and say: “We should have done this 33 years ago?”

CHARLES V. HEARN

Santa Monica