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The Korean War was not a good war.

You have to remember, they sent troops over there that weren't trained.

They sent troops over there with no equipment.

We didn't have a proper amount of clothing.

We didn't have a proper amount of food.

They said the Koreans, the North Koreans have just crossed the 38th parallel, and we're going “Wheres North Korea”?

We never heard of it.

And so we all end of the day room when it was all over to look at the map and they were Korea or even know where Korea was.

In 1950 I don't think too much of the Korean War even got into the newspapers I left to go to the war... I got into my in uniform, which the kids have never seen before, and we, started to drive away.

And here's this one guy run along right beside the car, and he said, I'll come back as soon as you can.

Never occurred in my hand all my life over there, but it seemed like I was wet all the time I was over there and I tried to sleep.

And I keep waking up thinking I was drowning because it was raining so hard.

And, you know, it's just, Well, I tell you, we was tough.

You had to be to survive.

My first bullet wound in Korea, which was by an M-1, which is one of our weapons that the North Koreans had, we had, for two weeks in a row, a stew.. .

So when I got home, I told my wife, I don't want to see any stew as long as we're married.

And there wasn't too many good things I can say about Korea.

I mean, the loss of life was not good.

The the living conditions were terrible.

It wasn't a good place to be, but it was one heck of an experience.

-(patriotic music)- During the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning on June 25th, 1950, communist North Korea launched a surprise attack on South Korea.

The North Koreans were Soviet trained and Soviet equipped, spearheading their attack with the best Russian tanks of World War II... the North Korean People's Army, crossed the 38th parallel with booming fire with an army of 135,000 men, heavy weapons and artillery.

An all out invasion had been launched by the North.

The South Korean army, of only 65,000 men, was neither combat ready nor fully armed.

They were unprepared, ill equipped, severely outnumbered, and they crumbled under the heavy weight of the attack.

Three days later, the South Korean capital of Seoul fell.

The Korean War was the first armed conflict in the Cold War.

Historians now recognize that the Korean War was a conflict that started the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and world communism.

The Korean War, with all due respect to the Koreans, was mostly a war.

From an international perspective that was fought between the United States and China.

And the inconclusive, end of that war resulted in a 20 year period, of international isolation between the United States and China.

And it set back then American, Chinese relations by at least 2 to 3 decades.

In the beginning, it was not even called a war, but in all sense of the word.

The battle for Korea was one of the bloodiest wars in American history.

During the ten year war in Vietnam, a little over 58,000 were killed.

By comparison, three years of fighting in Korea resulted in a staggering number of nearly 37,000 Americans killed in theater.

Nearly 1.8 million Americans served in the war.

And from both sides, there were over 4 million military and civilian casualties over the years.

It was termed the Korean conflict, labeled a police action, and is barely covered in history books today.

In fact, I hate from even printed in print “Korean Conflict”.

In fact, I've been writing to the Flint Journal that, guys at the funeral homes, if they put in guy who served Korean Conflict.... I write and tell them damn it, it was a war, you know, the Korean conflict and the license plate and all that.

I just didn't like it because that is what it really was.

And and people ought to know what the Korean War was all about and what went on in Korea.

It was a war.

It was a war.

You couldn't get any more war than that.

The sacrifices made by Korean War veterans were immensely significant and heartbreaking and must be remembered.

It is their hope that the war in Korea will not be lost in the minds of the American people, and that one day it will no longer be viewed as America's forgotten war.

We had to dig in.

Don't give an inch.

It was a do or die situation right there.

With the attack on the Republic of Korea and the collapse of South Korean forces, president Harry S Truman ordered a naval blockade of the Korean coast and authorized US commander in the Far East, General Douglas MacArthur, to send American fighter jets and ground troops to stop the North Korean advance.

Truman feared that if the United States did not act quickly, it would be the beginning of a Third World War.

He did not seek the approval of Congress for his actions, calling the event a police action.

This term would later elicit bitterness from Korean War veterans.

Police action is an insult to all those who served there because this doesn't make sense.

They could call it fluff that off so easy.

A lot of the Marines kind of felt offended that because of the death rate, they were getting killed just as fast and quicker than World War two.

So there were some of that cut little sheriff stars out of the bottom of their ration cans, and sent them to Truman to let them know that it's police forces on duty.

As far as I'm concerned, it was too many robbers for the cops.

So that was a not a good name, too, to call that a police action.

That was...That was a war.

The Security Council of the United Nations voted unanimously for the immediate withdrawal of North Korean forces from South Korea.

It is now the policy of the United States, to repel either communist subversion or aggression, wherever it might break out.

This, in turn, leads to the policy that, guided American activity for the entire duration of the Cold War.

And that was a containment policy, that the policy of the United States would be to contain communism wherever it threatened to expand.

And within months, soldiers from 15 nations joined the United States in a united front.

It would be the first time in history a world organization would use force to stop military aggression.

The other countries that supported the war effort, offered simply token support.

And the majority of United Nations members, simply made no significant contribution at all.

Severely outnumbered, the first American infantry units to land in Korea saw fierce fighting and suffered thousands of casualties.

Overrun.

They were forced to retreat 100 miles southeast to Pusan.

Their actions, however, proved vital to delaying the North Korean advance and bought the time needed for more ground troops to arrive and organize.

The first troops came directly out of Japan.

When they got there, they was fighting such overwhelming odds and they had the whole North Korean army, fresh tanks and all coming against them, and they just slaughtered our troops.

In one month's time, North Korea occupied 90% of South Korea safe for the southern tip of the peninsula.

By August of 1950, nearly 85,000 U.S.

troops had arrived in the defense of South Korea.

The first Provisional Marine Brigade was called into action to reinforce U.S.

Army and Republic of Korea troops, defending what little territory of South Korea was still left a vulnerable pocket.

In the southeast corner of the country, an area around the city of Pusan.

When I arrived in Pusan, I was a member of the replacement, people for the brigade, the troops.

that went in.

We had a couple of men that got hit while I had my first day there.

One of their replacements got killed.

So that really opened your eyes.

And you knew this was serious business?

Not play anymore.

The fighting was quite fierce in some sectors.

They could have broken through if they had hit the right spot any time.

In fact, they broke through a few spots.

Our men were scattered out.

And our infantry division.

So far, some of their a division there with 7000 men was brought out for four miles.

We had South Korean divisions too.

They were not trained.

They used to have an awful time.

Hold the line.

And things got hot.

They left.

Fighting continued for six weeks as North Koreans attempted to drive U.N.

forces into the Sea of Japan.

They failed, however, to penetrate the defensive perimeter around Pusan.

