Re: Attitudes toward Korean War

[James Robert Dennis III <jrdennis@earthlink.net>]

>Studies done during the war show that support for the war faded very 
>quickly once it appeared that there wouldn't be a quick "total" victory.   
>Comparisons with polls done during the Korean War and during the Vietnam 
>War show that support for the Korean War dwindled to as low as popular 
>support for the Vietnam War.  The disapproval simply wasn't as vocal or 
>visual.
>
>Janet
>
>
>"Well behaved women rarely make history"
>                                    Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
>

In the case of my Hometown and several other towns in North Texas, the 
general feeling was we should not have been in Korea PERIOD!

But then my hometown was were F Battery, 2d Bn 131 FA (The Lost 
Battalion) was from.  They spent 1942 - 1945 under the "kind care" of the 
Japanese and Koreans.  The survivors of the Battalion spent most of the 
Korean War writing letters to Congress protesting the war and the 
treatment that they had recieved from the Koreans.  

The Draft Boards in those counties where the Battalion came from did 
their best to not take any relative and send them to Korea.  They also 
did their best to send the local boys to Germany or a state side 
assignment.

When the Texas Agricultural Extension Service (under the guise of the 4-H 
Clubs of Texas) gathered livestock, tractors, supplies and so on for 
Korea in 1955, nothing was said to 30 counties in North Texas where the 
survivors were living.  I remember how disappointed/pissed off the Lost 
Battalion Survivors were when I told them of all the 4-H signs all over 
Korea and the tribute it gave to the 4-H Clubs of Texas.  Especially 
disappointing since the 4-H Clubs of America were started in that town 
and they knew Dr Marks.  

Had they known this was going to happen they would have scuttled it.  
While they have forgiven the Japanese a little, they have never forgiven 
the Koreans for what happened on the Rail Road of Death.