Contrasts-Long

["Lynn H. Nelson" <lhnelson@raven.cc.ku.edu>]

I must confess that, having spent most of my adult life as a
professor of Medieval History, my mind is so set on providing the
proper background for things that I rarely can get immediately to
the point. I assure you that I _am_ aware that this is a forum
for the discussion of the Korean War and associated matters, and
that I _do_ eventually get to the point that I would like to
make. But, first the background.

Back in the 1930's, there was a brand of cigarette called "Wings"
that, from a kid's point of view, was outstanding in that, inside
the cellophane that enclosed each package, there was a neat
little card with a picture of an airplane on one side, and a
description of the craft on the other. My father was a
chain-smoker, and I was able - through incessant whining and
moping - managed to get him to switch from Marvels to Wings.
Mother was much less tractable, though, since she smoked
Raleighs, which provided their addicts with a regular supply of
coupons that could be exchanged for all kinds of trash. 


So it was that, up until the beginning of the Second World War,
when Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War, the UAW-CIO Makes the
Army Roll and Go, Doncha Know There's a War On?, many of the
lesser brands of smokes - including both Wings and Marvels -
disappeared from the shelves forever. The rationing of cigarettes
and the consequent appearance of little machines with which one
could (supposedly) roll one's own cigarettes changed the market
considerably and set me to the daily task of keeping my parents
supplied with smokes.

By that time, though, I had a massive collection of Wings cards,
the coverage of which I had appreciably increased through astute
trading. I was well-acquainted with the capabilities of the B10,
the speed of the BeeGee, the armor of the Curtiss-Wright P40, the
Lockheed Electra, the Boeing P26, and many others.

Then, too, the Office of Civil Defense had gotten rolling, and
hordes of youngsters plunged into the task of learning the
silhouettes on enemy airplanes as part of their assignments as
plane-spotters. I lived in Chicago at the time and, although the
Tribune clearly delineated how the city could be attacked by
Japanese Zeros (which, admittedly, had a rather long range for
such craft) or German FW200C Kondor sea planes refueling from
Milch-cow submarines stationed off Halifax, I never had the
opportunity to use my knowledge during the War.

It may be that the presence of the USS Wolverine, a side-paddle
aircraft carrier converted from an old Lake Michigan excursion
ship, discouraged our enemies from attacking a city teeming with
young airplane spotters and defended by a host of carrier-borne
biplanes.

In 1983, though, while walking down the Gran Via (temporarily
called Avenida Francisco Franco) in Madrid, I heard a droning
from above and looked up. Other pedestrians were startled and my
wife deeply embarrassed when I raised my arm to the sky and called
out "Heinkel 111! Heinkel 111!" I had forgotten that the Kondor
Legion had left their planes in Spain at the end of the Civil War
and that the Spanish Ejercito Aerea had continued to use them,
along with some early ME109s and a few Stukas as their mainline
strike aircraft until such time as the boycott of the country was
ended and they could purchase some more modern craft.

All of this is a prelude to the fact that, all last week, I was
bemused to see a B17e flying around over Lawrence, Kansas,
followed, improbably, by a Boeing-Stearman PT-17 fitted out in
the blue and gold of the pre-war U.S. Air Corps. On one of my
Wings cigarette cards, it was suggested that the PT-17, which, as
the designation indicates, became one of the standard primary
trainers of the Second World War accompanying a number of
fledgling pilots and their instructors into the cold waters off
Navy Pier while pursuing the goal of learning how to take off and
land from an aircraft carrier and so lose them their chance of of
moving up to a _real_ carrier, the Wolverine.

I caught glimpses of a few other planes that once graced Wings
cigarette cards as well as a number of more modern, World War II
vintage, aircraft. This week-long air show was only a minor,
although highly-visible, event in the festivities marking the
dedication of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the
University of Kansas. For those of you who don't know all that
much about Robert Dole, he left the University of Kansas in 1943
after his sophomore year, and was several times decorated as a
member of the 10th Mountain Division. He was badly wounded and
was in hospital convalescence for three years before his
discharge.

Given the fact that Tom Brokaw, author of _The Greatest
Generation_ was happy to join in the celebration, the theme for
the festivities was "The Greatest Generation," and the
celebration was graced by the presence of ex-Senators Nancy
(Landon) Kassebaum Baker and spouse, Governor Kathleen Sebelius
(who is cute), Rudy Juliani (who is not), Jimmy Carter, fifteen
Second World War Congressional Medal of Honor winners, and a host
of other veterans and assorted dignitaries. There were fireworks,
breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, speeches, roundtable
discussions, parades, exhibitions, displays, T-shirts, pavilions,
myriads of television cameras, and so forth, all leading up to
the great dedication ceremony Saturday.

It was all over by Sunday. The B17e had gone to wherever it is
that B17s now go, although the Boeing-Stearman still roared
around for a while. There were no parades, speeches, luncheons,
breakfasts, dinners, or even milk and cookies. Summer peace had
once again descended on Lawrence, Kansas, although, at the bottom
of the leading page of section B of the Sunday Lawrence
Journal-World, there was a short article about an interview with
a veteran of the Korean War who seemed to be getting a bit
irritated that the friends he had lost in "The Forgotten War",
not to mention the war itself, continue to be ignored.

A representative of the University of Kansas, which had spent a
great deal of money on the previous week's celebration, hastened
to note - and be quoted in the article - that the University has
not forgotten the Korean War, but in fact has drawn up plans for
a Korean War Veteran's Memorial - to join Memorial Stadium and
the Memorial Union (dedicated to veterans of the First World
War), the Memorial Campanile (dedicated to veterans of the Second
World War), and the memorial to veterans of the Vietnam Conflict
(KU once had a memorial to veterans of the Spanish-American War
and Philippine Insurrection, but, somehow or another, lost it) -
and would begin construction as soon as they had collected the
necessary $300,000 in contributions. They already have $30,000
contributed by a South Korean businessman last month toward that
goal. 

There some faculty, ex-KW vets) who say that setting the cost as
high as $300,000 was designed to ensure that a memorial would
never have to be built. Of course, the Field House, built in
1955, is a memorial, but it memorializes "Phog" Allen, for many
years the basketball coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, just as
Naismith Drive memorializes James Naismith, the University's
first basketball coach. Which just goes to show something about
priorities, I suppose.

Anyway, Sunday, 27 July 2003, the fiftieth anniversary of the end
of the Korean Conflict - a war in which one and a half million
men served, over 36,000 men gave up their lives and many more
permanently relinquished their personal comfort and well-being,
was a quiet day in Lawrence, Kansas.

Lynn