Free Republic

  Kim Is Dead, South Korea Lives David C. Stolinsky Dec. 19, 2011 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is dead. His third son is believed to be in line to succeed him. Aside from the fact that Kim was a bloodthirsty tyrant, I have two additional complaints. The first is that his name cannot be written properly in Arial, the font I use. The problem is that a capital i is indistinguishable from a lower-case L. So Kim Jong Il looks like Kim Jong the Second. The only alternatives are to write il in lower case as Kim Jong-il,...

(FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - They served our country during a time of war, but now some Massachusetts veterans say state lawmakers are turning their backs on them. The Korean War is already known as “The Forgotten War”. Local veterans of that war say Beacon Hill is forgetting about the state's official Korean War Veterans Memorial in Charlestown.

Vandals target Korean War Memorial Katherine Scott PENN'S LANDING - December 11, 2011 (WPVI) -- For the third December in a row, custodian James Moran says he's picking up the pieces by the war memorials at Penn's Landing. This afternoon he called police after discovering five wreaths destroyed. They were placed by the Korean War Memorial on Veterans Day. "We have young men and women dying in Afghanistan and Iraq for our flag; it's a disgrace this goes on every single year," Moran said. More: See more Action News slideshows Moran says flowers were torn off or stolen. Moran found...

After 60 years of waiting, worrying and wondering, the family of a young Army medic who died in the Korean War is preparing to give him a hometown military burial. The remains of Pfc. Jimmie Jimenez Gaitan arrived Wednesday at San Antonio International Airport. Relatives who've long sought to bring him home were on the Tarmac. SNIP Adams said his uncle was one of more than 4,000 U.S. and United Nations troops whose skeletal remains were returned in 1954 in exchange for repatriation of some 13,000 North Korean and Chinese troops in an initiative known as “Operation Glory.” Gaitan's remains...

In a remarkable testament to new technology, the remains of three Minnesotans who died within weeks of one another as prisoners in the Korean War -- their whereabouts unknown for 60 years -- will be back at home within a month of each other. In a remarkable testament to fate, two of them may have been in the same prison camp at the same time in early 1951. One was James Sund, an Army corporal whose remains will be flown Friday evening to the airport in Fargo, N.D., and receive military honors. He will be buried Tuesday in his hometown...

Robert L. Gibson MSG. Robert L. Gibson, US Army SF (RET), passed away on Feb. 10, 2011. He was born on May 16, 1927 to Lacy & Mary Gibson. When he was 16 he signed up for the draft. He was drafted and turned 18 while serving in Germany during WWII. He stayed in the Army, and became a Paratrooper with Special Forces. He was the youngest Paratrooper in the 17th Airborne according to "Thunder From Heaven". He served in WWII, Korea, and 3 tours to Viet Nam. He served in various outfits including: 17th Airborne Division, 506th Parachute Infantry...

South Korea has joined with only two other countries in the world in dropping the name of the forthcoming film "Captain America" and using the subtitle, "The First Avenger." The other two countries are Russia and Ukraine. According to the New York Times report, "Although that country (South Korea) is one of Hollywood's top-performing territories, resentment about the continued presence of the United States military runs deep." For years now, I have intended to write a column about the most glaring case of international ingratitude of which I am aware. The "Captain America" story has finally pushed me over the...

The story of Reckless is not only remarkable - it is unusual. And once you learn about her, you will see why the Marine Corps not only fell in love with her - but honored her and promoted her every chance they got. And it wasn’t just the Marines that served with her in the trenches that honored her - her last promotion to Staff Sergeant was by Gen. Randolph McC Pate - the Commandant of the entire Marine Corps. You can’t get higher than that in the Marines. Reckless joined the Marines to carry ammunition to the front lines...

The mystery surrounding a US soldier who vanished on the Korean War battlefield 60 years ago has been solved after his remains were identified using DNA testing.

The ghost ships of Mothball Fleet: Incredible pictures of abandoned Navy war ships taken by crew of illegal squatters They are the Navy ships that heroically fought in World War Two, now slowly rotting in a San Francisco bay. And as they are being towed, one by one, for scrapping, in just a few years they will all be gone. A group of illegal squatters gained unprecedented access to the vessels by rowing at night for two years past security and climbing onto the ships, sleeping secretly on board for days at a time. And as these stunning images show,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIo3ZfA9da0&feature=player_embedded

Holding a tattered POW/MIA flag in his hands, Korean War veteran Bob Dumas can not hide the disgust at the vandals who damaged it. "Desecrating a flag that represents so much to the families is unbelievable," said Dumas, 81, of Canterbury. For years, the POW/MIA flag flew on the flag pole outside the Plainfield Post Office, until vandals got a hold of it. "This happened sometime during the night Tuesday night into Wednesday," said Plainfield Deputy Police Chief Michael Surprenant. Vandals removed the flag, cut deliberate holes in it with a knife and then ran it back up the flag...

