U.S. Korean War Vets Get a Word of Thanks

Re “Veterans Revisit a Nation Worthy of Their Fight” (July 26), on the gratitude expressed to Americans by elderly South Koreans for our sacrifices in the Korean War and the indifference we met in the United States on our return: In November 1980, I parachuted into South Korea as a member of an Army Reserve Special Forces team. On the ground, a South Korean home guardsman noticed the 2nd Infantry Division patch on the right shoulder of my field jacket. He asked me if I had served during the war. When I told him I had, he said a few words to other Koreans grouped around a small fire that had marked our drop zone. He took my hand and said, “We all say thank you.” “Well,” I thought, “that’s more than I ever got at home.”

John M. Glenn

West Covina