Last hurrah for some Korea vets

The weekend anniversary that looms large for aging Maine veterans of the Korean War may well be the last hurrah for some, as time marches relentlessly onward.

Fifty years ago tomorrow – on July 27, 1953 – America’s so-called “forgotten war” ended with the signing of an armistice by United Nations and Communist representatives at Panmunjom near the 38th parallel dividing North and South Korea. The three-year war had cost the United States 142,091 casualties – 33,269 dead, including 245 Mainers; 103,284 wounded; and 5,178 captured or missing.

The anniversary will be marked with ceremonies at Burnham’s Cpl. Clair Goodblood Memorial Park today and at Bangor’s impressive Korean War Memorial tomorrow. Veterans will recall the fighting that raged up and down the Korean peninsula for 15 months before stagnating with the beginning of peace talks in 1951 and ending in stalemate almost exactly where it had begun when North Korean troops stormed across the 38th Parallel to attack South Korea in June 1950.

Many of the 245 Maine men whose names are engraved on the war memorial at Mount Hope Cemetery died in those first 15 months, when the war machines of the United Nations command, the Chinese communists and forces from both Koreas chewed up the countryside in savage confrontation. Others died after the struggle had degenerated into a sort of modern trench warfare – seemingly endless battles for the same hills – following the war’s last major engagement at a godforsaken placed called the Punchbowl in late 1951.

Always, there was one more hill to climb, but the Army and Marine grunts were up to the task. “Look to the common, ordinary, suffering, groaning, bitching, wisecracking, duty-bound, fearful, terrorized men who fought this battle,” author Eric Hammel wrote in his book “Chosin,” detailing the Chosin Resevoir disaster of 1950. “They are the ones who froze and starved and suffered and died. And survived.”

Those surviving common, ordinary, duty-bound and terrorized young Maine men of a half-century ago at Chosin and hundreds of other battles – men now in their ’70s and ’80s and still eminently capable of groaning, bitching and wisecracking when the occasion demands – have been invited to share their stories in Sunday’s ceremonies which begin at 10 a.m. at the Korean War Memorial. Organizers figure that such a last-hurrah format will better serve all concerned than the usual political speeches at such functions. Hard to argue with that.

Former combatants who speak will, I suspect, be the first to acknowledge that their recollections may be selective and somewhat tainted with time. No matter. The pride in their role in fighting communism in Korea sure looked good on them when they came quietly home after the armistice. And it continues to look good on them today, a half-century after the fact, as well it should.

(Good journalistic practice mandates a disclaimer here: As an Army draftee, I arrived in Korea not long after the armistice was signed. If you charge partiality on my part toward those guys who got there early enough to get shot at in The Land Of The Otherwise Morning Calm, I readily plead guilty.)

In “Korea: The Untold Story of The War,” published by Times Books in 1982, author Joseph C. Goulden cites a detail that has become Marine Corps legend: 40 minutes before the cease-fire a batch of Marines near Panmunjom saw Chinese troops digging trenches some100 yards in front of their lines. They were ordered by their battalion commander not to shoot – not to start anything they couldn’t finish – and so they spent the last minutes of the war amusing themselves by throwing rocks at the Chinese.

The armistice took effect 12 hours after the 10 a.m. signing. “At 10 o’clock the sky was suddenly lit by dozens of multi-colored flares: white star clusters, red flares, yellow flares, the pyrotechnics signifying the end of a 37-month conflict,” Goulden wrote. “The moon was full that night, and Marine Martin Russ thought it ‘hung low in the sky like a Chinese lantern.’ He crawled out of his foxhole to enjoy his first moments of peace in Korea.

“Marines shed their helmets and flak jackets. Shrill voices drifted up the hillside. ‘The Chinese were singing,’ Russ realized. ‘A hundred yards or so down the trench someone began shouting the Marine Corps Hymn at the top of his voice. Others joined in, bellowing the words.’ It was noisy and off-key fun.

“Later some Chinese wandered over to the Marines’ position and offered candy and handkerchiefs as gifts. The Marines stared back. They said nothing. They offered no gifts. Peace was enough…”

Kent Ward’s e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.