Seventy-five year old Perry Thrasher is a veteran in the spinal cord unit at the Memphis VA Hospital. He is paralyzed, but his family says he wanted a confederate flag for his room. "His granddaddy was in the Confederate War and it means a lot to him because he served in it. It's just his heritage," says Diane Boatner, Thrasher's daughter. She was shocked by what happened Friday. "He was all upset and crying. The VA Police had come and told him he couldn't have it. He had it right over his bed," says Boatner. She says a nurse saw...

WASHINGTON -- Chinese-born pianist Lang Lang gave a musical shout out to America-hating patriots in his homeland when he played at the White House state dinner last week. During his performance, Lang tinkled the ivories with the famous anti-American propaganda tune "My Motherland" -- the theme song from the Chinese-made Korean War movie "Battle on Shangangling Mountain."

The day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with South Korean and Japanese diplomats, China is calling claims that Beijing is guarding North Korea’s nuclear program an “irresponsible accusation,” Reuters reports. "The responsibility of maintaining peace and stability in Northeast Asia should be shouldered by all parties in the region – all parties are stakeholders," said China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, responding to Clinton’s dismissal of Beijing’s call for additional talks on North Korea. "We call on the parties to positively respond to our proposals to resolve the conflict through dialogue and negotiation."

...In unbelievably difficult service in the Korean War, his unit was swamped, cut off, overwhelmed by hordes of Red Chinese crossing into Korea. In the worst cold weather imaginable, under fire, starving, acting Sergeant Charles Rangel, in a black unit led mostly by white officers, took a large group of men, led them by example, lifted their morale, as they fought their way out to safety. Men were being shot, freezing, getting captured all around him, yet he got most of his men out...

(Reuters) - North Korea on Tuesday fired dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island, setting buildings on fire and prompting a return fire by the South, Seoul's military and media reports said.

N. Korea fires artillery towards S. Korean island, official says SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Tuesday fired several rounds of artillery towards South Korean waters and an island near the tense west sea border, the South's military said. The North's artillery shells fell at 2:34 p.m. in the South's waters off the island of Yeonpyeong, some of them landing directly on the island, said Col. Lee Bung-woo, spokesman at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff. The South's military responded with its artillery firing.

Dear Lord, There's a young man far from home, called to serve his nation in time of war; sent to defend our freedom on some distant foreign shore. We pray You keep him safe, we pray You keep him strong, we pray You send him safely home ... for he's been away so long. There's a young woman far from home, serving her nation with pride. Her step is strong, her step is sure, there is courage in every stride. We pray You keep her safe, we pray You keep her strong, we pray You send her safely home...

The 13th annual Korean War Era/POW-MIA Remembrance Day event begins at 12:30 p.m. Sept. 18 at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, Wash. All Korean War era veterans will be honored and recognized for their service. (I-Newswire) September 15, 2010 - Separated from his fighting unit, Tacoma native Bill Moeller trudged through thick snow in thin rubber boots near the Chipyongni area of Korea. He hid behind boulders while a troop of Asian soldiers marched past, then glanced over his shoulder to see white flares, indicating a Chinese surge forward. “The hill behind the lights appeared to be moving, like...

“Chosin,” winner of Best Documentary Feature at the 2010 GI Film Festival opens in theaters this week. Produced by combat decorated Marines (and NY City friends) Brian Iglesias and Anton Sattler, this Academy qualifying theatrical exhibition is sponsored by PepsiCo. ***************************************************** After 60 years of silence, the survivors of the Chosin Reservoir Campaign of the Korean War take viewers on an emotional and heart-pounding journey through one of the most savage battles in American history. In the winter of 1950, 15,000 U.S. troops were surrounded and trapped by 120,000 Chinese soldiers in the frozen mountains of North Korea. Despite overwhelming...

... Bruce Cumings’s “Korean War,” [is] a powerful revisionist history of America’s intervention in Korea. Beneath its bland title, Mr. Cumings’s book is a squirm-inducing assault on America’s moral behavior during the Korean War, a conflict that he says is misremembered when it is remembered at all. It’s a book that puts the reflexive anti-Americanism of North Korea’s leaders into sympathetic historical context. Mr. Cumings is chairman of the history department at the University of Chicago and the author of “The Origins of the Korean War,” a respected two-volume survey. He mows down a host of myths about the war...