The perimeter and Pusan was moving every day.

The communists were really pushing hard.

If we didn't stop in there, then, hey, I think the, whole Korea like I say, is no place to go.

When you get down within a 15, 16 mile perimeter of the water.

We know that that was we were in a do or die situation as either hold the land or learn to swim backwards.

And, we weren't ready to swim.

U.S.

and South Korean troops were outnumbered, outgunned, and stretched thinly to cover miles of battle lines.

Yet with their backs to the sea, defending forces held their ground and secured the Pusan Perimeter.

Cannons were going off all the time, and there was so many ships out there, you just couldn't see the end of them.

Nowhere.

After the, Pusan Perimeter was secured well enough, the generals made a decision that they wanted to and, have a landing up in Inchon, to cut off the North Korean, supplies and their replacements and everything else.

On September 15th, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, American Marine and Army units of the 10th Corps staged an amphibious landing and counter assault behind North Korean lines at the port city of Inchon to protect the Inchon landing site.

Marines from the first Marine Provisional Brigade were pulled from Pusan and assigned to neutralize and secure the nearby island of Whoamedoe the morning before the landing.

Watching from our location, on Whoamedoe island, I think we had the most perfect view.

Some of us were standing up and watching the landing and seeing the ships firing at sea, and the noises were just rattled your head all the time.

Codenamed Operation Chromite, a United Nations armada of 260 naval vessels conducted the highly successful landing operation.

When we looked out to see the ship, there were so many ships.

It was like the landing of Normandy.

I don't know how many there were, but the ships, as far as you can see in any direction, that was, a really tough sea at that time.

I mean, our ship was going up.

They come down at Wham like that.

It was really rough out there.

I, I think we had ever shipped in the Navy there in the harbor, all firing big guns in... the artillery and the ships.

Big guns were bombarded all along the coast.

And it was just a just another but smoke and fire.

If you think they're going to sink that place.

We unloaded our landing craft probably within two minutes maximum.

And, you're talking about 40 men coming off with weapons.

We hit the beach and went straight up the hill.

You don't look behind you go.

There's more coming in.

At first, the Navy and Marines were against the operation.

They believed it was too risky and involved too many natural and geographical obstacles.

Currents were as high as eight knots.

There was very little beach to assemble, and the narrow channel to the landing site could be easily defended by the enemy.

The most challenging aspect was the over 30ft high tides that left nothing but muddy flats as the water receded.

This forced the next round of vessels to wait 12 hours for the next high tide to provide access to the shore.

The landing, at Inchon, with that tide... everybody was saying it was a bad move.

It wasn't very feasible, but MacArthur wanted Marines to do He had used the Marines in a World War II, all through the Pacific.

So the bridge was efficient at amphibious landings.

You know, we all knew that if you wanted a hard job done, he called on the right branch.

With the strategic invasion at Inchon.

The North Korean war machine was now fractured.

He early on decided that if he could land soldiers behind enemy lines at Inchon, which is halfway up the Korean peninsula and far away from the Pusan Perimeter where the fighting was taking place.

He could cut off a North Korean retreat.

And so, simultaneously with, the outbreak or the breakout of American and South Korean troops from Pusan, MacArthur landed at Inchon, blocked the North Korean retreat northward, and effectively destroyed the entire North Korean army with one bold stroke, the act of slugging it out head to head with enemy forces amassed in the south ended in a decisive victory.

And most importantly, thousands of casualties were prevented.

The Inchon landing proved to be MacArthur's masterstroke.

It thoroughly changed the tide of the Korean War almost overnight, and is considered to be one of the most brilliant strategies in American military history.

Our sergeant told us, said MacArthur's here, and you turn around, you look.

And there he was.

By the following day, the United Nations forces were under complete control of the beachhead and city of Inchon.

They said that when you get in there in the dark, you anybody approaches to next you...close to you, you halt them three times.

And if they don't, if they don't halt after three times, shoot well, all night long after got in there all night long.

We heard bang, halt.

In the first week following the landing, more than 25,000 tons of supplies, 6600 vehicles and 70,000 military personnel came ashore at Inchon.

The port city remained an important logistical asset for UN forces in the war.

Next.

Attention could now turn to the retaking of South Korea's capital of Seoul, located 20 miles east of Inchon.

And after a week of grueling urban combat on the streets of the city, Seoul was liberated from its Communist captors on September 27th, 1950 Once we got into Seoul, the streets, buildings and everything were pretty much rubble.

It was pretty much destroyed.

Everything was just a mess.

The buildings are all collapsed.

Everything was rubble and both sides of the street.

I think we battled, back and forth several days to get the North Koreans out of there...we were, set up one side of the street, to set up the other side street.

And, the North Koreans were firing from above us, and they hit the squad over here, but they couldn't hit us.

We were down below the civilians where they were under a double threat, because they always said if they got caught because they they didn't resist the American occupation, they would be killed like they did in Seoul.

Them poor people... It was a sad.

It's unbelievable.

And the only thing that they had was, what we threw away It was unbelievable to me.

The way the whole country was destroyed.

And then the poor people, all the little villages were just burned up and demolished.

They were poor people.

As the Marines and Seventh Army Division press their attack in Seoul.

United Nations forces in the Pusan Perimeter broke out and drove north.

They were able to link up with ten corps just south of Seoul, as UN troops trapped the retreating North Koreans between the northern and southern armies.

The North Korean army began to disintegrate as a fighting force.

When we broke across, we broke out of what they called the Pusan Perimeter.

Our main goal was to hook up with the first Marine Division and the seventh Army Division.

What we were doing was pushing what was left of the North Korean army into them, and we part of a sort of a pincher movement there.

And we got to be on trucks to follow the North Koreans who were traveling so fast.

They put us on trucks to keep up with them.

They were heading back north so fast.

With the defeat of the North Korean army, many ground troops believe the war would soon be over.

I thought we were all going home.

I thought it was all over, I really did.

It was talk of where we got them.

When we get to the Yalu River and we get there, we're just going to put a line up there that we had ordered not to go any further, shoot across or anything.

With this rapid and overwhelming United Nations victory.

The goals of the war changed significantly.

The original objective of the war was to liberate South Korea.

However, with the destruction of the North Korean army, some American and United Nations leaders now believed they could press the attack into North Korea.

And then we moved on up, started moving north across the 38th parallel in North Korea.

We were supposed to take the 38th parallel.

Well, we got the 38th parallel, and Douglas MacArthur was the head of operations.

He says, keep going.

We're going to China.

In late September the United Nations approved the order for troops to cross the 38th parallel.

