Remembering the Forgotten War

After the War

Throughout the war 326,000 American soldiers were deployed to the Korean Conflict, of whom 36,516 lost their lives. While I cannot do service to all of them, I can share one of their stories in brief. In May 1950, Sherman Frank Turner met Rita Marie Emerth, and three months later in August were married, aged 23 and 19. Two months later in October, Sherman was drafted into the army. After basic training in California and Japan, his unit, the 40th Infantry, "Sunshine," Division entered Korea in January 1952. After his tour, during which he earned a bronze star for courage in combat, he returned and raised a family of three sons and a daughter. He later also served in Vietnam, rising to the rank of master sergeant. Turner lived until 2001 to see several of his grandchildren, of whom I am one. 

Since the war, scores of movies have been made commemorating it, honoring each respective country's service men - Chinese such as Assembly (2007) and My War (2016), North Korean such as Wild Flowers in the Battlefield (1974), and South Korean such as Tae Gu Ki (2004) and 71: Into The Fire (2010). American participation was immortalized in the 1972-83 TV series MASH, one of my personal all time favorites.

When the shooting stopped, all Korea, north as well as south, was in ruins. The countryside and cities had been ravaged by battles, the economy was devastated, and tens of thousands of people were homeless and starving. Though the war was effectively over, their challenge of thriving, or even surviving, as a state was just beginning.

North Korea continued to be patronized by China and the Soviet Union, as the United States supported Japan and South Korea, providing food and economic aid, and leaving troops stationed for defense. Starting around 1956, Chairman Mao of China and President Khrushchev of Soviet Russia became significant rivals, and the Communist powers began competing with each other. In the early 1960s, Kim Il-Sung had a falling out with Khrushchev, leading to strained relations and a withdrawal of Soviet economic and military support. The North Korean government increased its military spending to make up for this loss from 2.6% in 1961 to 30% in 1970.

Chairman Mao and President Khrushchev in 1958

While quality of life were roughly the same in north and south in the 1950s and 60s, North Korea's economy never improved, while South Korea's boomed in the early 70s, and had been rising since, becoming one of the strongest in the world. Kim kept a firm grip on his power until his death in 1994, censuring all criticism, purging scores of officials who served under him, and imprisoning thousands in labor camps, whom he deemed a threat. His successors Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un were no better, and the country has remained hyper-militarized and wretchedly poor. As with Russia and China, the famine of 94-98, called in North Korea the "Arduous March," killed around 2 million. The Country is politically and socially a zombie-state, completely cut off from and in permanent paranoia of the outside world except China, and economically on life-support from China and, ironically, South Korea and America.

Just as relations between China, Soviet Russia, and North Korea were complicated in the decades after the war, so too those of the United States, Japan, and South Korea go beyond the scope of this essay.

Relations between President Syngman Rhee and the United States were so uneasy in the years after the Korean Conflict, there was a secret plan called "Operation Ever Ready." This plan was for the purpose of eliminating Rhee if he got to difficult to work with, and replace him with Chang Myon, the more cooperative South Korean ambassador to the US.

To maintain his power, Rhee amended the constitution twice. The first instance was during his first term 1948-52, which was to change presidential elections from National Assemblymen (similar to our congressmen) to direct popular vote; he did this not because he wanted the people to have a direct voice in the government, but because he knew he was not popular enough in the National Assembly, and it was easier to cheat in a popular vote. In the 1952 election, he defeated Chang Myon with "74%" of the vote.

The second instance was in 1954 when he forcibly changed the constitution again to allow a president to run indefinitely, which had previously been limited to two terms. Now constitutional amendments required two-thirds vote as in the US to amend the constitution. Rhee's amendment failed to pass by one vote, but he declared that by rounding the numbers it passed, and forced it through. Two thirds of the assembly was 135.33, so he claimed it needed 135, not 136

Using intimidation tactics that we associate with Communist dictatorships, including censoring criticising newspapers and arresting opposition, he won and third term in 1956 and a fourth in 1960, at the old age of 85. In 1959, he even had Progressive Party's leader Jo Bongam executed for campaigning on "peaceful unification," which was in North Korea's vocabulary too, and made him seem to have communist sympathies. The United States tried to intervene and warn Rhee that executing a political opponent would make him look oppressive and that there was a lack of real political freedom in the South, but to no avail.

Protests erupted all across the country, enraged by this blatant abuse of power and democracy, in which statues of Rhee were taken down, and hundreds were killed by police. In light of this Rhee decided to resign.

One undeniable benefit Rhee gave to his country was having several South Korean scientists travel to America in the mid-50s to study nuclear power, so they could come back and help the national energy shortage and in turn the economy. The first nuclear reactor was established and began operation in 1962, helping make South Korea the technological and economic powerhouse it is today. According to the CIA World Factbook, South Korea has the 14th largest GDP, while North Korea is ranked 113th.

Satellite image showing the difference in energy between the advanced South and the underdeveloped North

In the 1960s and 70s, South Korea sent over 300,000 troops to the Vietnam War, in exchange for financial aid from the United States. This made South Korea the second most contributing country after the United States. This participation helps demonstrate the long term effects of the Korean Conflict. By coming to the aid of the South, and inspiring others of the western world to do the same, not only did the United States secure freedom for the 50 million people that live there today, but also sent a message to the USSR and China that it was willing to respond to communist expansion, and secured a valuable ally, both throughout the Cold War and beyond.