COLUMBUS, Ind. (WISH) - It's been six decades but a sailor from Columbus killed in the Korean War will finally rest in peace. Robert Langwell was the second cousin Brenda Showalter never knew; missing for 60 years. Then last year her phone rang. "I was just sure it was a scam," remembers Showalter. "Someone was wanting money. This can't be..." But it was true. The remains of Navy Ensign Robert Langwell had been found in South Korea.

A feature article from a Chinese magazine was struck from the Internet after news spread that it stated that the Korean War was started by North Korea’s invasion of the South. The lengthy feature in Xinhua’s International Herald Leader, timed for the 60th anniversary of the start of the war, had a time line that stated: “The North Korean military crossed the parallel on June 25th, 1950 and Seoul was taken in four days.” The article was widely distributed among Chinese news portals and agencies. After news of the story spread in Korean yesterday, the original article was found to...

Cash-strapped North Korea demanded on Thursday that the United States pay almost $65 trillion in compensation for six decades of hostility. The cost of the damage done by the United States since the peninsula was divided in 1945 is estimated at $64.96 trillion, the official news agency said, in a report on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War. The figure includes $26.1 trillion arising from US "atrocities" which left more than five million North Koreans dead, wounded, kidnapped or missing, KCNA said. Six decades of US sanctions had caused a loss of...

"While South Korea prospers, the people of North Korea have suffered profoundly," he said, adding that, "communism had resulted in dire poverty, mass starvation and brutal suppression. "In recent years," he went on to say, "the suffering has been compounded by the leader who wasted North Korea's precious few resources on personal luxuries and nuclear weapons programs." Bush concluded his message by stating that God is keeping South Korea always and that he hoped for the reunification of the two countries. The gathering at Sangam World Cup Stadium in western Seoul, also featured leading Christian leaders like H.E. Fernando Borbon,...

Detail by painful detail, the CIA is coming to grips with one of the most devastating episodes in its history, a botched cloak-and-dagger flight into China that stole two decades of freedom from a pair of fresh-faced American operatives and cost the lives of their two pilots. In opening up about the 1952 debacle, the CIA is finding ways to use it as a teaching tool. Mistakes of the past can serve as cautionary tales for today's spies and paramilitary officers taking on al-Qaida and other terrorist targets. At the center of the story are two eager CIA paramilitary officers...

Tensions in the Korean Peninsula are at their worst point in decades after a North Korean submarine ambushed a South Korean warship, killing scores of sailors. Although North Korea has made violent provocation a cornerstone of its foreign and domestic policy for years, there is always the chance that this kind of brinksmanship will spark a major war. With an isolated and paranoid regime like North Korea holding some of the world's most terrifying weapons, any reaction from the South or the United States could be seen as the first phase of a larger war. After all, part of the...

South Korea has concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank one of its warships in March, killing 46 sailors, according to government officials and domestic news reports on Tuesday. South Korean officials are preparing to announce the results of their investigation later this week. The much anticipated finding will accuse North Korea of committing one of the worst military provocations on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War, deepening tensions between the countries. North Korea, denying involvement in the sinking, has vowed to retaliate against any attempt to link it with the March 26 explosion that broke...

More than half a century since the end of the Korean War and the beginning of a long period of relative military isolation, South Korea is gradually, and quietly, playing a larger role in world security. Despite strong US support, South Korea’s rise as a military power is complicated by domestic politics, and by a belligerent North Korea. To avoid provoking foreign and domestic opposition, Seoul has cleverly disguised its newest overseas military operation as a strictly peaceful affair. Despite a technologically advanced military and a gross domestic product just shy of $1 trillion, making it the world’s 15th wealthiest...

N. Korea threatens to stop preserving remains of U.S. soldiers SEOUL, April 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea threatened Monday to stop preserving the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, pressing Washington to resume its search regardless of a nuclear standoff between the two countries. A joint excavation, which had been a source of hard currency for the impoverished North, came to a halt in 2005 due to tension over Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions. The U.S. estimates about 8,000 of its soldiers are buried in the North. The two sides held talks in January about resuming the...

