The Korean dead will be returned

I teared up when I read that the remains of soldiers would be returned from North Korea. Their parents are gone now, but there are siblings and children and grandchildren. I remember when my uncle came home in 1947 after being killed in China in 1944 during WWII. He was an aerial engineer for the 24th Mapping Squadron of the 8th Photo Group, Reconnaissance (10th Air Force) which served in the China, Burma, India theater. Clare and a pilot in his unit were killed in an explosion when their plane hit a gasoline supply, through the stupidity of his commanding officer who insisted the men go up in a blinding storm. No one else in that unit lost his life and we only found out how Clare died when a great nephew, Steve, attended one of their reunions in the 1990s. Clare came home on the Honda Knot through San Francisco with 233,181 American dead mostly from action in the Pacific. Another large number came to New York from Europe. Hundreds of thousands of grateful Americans lined up to greet them. I hope we can welcome home those who died in Korea, the war that never ended. Thank you, President Trump.

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/06/12/trump-kim-agree-to-repatriating-us-military-remains-from-korean-war/

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2010/05/remembering-uncle-clare-on-memorial-day.html

Who's the president? Who's to blame?

Some say, "Why do you still talk about Obama's faults when Trump has been in office for over a year?" Here's why. 

1) Democrats don't treat him like he's the president so we can still blame Obama who has his people embedded in Trump's administration, and 

2) Democrats have been such obstructionists over everything and brought law suits, he's only had a few weeks to accomplish tax reform, improve the economy, secure the borders, revitalize the military, bring hope and pride back to America, stop the ridiculous mandate to jail those who don't buy health insurance, appoint excellent people to the courts, get the U.S. out of a non-binding Climate agreement, defund the organization that kills more females than all diseases, accidents and abuse--Planned Parenthood, defeat ISIS and end the Korean War. 

If he were a politician, he'd not have accomplished anything.

 

Long lost purple heart will be reunited with family of recipient

Ten years ago Smuckers the dog dug a hole in the lawn and when his owner Steve Jankousky went to fill it up, he found something shiny—a Purple Heart.  For 10 years Jankousky has been looking for the man whose name was engraved on it--Cpl. Richmond Litman.  Finally, he found a step-daughter, and will soon be in touch with Litman’s family.  The Korean War soldier died in the 1990s.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3010341/dog-finds-long-lost-purple-heart-returns-it-to-veteran-s-family-1.3010605

And Smuckers is still alive to help with the reunion.  Neat story.

The Korean War back in the headlines

So North Korea shelled an island controlled by South Korea and they woke the President up to tell him. The Korean War started in 1950--60 years ago--before Obama was born. There was an Armistice (July 27, 1953), which got us out of it, but there was never a victory or a Peace Treaty, so the War goes on for Koreans to this day. But it has really taken a toll on North Koreans. A decade ago it was estimated that 3.5 million North Koreans had been deliberately starved to death by their own government. It's hard to say what that number would be now--but it's all a result of the Amistice we signed in 1953--leaving before the job was done. And many want us to do that in Afghanistan and Iraq. Winning a war is nasty stuff. Negotiating the ending and walking away is even nastier.

Repeating myself on George W. Bush

I wrote this in December 2008 after looking through a Sept. 18, 1939 Life magazine about the WWII we hadn't yet entered. It's even more true now.

"The writers even called it a world war--and we weren't in it. I looked through several issues. Despite Bush's failures on the financial front in 2008, I was again so glad that he pursued the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and has kept his word for all these years. He acted with virtually total support of both parties, and one by one they fell away, abandoning principals and allies.

Really folks, the USA's record for the 20th century is pretty crummy. Yes, you can talk about the "greatest generation"--they did respond after millions had already died in Europe and China. But we dawdled around in WWI, jumping in at the last moment/months of the war. We abandoned millions of our east European allies to the Soviets in 1945. We negotiated Korea and 55 years later we're still messing with north Korea. Then we ran out on the Vietnamese thanks to our home-grown spoiled boomers like Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and Jane Fonda.

