BOISE, Idaho — Other than the 11 years it was memorialized by the TV show M*A*S*H, the Korean War is often referred to as America's forgotten war. In fact, it wasn't officially a war but instead a ‘police action.’
Following World War Two, America's involvement in the Korean conflict, North vs South, didn't get the same attention.
Close to 2 million Americans were involved, but most came home to little or no fanfare. It wasn't like Vietnam, where American soldiers came home to threats and disdain. For those who served in Korea, veterans did come home with trauma and damage that wasn't talked about.
2023 marks 70 years since the informal cease-fire was negotiated. America packed up, but till this day North and South Korea remain at war.
Dr. Lisa Brady is a history professor at Boise State, she specializes in studying the Korean War.
“I think part of the big issue with terminology is we just come out of World War Two, right? And no one wanted to go to war again. Most people didn't know where Korea was and they didn't want to send their sons and daughters to this place that they'd never heard of before. And so the police action or military action was the terminology used by President Truman at the time. And it was, in fact, though, a very clear war. It was tragic. It was brutal. It was devastating. So I think it's very fair to now at least call it a war,” Brady said.
A forgotten war for many, but it stands as a crucial origin story in American foreign policy.
“We got involved because of the fear of a communist takeover of the world," said Dr. Brady. "Although the Soviet Union had been our ally in World War Two, there had been increasing tensions between the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. And then in 1949, with the end of the Chinese Civil War, which resulted in the creation of the People's Republic of China, that added to another layer of communist threat, according to the United States and their allies. And so when North Korea, which also had declared itself to be the rightful authority over the entire peninsula, moved beyond the demarcation line in 1950, that signaled a very clear threat in the minds of Americans,” Brady said.
Close to 40,000 American service members were killed in the Korean War but back at home, there was not the same energy that heavily rallied during World War 2.
“This is why it's called the Forgotten War. Many people at the time didn't understand the conflict. It had come right off World War Two, so it didn't seem as significant. And so there wasn't a lot of debate about the war except really in the halls of Congress. And even there it was fairly subdued. Many of the soldier recollections in archives across the nation, the soldiers themselves and Marines and sailors and airmen, they came back and they said nobody even really noticed. Right. There were no parades. There were no confrontations. It was just they were expected to just move right back into civilian society without a whole lot of support, to be honest,” Brady said.
Hearing stories from Veterans of the Korean War can be rare for a collection of reasons. Idaho’s Warhawk Air Museum in Nampa has worked to record oral histories of the men who served. Snippets into history lived. Brady understands the difficulty.
“In my own personal family. My uncle fought in Korea. I didn't know he had fought there until my mother told me about five or six years ago. He never talks about it. It was that traumatic for him. And I think that that is the case for many Korean War veterans. It was something that they very rarely talk about. Now, some did, of course, but very, very many chose not to talk about what they experienced there. And they simply, again, reintegrated into American life and tried to move on with their lives,” Brady said.
KTVB is proud to present the 2023 Veterans Parade this Saturday, November 4th in front of the Idaho Statehouse. Parade kicks off at 10 am.
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