The goal was now to unite the North under the democratic government of South Korea, and to destroy the remaining North Korean People's Army.

On October 19th, North Korea's capital of Pyongyang was captured In the war's first airborne operation.

The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team was activated to cut off the North Korean retreat.

On October 20th, they made their first large scale airdrop outside Pyongyang.

The well-executed jump involved 4000 paratroopers, paratroopers in association with ground forces moving north killed or captured roughly 6000 North Koreans during this operation, I really wanted to be a paratrooper because it was just it was something exciting.

We worked about two hours a day and you had what they called a 34ft towers.

You had to learn to jump out of those.

And then from there you went to a 250ft towers.

I thought I, I could I said I could be in high school.

Why am I doing this?

They have a light and the up in the plane, and it's a red light and a green light, and the red light is on.

And then when the green light comes on, the jumpmaster tells you to stand up, hook up, and then the each guy behind you are supposed to inspect your, your chute and make sure that it's all right.

And then from there, tell you to go... and then it's just one right after another going out.

all the first time I jumped out of the airplane, I'd never been in a plane before, let alone jump out of it.

The opening shock really bothers you.

But I mean, it just it snaps you like a whip when that opens.

And but after that, you just float down just as nice and easy, and you can look white around and see.

You can see all over and And it's quite exhilarating.

The first jump I made in Korea, our mission was to stop, train with prisoners on it.

And I don't know for sure.

I heard later, but.

But I wasn't one of the high ranking.

I heard later that most of the prisoners were executed on this train, taking them north.

Well, when you jump out of an airplane and somebody shooting at you, then you become quite scared.

I don't know how to explain it.

You almost have to do it yourself to understand what it feels like.

Once you jump out of the plane and you hit the ground.

Your regular infantry from then on until you get to your jump again.

Your regular infantry, just the same as any infantryman.

As UN troops swiftly pushed north and American forces reached the Yalu River.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops began to move secretly into North Korean territory under the cover of darkness.

U.S.

troops were caught off guard as General MacArthur and other military leaders still believed that the Chinese would not intervene and enter the war.

They were wrong.

We got up to the Chosin Reservoir... The Chinese were waiting for us up there, and I think we're about numbered 30 to 1.

One of the fiercest battles of the Korean War, and one of the greatest battles in marine military history, was the epic 17 day battle waged by the first Marine Division and two army regiments at the Chosin Reservoir.

And trapped in the frozen, mountainous terrain of North Korea 15,000 Allied troops found themselves surrounded by an overwhelming force of over 120,000 Chinese soldiers, and the observation plane flew over us and dropped a message down and told us that we were being surrounded by Chinese to get out of there immediately.

Like modern day Spartans, they were outnumbered almost 10 to 1.

They faced overwhelming odds as they fought their way across the icy reservoir and trekked down hill, 78 miles to safety, braving frostbite, -30 degree temperatures and an unforgiving landscape.

On our way up the Chosin, we were just walking along the one lane deal they called roads...and it didnt look like much of a road.

But as we come closer to the reservoir.

But it was higher up the hill and and colder.

And as we were going up to the reservoir, up the mountain road, when 45 miles up was uphill.

And these are the temperature change, one degree for each mile.

Well, we're all set on the back of the trucks.

They made a stop rest stop about halfway up the guys to relieve themselves.

So they jumped out of the truck, relieved themselves, and then they couldn't get their flys buttoned back up.

Their hands were already numb.

MacArthur's forces were split into two groups as they crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea.

The Eighth Army traveled along the west coast to Pyongyang, while U.N.

troops, comprised mainly of Marines, sailed around to the east coast and advanced to the Chosin Reservoir.

Both units were ordered to drive north to the Yalu River at the Chinese border.

They briefs us, telling us we're going into Wonson.

And, from there we had to move up a road, to the Chosin Reservoir and then on to the Yalu River, which is a dividing point between North Korea and China.

We would come to the mountains and it would go away right straight up, almost.

And there was ledges and crevices.

There would be snipers up there.

And we couldn't do anything but just keep going, because you would never, ever find them up in the in the crevices.

We captured already captured 14 prisoners, and we looked at my interpreter that I had with me.

I said, ask him what worries from.

And my interpreter says, I can't, Sergeant.

I can't talk to them.

He don't understand me.

And I said, well, what?

Hes Chinese... On November 27th, Chinese forces launched their first phase offensive in the war.

Their singular mission was to annihilate the first Marine Division, blowing bugles and using countless human waves of troops.

The Chinese struck marine and army positions in mass force.

They generally attacked us about 1 or 2:00 in the morning and, they were beating on pans and blowing blugles and all kinds of noise... And you think theres a million coming after you?

We found out later on That what this was was they were directing their troops with these these bugles, the direct.

Okay, where's the end of the line?

Over here is the other end of the line.

And then in the middle you'd hear the bugle and ok, we're all even lets move in.

They were giving signals to each other.

We thought it was just a demoralize us.

All of those people did not have weapons.

If a man in front of them got shot or killed and he dropped his weapon, the next person who didn't have one or reached out to pick it up.

And so they were attacking, but with nothing other than their bodies, they would just keep on coming no matter how much they shot them down.

They just was more coming right behind them.

And he hit 2 or 3 of them, and somebody would pick up his weapon and keep going until you knocked one down.

Another popped up.

They had no weapon, no, no rifle or nothing.

They just had bags of grenades, which they were just throwing everywhere.

When we were on the lines and we'd be attacked.

And this is during real severe cold weather, an enemy was killed or we would go out and get them enemy and bring them up by our foxhole and pile them up.

And and this is a deterrent to have them creeping up on you because it's when they see that they they're not going to go any farther.

But I thought it was kind of gruesome to do that.

But they were dead.

So.

They had the opium and opium pipes in their little pocket, and theyd pull that pipe out... They had little balls of opium and they would use that.

It put their tennis shoes on and they had you'd have to hit up real hard to stop them because they had no pain.

You know, you're really in trouble is when you go and shoot an empty and M1, which has got eight rounds in it into the same guy's body and he still falls in your foxhole.

Seven Chinese divisions encircled the ground, troops caught by complete surprise.

Many units were ambushed and overrun.

Isolated and trapped.

The men at Chosin faced certain defeat and death Lost my company commander of the first night.

Every platoon had a platoon leader... Second Battalion lost all of them.

All of them.

Lewis Hanley was a corporal in the Army's 32nd Regiment when he was wounded.

As his convoy of wounded men was being evacuated, they were ambushed by the Chinese.

The wounded soldiers fled across the reservoir ice but drew fire from snipers on shore.

