Never Forgotten
The Korean War has been called, by
those who don't know better, “The Forgotten War.” Those who do
know better know it will never be forgotten. As recent rumblings
from Pyongyang remind us. I spent most of 1952 in the Land of the
Morning Calm, mostly in and around Pusan and Taegu and once, for
a short time, near the 38th Parallel. You will understand
why today's threats from North Korea take me back to that other
time.
I carried an M-1 US Army issued
rifle. But unlike those who battled in the frozen hills of the 38th,
I walked the streets of Taegu, a city teeming with refugees and
infiltrated with guerillas. I have no wounded in action or
pinned down under fire experiences to relate. I was one of
the lucky ones.
For ten months I lived in sight of
abject suffering and violent death, daily. I will never forget that.
But, today, I choose to remember the resilience, hope, and humor of
a handful of Koreans I was lucky enough to know as friends for a
season.
I was an Assistant to Chaplain Foy
Thomas, a Methodist preacher from Texas. The Chaplain had organized
a chapel choir of US Army personnel and Korean civilians and one
Lieutenant in the Korean (ROK) Army. Thursday nights I rode as armed
escort on a bus through the alleys of the city to pick up the Korean
choir members.
That was when I met the Moon sisters
and their brother. Myung, the fifteen year old, was the most
vivacious. She's on the left in the picture. Next to her is Chun,
her older sister, who was battling tuberculosis at the time. Miss
Choi, a refugee from north of Pyongyang, sits next to Chun and Lee,
the brother is at the far right. The father, a banker, had been
killed in the war and the mother and her three children had taken
refuge in Taegu. The mother did not speak English but her children
had studied English for several years and spoke it well. I saw
Myung, Chun, and Lee on Thursdays and Sundays for most of the time I
was there. Lee once invited me to eat at the ROK Army mess hall—an
invitation I appreciated and an experience I never wanted to repeat.
One night, after choir practice, I
heard Myung talking excitingly to several of the other Koreans. I
asked her what was going on and she said her high school was having
an English speech contest. She asked if I would be a judge. I
agreed.
The theme was “How I spent my
summer.” I was to judge them on their English. Their English was
pretty bad, but their speeches made any American high school speech
pale by comparison. That night in Taegu, I heard about parents and
friends being killed and maimed, of survival on grub worms and ditch
water, of teachers being taken captive. I heard the horrors of a
Civil War through the mouths of suffering teenagers.
I had come to Korea with doubt and
anxiety. I left with equally strong and mixed emotions. I would be
reunited with family and friends in America, but I was leaving
friends I would never see again. A six-foot Chinese refugee cooked
the shrimp, we sang Korean folk songs, Chaplain Thomas even took a
few sips of the rice wine, and Myung gave me the scroll you see in
the picture. (It was one of the few possessions that survived the
constant relocation of the family as the battle between the North
Korean communists and the United Nation troops went back and forth up
and down the peninsula.)
I have no idea what the characters to
the right of the scroll say. When we re-hung it the other day in our
new home, I thought, “One of these days, I'll have it interpreted.”
(I've thought that off and on over the years.) But then, I probably
won't. I only know that it was in the Moon family for many, many
years and that it was a gift from some very special friends. That
seems enough for me.
