"Korean war vets missing from popular culture"

[Mike Yared <mikeyared@yahoo.com>]

Korean war vets missing from popular culture 
VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine. Kansas City:
Aug 2003. Vol. 90, Iss. 11;  pg. 38 
Mark D Van Ells 

Abstract (Article Summary) 
Americans who served in the 1950-53 Korean War are
portrayed on film in a manner that reflects how the
public viewed them during the fighting: as if they did
not matter. Van Ells observes that America's prime
transmitter of cultural values has ignored the 1.8
million Americans who served in the 1950-53 war, even
during the 50th anniversary years. Hollywood dealt
with the ambiguities of the war by sidestepping them
or ignoring them altogether, and Korean War films
tended to avoid the war's big picture and focused
instead on small groups of fighting men, often lost or
isolated units, in such films as "Fixed Bayonets
(1951)," "Combat Squad (1953)," and "Hold Back the
Night (1956)."
 
America's prime transmitter of cultural "values" has
ignored the 1.8 million Americans who served in the
1950-53 war even during the 50th anniversary years. 

The Korean War was a crucial moment in American
history. When the United States sent troops to stop
Communist North Korea's invasion of South Korea in
June 1950, it signaled the nation's determination to
check the spread of communism. It was the first war
fought under the authority of the United Nations.
American troops remain in Korea today.

But sandwiched between the titanic scope of World War
II and the vitriolic debate over Vietnam, the Korean
War never really captured the public imagination. The
year 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the armistice
ending the fighting in Korea. In that half century,
the image of the Korean War veteran at the movies and
on television remains vague, imprecise and influenced
by the experiences of other wars. The Korean War is
the "Forgotten War" in popular culture, too.

Korean War films of the 1950s and early 1960s were
much like the scores of WWII movies popular at the
time, but modified to meet the realities of Korea. The
typical "melting pot" platoon, for example, now
included black Americans and those of Japanese
ancestry, acknowledging the racial integration of the
armed forces.

New technologies also made appearances, such as
helicopters in Battle Taxi (1955) and jet aircraft in
films like Sabre Jet (1953), Jet Attack (1958) and
most notably The Bridges of Toko-Ri (1954) based on
the novel by James Michener.

In reality, the Korean War differed from WWII in many
respects. For one, it was not nearly as large. The war
directly involved 1.8 million Americans, as opposed to
the 16 million who served in WWII. Indeed, Korea was
often referred to as a "police action" and not a war
at all. Korea was a remote country unknown to most
Americans.

Although most Americans accepted the logic of Cold War
containment, the primary adversary in their minds was
the Soviet Union; Korea seemed to be merely a sideshow
or prelude to a larger war. Its ambiguous conclusion-a
cease-fire remarkably close to the prewar
boundaries-also lacked the decisiveness of WWII. To
Americans, the Korean War was an uncertain and
unsatisfying affair.

Hollywood Takes the Dark Side

Hollywood dealt with the ambiguities of the war by
sidestepping them or ignoring them altogether. Korean
War films tended to avoid the war's "big picture" and
focused instead on small groups of fighting men-often
lost or isolated units-in films such as Fixed Bayonets
(1951), Combat Squad (1953) and HoW Back the Night
(1956).

In Pork Chop Hill (1959), Gregory Peck stars as a
junior officer fighting the military bureaucracy, as
well as the Communists, in a seemingly meaningless
battle late in the war. During the battle one young
officer asks pointedly, "Is this hill worth it?" The
men agree that it is, but only because they had fought
so hard to take it, and not for any larger goals.

Many Korean War films fall into the film-noir style
that was popular after WWII. Film-noir is
characterized by dark psychological dramas in which
the motives and morals of the protagonists are unclear
and troubling. These films often take place in exotic
settings, and contain shadowy lighting and
uncomfortable camera angles that elicit feelings of
anxiety, loneliness and vulnerability.

In the 1951 film The Steel Helmet, for example, Gene
Evans stars as Sgt. Zach, a battle-hardened WWII
"retread" who teams up with some inexperienced
soldiers to establish an observation post in a
Buddhist temple. But beneath Zach's tough-as-nails
exterior is a softhearted man who befriends a Korean
boy, removes his helmet before a gigantic statue of
Buddha and orders that the temple not be damaged.