Some were pinned down on the ice for days.

Many died from exposure to the elements.

Almost all suffered from frostbite, as the Chinese had taken their shoes and any proper clothing.

It's hard to describe.

It's really was something... I came away with frost-bitten feet... Its hitting me now that I'm getting older.

Makes it hard for me to walk... a lot of guys lost feet, toes, hands from being being so cold.

Jim Neilson was with an army convoy en route to reinforce Marines under heavy fire.

When they were attacked by the Chinese.

The trapped convoy was boxed in at what was known as Hellfire Valley.

They was just setting up there, firing at us.

I don't know how many there was up there.

There could have been 2000.

10,000 for all I know.

All I know is that they was firing down at us and, and, Hitting the Jeep.

I, actually, I don't know how I made it out of there.

Chinese infantry attacks continued into early December, and fighting was ferocious.

Allied troops suffered 12,000 casualties out of 15,000 men.

This included 3000 killed and 6000 wounded.

Thousands more suffered non battle casualties due to severe frostbite and weather related issues.

While I was aboard the hospital ship... and Korea and the Chosin Reservoir started.

All these guys were coming in that had been wounded.

Not just 1 or 2, but they were coming in by by the ambulance loads.

And I just wanted to be up there.. Marines don't leave Marines behind.

Major General Oliver P Smith, commanding General of the first Marine Division, was quoted as saying... “Retreat, Hell, we're just attacking in a different direction”.

The the General or the Colonel or the Big Wheel... whoever it was, he didn't feel that that was going to be a big problem either way... Why...we were coming out For the surrounded men of the first Marine and Army regiments.

The only way to escape certain death was to fight their way out down the mountain and back to the sea.

They pulled everybody back into this big valley.

That's so then, hoping somebody would come up and help us.

Next thing we know, here they were, air dropping ammunition and food and stuff Boy,..we are in trouble now!.

I think that at that point it was kind of a drag to think you got to retreat there doing your fight all the way around it.

All the way front.

No perimeter all the way around.

Which way to retreat?

Your fight, no matter which way you go.

So we're going to decide we're going to fight South to Kodaree So we all packed up and moved out for Kodaree Leon Bohms was assigned to the rearguard when the Chinese closed in on them.

So we were at the tail end of there.

We was the rearguard... for the platoon we had there.

our little squad of guys... was now going out and again who we looked up.

Here come Chinese and umpteen thousands of them.

I don't know how many was there, oh Lord...I was probably most scariest time And my life I was ever scared.

And I looked over at this guy... we looked at each other.... Oh, we knew we're in trouble.

Knew we were in serious trouble.

This is it.

You're going to fight to the death.

That was it right there.

Fortunately, I seen a big pile supplies.

Forget that... we didnt mean nothing... They all went toward and that pile of supplies and cigarettes and C rations and and you can look back and see them like, like rats going in and a junk pile... big pile of food and supplies and, and they just ignored us.

And we got away.

And it was the luckest day of my entire life was right there.

We had trucks coming down with us, and the trucks was carrying our dead.

They were just bringing all the dead down as well as they came.

I was on a hospital jeep and all I remember of this corpsman... he had red hair... and somebody asked him where he was from.

And he was from the Midwest.

I never knew.

We called him doc.

You know doc I need this, doc I need that.

if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here today.

I have a grandson right now that's a Navy corpsman, and he's red-headed.

To make matters worse, bitter winter temperatures in the mountains hovered near -30°F.

Wind chill factors were known to drop to mind numbing -50 degrees at night.

The vehicles became inoperable if not left running.

Weapons froze and jammed, flesh stuck to metal.

And it was really cold.

Really cold.

And that wind blowing.

You can feel it go right, right through your clothes, right to your face.

It didn't burn, but Congress was arguing on winter clothing.

They said, no, the war be over in four months.

We don't need it.

And the war went on for three years.

We really didn't know if we were going to starve to death or be shot to death because we couldn't get no food.

We were living on on fruit, the cans of peaches and pears and fruit cocktail.

That's the only thing we thaw out.

We take out the peaches and put it in our armpit and keep it there.

All right, so next morning, I was ready to eat it.

It get so cold you could tell if it was real cold or if it was going to be nice.. if you spit, if it hit the ground and it shattered, you got a real cold night.

If it just sat there in a lump glob, that is not so bad.

We, slept by the side of a mountain... me and the lieutenant with our arms around each other.

And we're doing that, and kept our body heat, kept us from freezing.

And it was two weeks before they flew in the cold winter gear to us.

First time engine frostbite was at the Chosin Reservoir And then I working the aid station and back there and we brought a man in... nd I had cut of off and he'd been out all night.

And I cut his boot off I had a K-Bar knife...sharp And then it was doing it.

I pulled his sock off... My knife “tinked” his foot and it “tinked” It's frozen solid and almost made me sick.

Lord, that was the first time I had ever seen it hear frostbite like that?

You would be on the side of the road and when it would time to move out again, because we had got out of another trap.

They didn't just go and yell out for us to move out.

They would go along and hit every man in the shoulder and to get his circulation started so that they know that he hadn't froze to death.

The lay just laying there in ten minutes time.

And I found out maybe a year later they said it was a -40 degrees with windchill of -100 to 110, but I never heard of a wind chill being from Kentucky.

You know you're not.

You don't think of weather that cold.

An unusual event known as the “Tootsie Roll Airdrop” also took place at Chosin.

The term “Tootsie Roll” was the code word used for ammunition.

When the Marines were running low on ammunition, and Air Force supply specialists misunderstood the code word and ordered the real Tootsie Roll candy to be dropped instead.

But when when we got the Tootsie Rolls, they were just in shock.

They just just couldn't understand what the world was going on.

That ain't what we needed.

We needed ammo.

We didn't need Tootsie Rolls!

Though a complete surprise, the Tootsie Rolls had some benefit.

The men used the frozen candies to aid in plugging bullet holes and bullet wounds.

With very little to eat, The Tootsie Rolls were also able to provide some energy and sustenance.

I opened that thing up to try to eat it as like trying to eat a tent peg a steel tent peg.

It's frozen solid and you could suck on it.

You could do whatever you want.

Bang on it but that's all we had to eat for eight days.

That was in a Jeep, or from the 28th to the fifth and snowballs and one Tootsie Roll.

So to this day, I love Tootsie Rolls.

By December 6th, the men had withdrawn three quarters of the way out of the mountains near the town of Katori.

Only one major obstacle impeded their escape route.

A bridge at the Changan power plant had been blown and needed to be rebuilt.