The American F-86 Sabres stopped the MiG-15s—and their Russian pilots—at the Yalu. In August 1950, a Soviet air division with 122 MiG-15 jet fighters arrived in northeastern China and set up headquarters at Antung on the Yalu River, the dividing line between Chinese Manchuria and North Korea. On Oct. 18, an American RB-29 reconnaissance aircraft spotted 75 fighters on the ramp at Antung, but that did not raise much alarm for Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s United Nations Command or the US Far East Air Forces. Nor was there any great concern on Nov. 1 when a flight of F-51 Mustangs was...

The family of Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton, the first F-86 pilot to score a MiG-15 kill during the Korean War, donated several items to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. On Dec. 17, 1950, Hinton, who was commander of the 336th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, led a flight of four F-86s over northwestern North Korea. To trick the communists, the Sabre pilots flew at the same altitude and speed as F-80s typically did on missions, and they used F-80 call signs. Hinton spotted four MiGs at a lower altitude, and he led his flight in...

President Obama's Foreign Policy is more like a Neville Chamberlain imitation. But you cant say it isn't working. After he reached hand out to despots such as Ahmadinjad, shares a laugh with dictators such as Chavez and bows to the King of the repressive Saudi regime, the world has taken notice and laughs at the United States. According to multiple sources today is North Korea's turn to laugh at President Obama's foreign policy. Right now a South Korean navy ship is sinking in the Yellow Sea near North Korea early Saturday, and the navy was shooting at an unidentified ship...

Love connection By EVE BYRON, Independent Record | Posted: Sunday, February 21, 2010 A weathered leather wallet A straight-edge razor. A pipe lightly scented with tobacco. Growing up, Colleen McCarthy and her three brothers knew not to open the large cardboard box their mother, Darlene O’Leary, stored in the basement of their Helena home for half a century. One brother, Scott O’Leary, had snooped inside it as a young boy and was angrily rebuked by Darlene. But when she unexpectedly died last September and their father moved to an assisted-living facility due to health issues, the siblings decided to sell...

After 59 years, Army Master Sgt. Silas W. Wilson is coming home tonight, and the fact he will be in a flag-draped casket does not diminish the feeling of anticipation and closure in the heart of a daughter who never knew him. "When I was a child, from the time I had any memory at all, I knew what had hap­pened," Marie Wilson Cleghorn said Tues­day night. "And for 59 years, I've prayed ev­ery day that my daddy would come home one way or another. "It's 22 years too late for my mother to be this happy, and it's eight...

“Perfection is acquired through our efforts, and if we try to become saints, someday we will be saints.” — Father Emil Kapaun Chase Kear does not seem at first glance to be the poster boy for a Vatican investigation involving sainthood. He chews a little dip, hits targets at turkey shoots, listens to country music when he rolls. In his Facebook profile photo he dresses the part of a halfnaked bandito in a sombrero. He’s a self-described redneck; also foolish and drunk and stupid at times in the past, he says, though less so since his accident. He takes comfort...

“He died because he loved and pitied us. He died that we might live.” — Father Emil Kapaun The legend of Father Kapaun and the quest to elevate him to sainthood began in September 1953 as soon as Communist guards released prisoners at the end of the Korean War. A little band of fierce-looking Americans, with balding and blunttalking Ralph Nardella at their head, carried Emil Kapaun’s gold ciborium and a rugged wooden crucifix, an inch shy of four feet tall. They had risked their lives in a final act of defiance to bring those items across the fence line;...

"In order to win the crown of heavenly glory, the saints were expected first to carry a heavy cross in life." -- Father Emil Kapaun Over the next six weeks, the POWs in the Pyoktong prison camp began a cloaked and daring effort to save Emil Kapaun’s life. On a rise above them stood the remains of a Buddhist monastery; the guards called it a hospital, but POWs called it "The Death House." The Chinese sometimes killed prisoners by isolating them there from food and help. The POWs knew that’s where Kapaun might end up. In April, weeks after his...

"No sincere prayer is ever wasted." -Father Emil Kapaun At sunrise on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1951, Father Emil Kapaun startled POWs by donning his purple priest’s stole and openly carrying a Catholic prayer missal, borrowed from Ralph Nardella. He had talked atheist guards into letting him hold an Easter service, a favor they soon regretted. No one there would ever forget this day. The most moving sight the POWs ever saw. At sunrise, 80 officers — bearded, dirty and covered with lice — followed Kapaun up a little rise, to the cold steps of a bombed-out church. They gathered...