In the midst of battle, Zach breaks down, flashing
back to D-Day. Zach is bitterly critical of a green
lieutenant. When the lieutenant is killed, Zach
mournfully places his lucky steel helmet (it has
stopped a bullet in a previous engagement) on his
grave.

The Korean War also took place at a time when fears of
disloyalty and domestic subversion had reached
hysterical proportions. The war fueled such fears.
During the war, the Communists beat and tortured
American POWs, and then pressured them to sign
"confessions" denouncing the American cause.

Only a small fraction of POWs "confessed," but news
reports and political opportunists seemed to suggest
that Korean War soldiers routinely collaborated with
the Communists, perhaps contributing to the war's
uncertain conclusion.

The concern that Korean War veterans might have been
"brainwashed" by the Communists was the subject of
several films, most notably The Manchurian Candidate
(1962). Frank Sinatra plays Capt. Marco, a Korean War
officer who leads a patrol and is taken prisoner. The
Communists brainwash Marco and his men, erasing any
memory of their captivity. One of the men, Staff Sgt.
Shaw (Lawrence Harvey), is programmed to carry out
political assassinations back home. Marco unravels the
plot after the true nature of his captivity comes back
in his dreams.

The Manchurian Candidate has been acclaimed as one of
the best political thrillers ever made. However,
Korean War veterans have charged that the film only
reinforced the erroneous public notion that Korean War
veterans were collaborators. Portrayals of the war's
veterans as weak-minded and psychologically unbalanced
came to symbolize the war for many Americans and
anticipated public perceptions of Vietnam veterans.

Influence of M*A*S*H

The Vietnam War also has shaped popular images of the
Korean War. The 1970 comedy classic M*A*S*H focused on
the exploits of undisciplined Army surgeons near the
front lines. Though set in Korea, the language and
looks of the hospital staff are reminiscent of
Vietnam. In fact, the film is an impressionistic
journey into the behavior of men and women under the
unusual circumstances of war. It reflected the growing
public cynicism about military authority in the
Vietnam years.

The television program M*A*S*H, which aired from 1972
to 1983, was the most extensive look at the Korean War
in American popular culture. The TV show did a better
job of portraying the war than the film. For example,
several episodes dealt with issues like McCarthyism
and fears of subversion.

However, most of the program's storylines could have
come from the Vietnam War, or from any war-boredom
punctuated by intense activity, the tragic tales of
the wounded, the absurdities of bureaucracy, the gulf
between soldiers and civilians. Anyone who has ever
been associated with the military can appreciate the
humor of M*A*S*H. But once again, the audience learns
precious little about the Korean War.

In the decades since Vietnam, the American
entertainment industry has devoted considerable time
and money to portrayals of war. As a nation, we have
celebrated the 50th anniversary of WWII (Saving
Private Ryan, Band of Brothers) and reexamined our
painful experience in Vietnam (most recently, We Were
Soldiers) on both the big and small screens. Korea is
once again missing in action.

Since Vietnam, Hollywood has released no more than a
dozen films related to the Korean War. In some films,
like MacArthur (1977) and For the Boys (1991), Korea
is just one of many conflicts depicted. Inchon (1981),
a portrayal of the brilliant 1950 amphibious invasion,
was a box office flop and labeled by one critic "quite
possibly the worst movie ever made." With no clear
public images of the Korean War, both Hollywood and
the American public barely acknowledge it.

The lack of public recognition for their sacrifices
has rankled many Korean War veterans. "I know teachers
who never knew there was a Korean War," complained one
Missouri veteran. As the nation marks the Korean War's
50th anniversary, Hollywood continues to churn out
movies about WWII and Vietnam. Perhaps one day the
Korean War will be the subject of an insightful,
widely circulated film that does justice to the
significance of the conflict and to those who served
in it. As one veteran from Florida noted, "It's nice
to be remembered."

[Author Affiliation] 
MARK D. VAN ELLS, author of To Hear Only Thunder
Again, is an assistant history professor at
Queensborough Community College in Bayside, N. Y. 
 


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