Airplanes were scheduled to drop 2,000 pound bridge sections to the men, but clear skies were crucial if the planes were going to see their drop zone.

That night, a blinding snowstorm developed.

Marines looked to the skies, hoping for a break in the clouds, but none came.

Two days later, the storm had yet to subside.

The situation looked graver by the hour for the Allied troops, as hope and a chance for survival began to fade, a bright light from a lone star broke through the cloud cover at nightfall, like a beacon.

It signaled that clear weather was near, and that airdrop and much needed air cover would be coming the next day.

The Star of Katori would later become the symbolic emblem for the men who fought at Chosin.

The next day, the bridge was rebuilt.

It spanned a gorge that was 1500 feet deep.

When the bridge at last got finished and the engineers it had put the trestles across it.

The bulldozer driver was the one that had to test it to make sure that all the trucks could get over it, and there's no way in a world I would have had his job.

I mean, he was volunteering his life that his bulldozer would go across this bridge, and if it didn't, it was 1300 feet down before he stopped!

The final phase of the escape began on December 9th, as the Marines fought their way south from Katori toward the port city of Hungnam, where navy ships awaited them.

When we finally knew we were out of danger and down on the low plateau and we'd cleared the mountain ranges, we're heading for level ground, and we made it all the way to where the army had outposts guarding the road.

And at that point we knew that we were we'd made it.

And at that point, yeah, you really felt relieved that you had really made it.

Nearly 100,000 North Korean refugees came down from the mountains to walk alongside the men on the way out, as U.S.

troops evacuated at the port of Hungnam.

The refugees also wished to leave.

Civilians who were unwilling to live under Communist rule, the Navy evacuated them along with the troops At Hungnam when the refugees got there, we protected them as much as we could until they all got loaded.

The U.S.

government formally described this feat as the greatest rescue operation in the history of mankind, as never in recorded history had soldiers rescued so many enemy civilians in the midst of battle, the men of the Chosin Reservoir fought valiantly against insurmountable odds.

17 Congressional Medals of Honor and 17 Navy Crosses were awarded in the campaign.

Chosin is also considered to be one of the most savage battles of modern warfare.

The Marines and other UN troops sustained 12,000 casualties.

Though greatly outnumbered, they inflicted an estimated 43,500 casualties on the Chinese, including 28,000 killed.

The Marine Corps training and having my, trust in God that Brought me through all of it.

There were no trees or anything on the ridge lines anymore.

After all that shooting... hills were bare, there was nothing left.

Military intelligence first estimated that there were no more than 27,000 Chinese troops in Korea.

However, Chinese Communist forces launched their offensive strike with over 320,000 men.

This surprise attack on United Nations forces brought about the longest retreat in U.S.

military history.

By early January 1951, enemy troops pushed UN forces 50 miles south of the 38th parallel.

Again, Seoul fell to the enemy.

They estimated that we were hit... the central front in the Spring Offensive... 270,000 Chinese.

When they were coming down the valley that night at 5:00.

You can see between there are so many.

It was like.

It was like a crowd coming at you.

There were so many that there was one back behind the other, right beside the other, and the first ones had the weapons and one behind, went along... You kill the ones in front, the ones behind Went up and grabbed a weapon and keep coming.

I can remember Lieutenant Juno calling for artillery.

He says, come toward our position.

Another 50 yards come towards another 50.

And.

And, Artillery.

Said back on the phone, you know, he says, well, that's where you are.

So that's where the enemy are.

A howitzer... You might, say it's a cannon and it shoots off, oh, maybe 6 to 7 miles.

If we were firing all night long, we'd be firing maybe 400-500 rounds.

We never saw our target.

The only thing is, every time I hollered fire, Where there's how many people you kill, there's about the only thing that you think about because they didn't want to be there any more than I did.

The noise, it was really bad.

Too bad we didn't have earplugs.

almost busted my eardrum... And most time we put our fingers in our ears like that... Consequently, a lot of boys lost their hearing.

Being subjected to all that loud noise all the time.

And the bigger the guns were, the louder the noise was.

However, after a series of well-executed attacks, U.N.

troops halted.

The advancing Chinese...recovered Seoul, And by the summer of 1951, front line stabilized about where the war first began.

12 months earlier, near the 38th parallel.

Over the next two years, the war continued as the fluid front lines constantly shifted, with territory lost and gained back and forth near the 38th parallel, gaining little ground and the fight for hills and outposts proved costly as tens of thousands of American and UN soldiers lost their lives fighting in areas such as the Punchbowl.

Heartbreak Ridge and Bunker Hill.

And Heartbreak Ridge.

There there's oh, that's the infantry company was probably about 90% casualties.

That's, killed and wounded... Most of it was wounded with shrapnel.

So you was lucky if you was wounded.

When I was in service, there was many reserves in there that had stayed in reserves after they got out of the Second World War Marines.

And they were a lot of reserves are called back in and fought with us.

And they said this, this fighting we're doing like Bunker Hills.

Few other things are just as bad as they fought on the islands on, I don't know, Okinawa or some of those things they mentioned where they're there and we're bad.

They said this is just as bad.

So a lot of guys main wounded, a lot of guys losing limbs and losing their lives and things like that.

And it was very cold.

Yeah.

Tempeture must have been maybe about -10 below zero And we were running a short on supplies, including food, ammunition, things like that.

And then we had to do a lot of withdrawing because those North Korean, Chinese, they didn't mind dying!

Ceasefire negotiations began amid hopes that an early truce could be arranged.

But the peace talks dragged for two more frustrating years, during which the contending forces continued to fight on.

The peace talks were going on for, what, two years or something like that, and the fighting never ceased and the generals knew what was going to happen.

They warned them this was, hey, they're going to go in and dig in.

You're going to have more bloodshed.

This war is going to be worse and than what you could ever imagine.

And it was.

Towards the end of the war they said well, whoever made the farthest contact, that's where the line would be established.

So every day we sent troops out and they sent troops out.

So that's why the battles were still going on all the time.

And we were still still firing a lot of ammunition back and forth.

And then when the war finally ended, it went right back to the 38th parallel.

So all those people were lost for nothing.

Some of the fiercest battles of the war took place in the ridges and mountainous areas of the Shorwon and Kumwa Valleys, just north of the 38th parallel.

After the peace talks broke off then we started up in the hills.

And we'd have to haul everything up on our back, there was no roads.

The only way to get there was by, foot trail road on donkeys or mules.

The Chinese used mules.

You know, we were standing at the bottom of the hill, and.

know we have to go up there and take that hill... and everybody knows if they're not dumb, they know that everybody ain't going to make it up there.