“People whose ambitions are confined to the limits of earthly things would be confounded at the beatitude on meekness.” — Father Emil Kapaun By February 1951 the Allied prisoners at Pyoktong, North Korea, were dying so fast on ground frozen so solid that unburied bodies lay in stacks three to four feet high, 30 to 40 yards long. Men hoarded food or stole it from the weak, and left sick men to die in their own defecation. Many soldiers were in their teens and early 20s, not mature enough to deal with that level of suffering. Father Emil Kapaun never...

"Christ's works testified to what he was; our works will testify as to what we are." -Father Emil Kapaun -- Three weeks after their capture, after 75 miles of marching, the starving survivors of the 8th Cavalry and 19th Infantry straggled into a mud-hut village called Pyoktong, on the banks of the Yalu River, two miles from Manchuria. They’d barely set foot in the village when American bombers roared in overhead and firebombed it. Horrified villagers spat at the prisoners, threw rocks. Guards took them south again, 12 more miles. Men and discipline broke down in the snow and ice;...

"Men find it easy to follow one who has endeared himself to them." -Father Emil Kapaun Father Emil Kapaun was considered an unusual man even before the 8th Cavalry’s 3rd Battalion was overrun at Unsan. Many devout Christians believe, for example, that they must overtly preach Christianity, but Kapaun by all accounts never lectured, never forced it. What he did instead was scrounge food for soldiers, write letters to their families, pass his tobacco pipe around for a few puffs, and run through machine gun fire, rescuing wounded. If he brought up religion in foxholes, he asked permission first: “Would...

After he hit his head on the ground in a pole vaulting accident last year, they sawed off a third of his skull to relieve the pressure on his swelling brain. They told his family that all hope was lost. But Chase's family lives near Wichita, where a farm kid named Emil Kapaun was ordained a priest 69 years ago. The Kears prayed thousands of prayers to the soul of Father Kapaun, asking him to bend the ear of God. They chanted his name like a mantra. And Chase woke up. And he arose and walked. His baffled doctors said...

This weekend marks the 59th anniversary of one of the most courageous battles in military history. It happened in the early stages of the Korean Conflict, often called the forgotten war. Thousands of marines fought against the North Koreans, the Chinese and another enemy - the weather, Now 85 years old, Joseph Owen was a young first lieutenant in November 1950, when he and nearly 20,000 other American fighters, trying to gain ground against the surging North Koreans and Chinese Army, were outmaneuvered, trapped behind enemy lines at North Korea's treacherous Chosin Reservoir. The American's were out-gunned 10 to 1....

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2009 – Retired Army Col. Lewis L. Millett, who earned the Medal of Honor during the Korean War for leading what reportedly was the last major American bayonet charge, died Nov 14. Retired Army Col. Lewis L. Millet wears his Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and other medals earned in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He served as honorary colonel of the 27th Infantry Regiment Association, and was active in veterans events almost to his death Nov. 14, 2009. U.S. Army photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Millett, 88, died in Loma...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2009 – Veterans of the Korean War, both American and Korean, gathered here yesterday with current U.S. Army and South Korean leaders to pay tribute at the National Korean War Memorial. Army Gen. Walter L. Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, left, and Jung-ki "Rocky" Park, Korean Corporate Members of the Association of the United States Army, render honors during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 5, 2009. DoD photo by Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Members of the Korean War Veterans...

My claim is that Koreans are still unable to acknowledge that it was natural for some people to have benefitted under Japanese rule and that these people still loved Korea and the like (I'm thinking more along the lines of a Park Chung Hee than the founders of either Dong-a-Ilbo or Samsung), but the opportunities they had in life only existed if they accepted that Korea was for the time being a Japanese colony and that they realistically couldn't do a single thing about it. And, more so, and this is a claim purely along the lines of the early...

You see, I'm of the belief that President George W. Bush, the first president I voted for during the 2000 election cycle, though I really was pulling for Senator John McCain at that time, became president since he was a likeable figure thought to be not different than the average American (Though, former President Gore's likeability issue and disgraced activist Ralph Nader probably also had something to do with it), but yet, then Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. and a tutor of George W. Bush's answers precisely why the U.S. should care and in a very concise manner too. If...

Anyways, take these xenophobic tendencies that have been created for over the past 1300 years (or more than 5,000 years, depending on your source) and then brutally colonize the country for thirty six years. Then, add in a devastating civil war (the Korean War) that wasn't allowed to see its natural conclusion - a war ending with there being two rival Korean states is definitely unnatural (or just look at the fact that the armistic isn't even a peace treaty, but a cease fire signed by China, North Korea, and the U.S.). That's at the heart of my argument. And,...