God bless George W. Bush and we'll let history decide if we had any Presidents in the last 100 years who had all the body parts those guys are reputed to possess--spine, balls, and guts."

Too much too soon and too little too late

That's FDR in the 1930s. He extended the Great Depression through government interference and an alphabet of failed public works programs and allowed millions in Europe to die in Hitler's aggression, not getting into the war in Europe until two years--TWO YEARS PLUS--after Hitler invaded Poland. And my goodness, how long had Japan been terrorizing China--certainly years before they bombed Pearl.

The other day I was at the temporary location of the OSU Libraries off Ackerman Road and pulled the September 1939 Life magazine off the shelf, schlepped to a table (they are huge), and sat down to browse. It's really fascinating to see what we the people (I was not yet born, but you know what I mean) knew when and how the U.S. government in our name did nothing. Who knows if it was the will of the people--the polls of the time, mixed in with ads for corsets and clunky shoes, said supplying (either England and/or Germany) arms was OK, but go ahead and you guys have a world war without us. The writers even called it a world war--and we weren't in it. I looked through several issues. Despite Bush's failures on the financial front in 2008, I was again so glad that he pursued the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and has kept his word for all these years. He acted with virtually total support of both parties, and one by one they fell away, abandoning principals and allies.

Really folks, the USA's record for the 20th century is pretty crummy. Yes, you can talk about the "greatest generation"--they did respond after millions had already died in Europe and China. But we dawdled around in WWI, jumping in at the last moment/months of the war. We abandoned millions of our east European allies to the Soviets in 1945. We negotiated Korea and 55 years later we're still messing with north Korea. Then we ran out on the Vietnamese thanks to our home-grown spoiled boomers like Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and Jane Fonda.

God bless George W. Bush and we'll let history decide if we had any Presidents in the last 100 years who had all the body parts those guys are reputed to possess, spine, balls, and guts.



Life Magazine September 18, 1939 : Cover - Britain goes to war, gunner loading anti-aircraft shells. Germans beat British - French in first week of propaganda. German tanks push Poles 150 miles in seven days. French vs. the Westwall. Sinking of the "Athenia" - British ocean liner, two page art by Seielstad. American neutrality - Legion commander says stay out of war. Photo essay - Submarines, R14, James Hicks. The week the war began - a retrospective. Beltsville, Maryland research center helps farmers grow more - color feature. Postilion hat. Girls legs on campus go Scottish. Sidney Waugh designs America's first modern glass. Ted Allen wins horseshoe meet. Girls shoot in National target matches. Air-Raid shelters. London moves art treasures to safety. Full page Elgin watch ad with Robert Edison Fulton, Jr., explorer, mountain climber. Full page red movie poster ad for "Dust be my destiny" with John Garfield and Priscilla Lane. Full page Vanta ad, garments for infants and children. Modern American glass. Eleven-year-old soprano Gloria Jean. Life calls on Winston churchill. Photo of Barber Clay Cope shaving Pete Hilton.

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The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam

You won't catch me reading another book about a hopeless war--I just finished "1776" by David McCullough not too long ago. But I was interested in the review of "The Coldest Winter" in Saturday's WSJ by Peter Kann. Halberstam died in an auto accident before it was published, but many reviewers say it is his finest work.

Kann sets the scene for us, and the landscape might look vaguely familiar:

"Korea was a war waged by a centrist Democratic administration and undermined at home by the Republican right.

Two decades later another war effort, in Vietnam, was undermined by the radical left.

And today that scenario is being repeated as the Democratic left, virtually every Democratic candidate, is demanding that the U.S. abandon Iraq."

The reviewer then concludes

. . ."post WWII America has proved incapable of the national unity needed to keep military commitments and support its troops in a meaningful way."

He also concedes that the unsatisfactory truce that ended the Korean War did result in a booming South Korean economy and that our time in Vietnam, for all its failures, bought time for other small Asian nations to develop and become stronger to stand up against China. Gee, I would have thought the starvation deaths of those millions of North Koreans (death through Communist democide) would have gotten more space. Maybe starving children only look pathetic after a few generations? Maybe I'm just too recently returned from Ireland?