Some of them are going to get killed on the way back, but they go anyway because that's their duty... thats their job... That's our honor.

They go anyway.

The, tanks, they would come up and line up in rows right in front of those hills, fire point blank, right into those bunkers, and they make an assault on the hill.

Of course, there would be a lot of wounded, a lot of, mortars, grenade wounds .

And at night hey told us, don't shoot... Don't shoot your rifle.

Throw grenades.

You if you shoot your rifle, you'd be dead, because that's a muzzle flash.

So I must've thrown thousands of grenades when I was there.

The first time I saw anyone seriously injured, I couldn't believe it, because it was my first view of the enemy.

Because we were on a hilltop and below us in the valley below the, I don't know if it was an Army unit or a marine unit... they were being shelled by artillery and it was like watching a movie.

We could see the shells bursting.

When you see trucks running and blowing up and all that fire we take in Bunker Hill.

And our company area received approximately 20,000 rounds of incoming.

And that was an area probably 100 yards long and 20 yards wide The best time was when the fog set in.

When it got foggy, you never you didn't hear a gun go off.

You didn't hear planes flying.

Nothing happened until and for maybe a couple of days and really peaceful and quiet.

Then the fog lifted and it all started over again.

Searchlights were used for ground warfare.

It would illuminate, for eight miles or more beyond the trenches, over the trenches really protected the infantry.

It would illuminate the area just like a bright, sunny day.

We're the warmer guys in Korea!

from mid-August to mid September of 1952, the first Marine Division saw its first major ground action in Western Korea, fighting in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

During the September Battles, we were taking the, high ground.

There was a marine named Jack Davenport that I come very close friends with, and we happened to be on the line in particular night.

And, I had hearing this screaming down the line because there was a lot of, grenades being thrown that night.

And, we were on the reverse side of the, of the bridge, so we were safe.

But I heard the yelling, corpsman, get somebody over here quick” And I raced up there.

I probably wasn't 20 yards away from me because I knew where Jack's spot was.

He was a corporal.

I jumped in there where they were.

And the guy that was, you know, I can't remember the fellow that was with him in the foxhole said, Jack, Jack's hit.

And, I said “where and what”?

Because it was dark.

And I remember my running my hand over most of the left side of his face was gone, and he was definitely dead.

He couldn't move parts.

But it happened.

As Jack knew, a grenade came into the foxhole he was with.

Jack jumped on top of the grenade, and it blew part of his head off and killed him.

For that, Jack received a medal of honor, and, I never forgot him because he was the last guy in the world that you would ever think that would die that way.

Two months later, the Marines were asked to defend a segment of the UN main line of resistance during the battle of “The Hook”.

Early in the morning of the 27th.

I got shot in the back of the leg and I bandaged leg up myself and, and the next thing I remember is I woke up.

Along with, I assume, two other Marines laying on the back of a cart, and my hands were tied and my feet were tied.

I could hear the Chinese talking and going by and running by.

And anyway, I in here I have a small knife, which was a marine K-Bar always carried my back and they took my web belt, they took in my flak jacket and but they never took that.

And because my hands were tied behind my back, it was accessible for me to get that knife and so slowly.

I did get the knife and I cut they had me tied with communication wire... And I got my hands free and I got my legs free.

Cut free.

You know, I don't know how long that took.

It probably took me an hour to do that, and I, I slowly slid off the cart and, as I was walking along the road for a short period of time, I heard a vehicle coming, and I wasn't sure which way to come from, but I looked to my back and I could see a little bit of dust, and it looked like an American Jeep.

And as he come around the corner was an American Jeep.

And I said, well, I would assume it's an American.

So I got out in the road and there was a Second Lieutenant in there, and I got in the Jeep and and he asked me where I was and where I was going, and he told me my company had pulled off line the day before.

And, and I you take me down to the thing, they give me back my company.

And as I was going along, I was talking to him.

And next thing I knew, I woke up in a med company about three days later.

Probably a month ago... Yeah.

A month ago is the first time I told my wife that I was even a prisoner for a day.

And no, nobody else.

When you talk to somebody that's never been in those situations, you can't... You can't express yourself the way you really want to.

And you don't think that when you do express, they're getting the full meaning to what you're saying or understanding.

So my wife is, I said about a month ago, I finally told her shes the only one I told... prior to here.

When we found out that we could get helicopters to come in and pick up the wounded, it was the best thing that ever happened.

That was a godsend.

Air support was crucial to the entire UN effort in the war, and the Korean War was the first war to see the rise and utilization of the helicopter.

Helicopters were used for strategic observation and communication.

They were pressed into service to deliver water and other critically needed supplies to ground troops crossing mountainous terrain.

They were also used to rescue downed pilots, often behind enemy lines.

The roads were rough and tough and, getting from one place to the other was a real problem.

You had to have something there to to get over that terrain, and a helicopter was really the ideal way.

Over 100,000 were wounded in the war, but many would have died on the battlefield had it not been for the use of helicopters.

Choppers could quickly transport and evacuate wounded soldiers from the front line aid stations to field hospitals, and even to hospital ships located offshore.

And helicopters were very important to us.

We could put two two patients on the struts and away theyd go to the M*A*S*H unit or wherever.

The new Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, or M*A*SH were medical units that served as fully functional surgical hospitals in combat areas, station close to frontlines M*A*S*H units reduced deaths due to battle wounds by 50% compared to World War II.

My memory of the M*A*S*H company is I had terrific treatment there, and when I woke up, it was probably in a tent.

There was probably 15, 20 guys you got by the best you could.

And it was a kind of it was they took the best care they could have, you know, the people they had to take of Medical evacuations by helicopter, sharply reduced travel time and delays in providing lifesaving medical care to those who needed it.

U.S.

helicopters were credited with saving tens of thousands of lives during the war.

Choppers were also used for transporting military personnel, as they were able to quickly negotiate the rough and mountainous terrain of the Korean Peninsula.

New battle techniques were developed in the eastern sector.

A marine battalion made history by securing a hill in no man's land from the air by helicopter, by using copters.

The Marines secured a commanding high ground within enemy territory without having to fight their way to it.

Tribute must also be paid to the women who served in the Korean War while serving in the Women's Army Corps, Navy Women's Reserve, and Women Marines and Air Force.

The contribution of women made a huge impact in the war.

They worked at Mobile Army surgical hospitals, hospitals in Japan, and aboard hospital ships.

Though the majority of women served in the medical field, they also contributed to the war effort in other ways.

Lydia Davis was a cryptographer who coded and decoded top secret messages for the U.S.

Air Force and the Strategic Air Command.

I never knew what I was getting into when they said you were going to cryptography school.

I had no idea.

I was scared.

I was 18 years old.

I had never been out of Michigan.

Security was utmost.

And they drilled it into us.

I mean, like you were brainwashed about the security.

My messages coming in were either from headquarters, which was Omaha, Nebraska.

It was like six machines.

So you would go from one machine to the next to the next unit.

And you did this eight hours a day.

In 1948, President Truman ordered the Secretary of Defense to integrate the armed forces of the United States.

Though several all-Black units continued to fight in the war, the army began integrating African Americans into combat units.

As casualties rose and black soldiers were needed as replacements.

In the emergency, that the American military faced in the summer of 1951, to stem the North Korean invasion, units were thrown together with little or no, heat about segregation.

This as.

And even though Truman had announced the integration of the armed services early, the Army was slow to respond until the Korean War.

And what, of course, the Korean War demonstrated clearly is that, American soldiers, no matter their race, can fight very effectively together.

During the Korean War Eugene Williams was a member of the famous “Red Ball Express”, an A trucking outfit responsible for supplying fuel, ammunition and food to U.S.

troops on the front lines.

And we started hauling gasoline drums... wed load our trucks up... take the front line and dump it.

Ammunition, Food, it be about 10- 15 trucks.

And we were getting shot at.

They can hit one of them tanks.

One of them blow the whole truck up.

Its a big talk... of the “Red Ball Express” Big talk...everybody knows about the “Red Ball Express”!

And Korea is different.

We all fought together.

We ate together.

We died together.

And we all share the same experiences.

We have no problem whatsoever.

I served our whole year, one year in Korea.

And 90% of that time I spent in combat.

There was never an issue with race.

An estimated 600,000 African Americans were in the armed forces during the war.

More than 3000 were killed in battle.

Two were awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.

And at a quarter to ten Suddenly it stopped.

Complete.

Quiet.

It's a night I won't forget.

Though armistice talks began on July 10th, 1951.

Progress in the negotiations moved at a snail's pace.

The last and most difficult item to be settled was the exchange of prisoners of war.

The United Nations had adopted a policy that no prisoner would be repatriated against his will.

Thousands of North Korean and Chinese prisoners refused to return to their communist countries.

The Chinese and North Korean leaders argued that they all should be returned.

The Truman administration decided that enemy soldiers would not be forced to return, to live under a government that they feared or disliked or simply did not want to live under.

And I think that's a very positive aspect of the Korean War, even though it probably prolonged the conflict, because it was an expression then of the ideals, for which this country, has been based, that people ought to be able to live, under governments that they respect, and that they are loyal to.

The majority of American prisoners of war were captured in the first six months of battle.

About 50% died due to wounds, malnutrition, disease, and exposure due to extreme cold temperatures.

Its something, I guess, I Never forget.

When they sent in the mortars.

It killed him, and it knocked me down to the ground and, just as I was starting to come around because I was wounded, too, I had about six Chinese on top of me with bayonets.

And, I had a decision to make, rather, to get up to him with the possibility of being shot or, laying there and being bayoneted.

And I thought I decided that I was, I don't know, it just automatically hit me that to play dead.

So I played dead for... For 12 hours.

It started warming up, it started snowing.

And the next morning, The Chinese, they must have figured out that I was still alive because the the person that was killed had snow on top of them, and I my the snow on me was melted off.

So, they came right over and, and poked me with a bayonet was being said, get up.

It was all kwan up on top of the hill.

So I decided to see if I can get back to Battalion.

I went down the hill and I come on the three guys and, we waited there to see if we could, and we got found out that, they knew we were there and they come down and and took us prisoner.

I was captured on 17th of May of 1951, and I was held in three different P.O.W.

camps for two years, three months, 19 days and five hours.

The POWs who survived miles of forced marching were then forced to live in harsh, primitive, subhuman conditions at P.O.W.

camps.

We had dysentery, we had a lot of, we had a lot of bedbugs, a lot of fleas... There was just a lot of disease there and a lot of flies.

And then, Frank Platcha just kind of say that he just He had diarrhea so bad, he'd go out there and I said, Frank, you don't have nothing.

He said, I gotta go, gotta go.

So you go out there and, you know, every time you defecate, you get weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker.

And I think that's what killed him because he he lay down beside me and woke up the next morning and he was stone cold beside me.

They wanted to teach us communism to tell tell us how good communist was.

So we had to sit out and listen to them.

Guys were dying 5 to 10 a day, and I buried 19 guys.

I helped bury 19 guys.

Plus my foxhole buddy died beside me during the night and we weren't getting very much food.

And the Chinese said that the Air Force would come in and killed a bunch of mules on a mule train.

And if we would like to meat.

And I said, yeah, damn right.

So anyway, they started giving us mule meat.

By March of 1953, Communist leaders were anxious to end the war, and in June agreed that they would accept the United Nations policy of no forced repatriation of POWs.

On the afternoon of July 27th, 1953, an armistice agreement was signed by the United States, North Korea, and China.

A cease fire took effect at 10 p.m.

that night.

The Korean War was finally over three years and one month after it began.

The reaction of my buddies was pretty much the same as mine.

No cheering or jumping up and down.

You think of the, the outfit that got over it and.

You think about yourself.

Suddenly it stopped.

We all cheered.

It was very, I said, finally, we're going home.

The exchange of sick and wounded prisoners was first carried out in Operation Little Switch between April 20th and May 3rd, 1953, the UN released 6670 Chinese and North Korean prisoners.

Communist forces released 684 UN prisoners, including 149 Americans.

The final exchange of remaining prisoners took place between August and December 1953.

Operation Big Switch returned 75,823 prisoners to their communist countries, and 12,773 POWs to the UN, including 3598 Americans.

A Freedom Village was a village set up, and our prisoners of war were brought there, and their prisoners of war brought there too.

There was a tent, big long tent, and you went in one end and you was in Chinese territory, and one on the other end, and you were in American territory.

That's where they had set up.

You had to go through that tent.

And in the middle was a colonel sat there and he said, your name, please.

And I said, dost w marshmallow?

So we'll see.

And he's come and shake your hand and said, welcome back.

The first ships bringing home American prisoners of war entered the country via San Francisco Bay.

As I remember, there was people standing down yelling and screaming and so happy to see us.

We was all cheering and, first of all, American soil again.

I come down off the ship I like.

I pressed my hands down on the on the ship, on the floor, and I said, geez, I made Jim Nielsen was held captive for almost three years at camp one.

He was finally released on August 14th, 1953, and returned to Houghton Lake, where his family and community patiently awaited his arrival.

The community was buying me a new car.

They had taken up a collection.

I went to the high school and they had big ceremony for me and prayed all the way that I appreciated the car.

I wished I had it today.

Although the armistice initiated a truce to end the bloodshed between North and South Korea, it failed to bring about a permanent peace.

To date, South Korea and North Korea have not signed a treaty of peace.

The Korean Peninsula remains divided along a roughly 2.5 mile wide and 154 mile long demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel, and the Cold War, in its infancy during the Korean experience, would continue to define American foreign policy for nearly four more decades.

Wish there was no ticker tape parade.

There was no jumping up and down your home.

Be thankful for it.

That's it.

Though the end of the war brought Korean War soldiers home, their return was met not with the same public fanfare and celebration as experienced by the veterans of World War Two.

For indeed, this was the first American war that ended in a stalemate.

It felt like it was a travesty.

After all that fighting, all that effort, it still had been further ahead than we were when it started.

They've never they've never settled it, let's put it that way.

There's no closure.

With few exceptions, Korean War veterans returning home experienced a general ambivalence from the public at large.

I don't remember anybody ever talking to me about Korea.

And when I did mention Korea to where I'd been, some of them didn't even know it existed.

I'm on the plane and my uniform and everything.

I know who could care?

I mean, what the hell?

You know that nobody give a damn that I'm like that I was a prisoner of war and coming home.

Nobody cared if everything was to look like.

Oh, well, in fact, the matter.

I had a guy sent and asked me a downtown flat.

One dime says, where were you, man?

You don't know.

I remember on one occasion, when I was taking it in Texan, matter of fact, Fort Hood, Texas, temps go down real hot and stuff at this gas station wanting.

Tunnels or drinking water.

And he told me that niggers drank up to having out back.

And I said, well, what a shame, I've been over there.

Fine.

But these people.

And he refused to give me a drink of water.

The only guy that really was a barber, he gave me a free haircut, ran into my old high school superintendent, and, he questioned me where I. What have you been doing?

I haven't seen you for a while, I mentioned.

Well, I've been in Korea for quite a while.

He says.

Korea.

He says, where is that, by the way?

And I thought high school superintendent, 1952.

War was still going on and you know it.

I said I could have smacked him.

If you don't know what people are doing, you can appreciate what they're doing.

And I'm sure the public did not know what we were doing.

So did they appreciate what we're doing?

And like I say, just for one, one service, probably even when we were fighting a Korean War, probably half of the people still didn't, even with the newspapers, didn't know or care where Korea was.

I received more thank you's in the last two years, worried my Korean War had, from bankers and clerks and mothers pushing a baby saying thank you, but there is never a thank you prior to that that I can recall.

I don't think I spoke to my father about my activities in the service to do with cryptography until maybe.

I was in my 50s.

It took 30 years for me to tell, I, Every time I would talk about it, I would, tear up.

So I avoided it.

Oh, I couldn't talk about.

No, I couldn't I, I talked to a psychiatrist, and he says, your problem is you don't talk about it.

You should talk about it.

Sometimes I wake up crying.

No particular reason.

Different.

A lot of different things.

I did have a. Well, I felt guilty because I made it, I didn't.

Oh, they took a lot of work through all of them.

I discovered I had post-traumatic stress disorder.

And, So, I wasn't sure what to do about it, and, I knew I had to do something.

So I went to a psychologist.

One thing we fought for for 50 years, one man alone, Ernie Pappenheim, was was from out of Flint, Michigan, out of Grand Blanc.

He fought for 50 years to get us.

Disability for our frostbite.

For the simple reason.

He had no toes, no heels.

Just the center of his foot.

And he got no disability for it.

He never got wounded, so he got no disability for it.

They would give him shoes and all that were packed in for him to wear.

But still, it was not a disability.

Frostbite was not a wound.

It was not, considered combat related.

So we got nothing for, And I watched this man get bored, right?

And a half behind me, and I. That's, It's still there.

I can't get rid of it.

And, there's one of them things.

You know how to get rid of it.

I've tried to shake it a thousand times.

It can't be sure.

Oh, I hope, I hope my kids and my wife still think that I'm a hero.

First time I saw it, I got chills.

It was almost haunting.

Like a piece of lead inside my heart.

Clunk.

On July 27th, 1995, the Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated on the 42nd anniversary of the armistice that brought an end to the fighting in Korea.

19 solemn figures walked steadfastly into battle.

Their reflections are cast amidst the hundreds of haunting faces of servicemen and women etched into the memorial's mural wall.

Their presence is a lasting salute to the gunners and engineers, the mechanics and ground crew, the nurses and doctors, the airmen, marines, soldiers and sailors who made up the thousands in uniform, who served in Korea with honor.

Oh, it's a great Memorial Day.

How are they designed that?

You know, with the guys out there walking through the field and all that?

It's just, a good picture of the Korean War.

That's what those poor guys had to go through.

All they're looking at the sculptures, the expression on the man's face.

And I could just feel the coldness and start looking around to see who's, you know, waving in on us.

Everybody looks so the real life.

Real life in those ponchos and the weapons and all that stuff.

We look very nice.

Yeah, I was really taken by the back by that.

I saw myself there, you know, in dedicating the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, former president Bill Clinton gave a stirring speech in honor of all Korean War veterans.

Up until this point, we were still the Korean conflict.

And all of a sudden, anyway, in his speech, he went and said about the Korean War, and you could have heard pin drop because we all just said, what did he say?

And after that we knew we had a one.

But he just flat out had said it was a Korean War.

You weren't even laid the wreath.

And then you come back by.

Instead of coming back and getting his car, he come down the road shaking hands and he saw me with my hat and I made a beeline.

He comes over and says, how are you doing, sir?

And I said, do you really want to know?

And he said, yeah.

So I said, well, you don't know if your dad is up there.

I said, we fought over the damn war to even have.

My rifle.

And he stepped back and he looked at me and he said, you know, you says, you're right.

We made a mistake.

So then I started to take his picture.

I picked up my camera and he said, wait a minute.

He takes my camera, give it to the Secret Service, come over, puts his arm around me, and I take my picture.

And I got the picture at home right now at the reflecting pool known as the Pool of Remembrance.

A simple yet powerful statement glistens in the sun and provides a reminder to all who visit here.

Freedom is not free.

The Korean War Memorial is our nation's tribute to the servicemen and women who fought to repel communist aggression, and defended the freedom of an Asian country and its people half a world away.

It is a silent resolve that proclaims, no more will the Korean War soldier be forgotten.

Will.

You?