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KOREAN WAR VETERANS WILL NEVER FORGET THE
"FORGOTTEN WAR" -- "They will never tell you
this, but everyone was scared -- especially
when the Chinese came in."
For more about Korean War veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine... click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessea
rch.php?q=korean+war&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.c
om/article/20081229/NEWS08/812290349/
1001/LOCALNEWSFRONT
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-------------------------
Korean War veterans will never
forget 'Forgotten War'
Aging warriors gather weekly,
55 years after 'police action'
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Pearl Harbor has its day.
Pacific battles such as Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa have
their commemorations.
The 100th Infantry Battalion — the "One Puka Puka" — and the 442nd
Regimental Combat Team, drawn heavily from Hawai'i, have a revered place
in history.
Local combat vets who served in the Korean War have Like Like Drive Inn,
and one another.
 Every
Tuesday morning, the aging warriors of the Korean War Veterans
Association, Chapter 1, gather at the Ke'eaumoku Street restaurant to
shoot the breeze, flirt with the waitresses, and collectively keep at bay
the demons of war in which waves of Communist Chinese charge through their
dreams.
Fifty-five years after the end of the 1950-53 conflict termed a "police
action" by the U.S., Korea remains a forgotten war whose sacrifice gets
lost between the global significance of World War II and the social
upheaval of Vietnam.
The nation has more recent wars to worry about in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Korea vets don't have a clubhouse. Some still struggle with
post-traumatic stress disorder. And they feel slighted by history.
As they, too, start to die off with old age like their World War II
brethren, breakfast at Like Like and each other's company is probably the
last and best therapy, tonic and affirmation they will ever receive.
Club president Charles W. Aresta was in usual form at a recent get- together
of about 20 of the vets.
"This bugga' here, lost his brother in the Korean War. He's an Air Force
bastard," Aresta, 78, said of Herb Schreiner.
"Listen, when you guys were bogged down on a hill, you would call us to
come and help out," Schreiner, 79, shot back. "So we would fly over and
drop the napalm so they could move forward."
"Drop bombs from 14,000 feet and head to Japan for rest and recuperation,"
Aresta added.
"See what I have to put up with?" replied Schreiner, as both bellowed and
smiled from ear to ear.
Little media play
Allan R. Millett, a University of New Orleans professor and author whose
books include, "Their War for Korea," and "A House Burning: The War for
Korea," said the conflict doesn't get the media play that World War II
does.
"When has there been a Korean War movie made recently?" he said. "The
answer is none, not since the 1960s, probably."
Hawai'i's losses in Korea — 456 — were the highest per capita for all
states and territories.
The survivors' war experiences were as grim as any who have been in
battle.
From 1950 to 1952, "Charlie" Aresta was in graves registration, collecting
and identifying bodies for transport out of Korea. The U.S. had 36,516
dead in the war. A total of 8,100 are still missing.
"They will never tell you this, but everyone was scared — especially when
the Chinese came in," said Aresta, who left Farrington High School in 1947
to enter the Army.
Chinese soldiers crossed the Yalu River in October 1950, encircling United
Nations forces in North Korea. At the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, 30,000
United Nations troops faced 120,000 Chinese in the freezing weather of
late November and early December.
The Chinese liked to attack at night and close in on a troop position with
superior numbers.
The 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, which had deployed to
Korea in July 1950, was among the units forced south. Many of the local
boys who ended up in Korea had gone through basic training at Schofield.
Lucio Sanico, 84, remembered that when the Chinese surrounded their
position, a company commander told him and some other soldiers to get into
a Jeep, and they were able to escape.
Out of 270 soldiers, "only 12 came out alive," Sanico said.
He remembers that it "was about 30 below zero" and the blowing trumpets
that meant the Chinese were coming.
Nick Nishimoto, who was captured, spent 33 months as a prisoner of war in
North Korea. He was fed wheat and barley infested with worms. When his
friend Albert Chang died, Nishimoto buried him on a hillside.
Those stories don't often come up at breakfast.
"The funny thing is, we don't talk about war stories. We talk about
women," Sanico said.
But he also says, "I've got to get it out. I can't hold it in," as
reminders of the past played in a grimace on his face.
Sanico, who went to 'Aiea Middle School but then stopped school to help
his dad support 12 kids, said he still has PTSD and trouble sleeping.
"To this day, I feel kind of guilty because I wasn't taken prisoner with
the rest of my buddies," he said.
David Higa has a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Mitsuo Imai
was wounded three times.
"We did the same thing as the people in the 100th Infantry did, or the
442nd did," said Mike Inouye, 79, a 1947 graduate of McKinley High. "Only
thing, we was behind the eight-ball because we just never been mentioned."
Inouye was in Korea three weeks after the war started in 1950.
"We were there when everything was kinda rough," he said. "We didn't have
enough ammo, we didn't have enough food. They really didn't know what the
left hand was telling the right hand."
small impact
The war and the fighting in stifling summer heat and frigid winter
conditions just never had the impact on history that World War II did.
"(The Korean War) is damn important to the Koreans, but let's face it, in
our history, it's not all that significant," said Millett, the University
of New Orleans professor, who also teaches in the summer at Hawai'i
Pacific University. "They (Korean War vets) just happened to be caught up
in a war in which the impact on American politics and society was pretty
muted."
A Korean War memorial was dedicated in 1994 on the state Capitol grounds,
and the Korean War Veterans Association tries to tell its story in local
high schools.
The Like Like bunch started meeting in 1989. A smaller group of the vets
meets on Mondays in Kane'ohe, and a group of Korean nationals from the war
meet down the street.
"Two became three, and three became four, and now, we've got over 20
people coming every Tuesday," Francis Yasutake, 77, said of the Like Like
crowd.
Yasutake, who was in a hospital in Japan for three months, found out
fellow vet Tommy Tanaka was there nine months earlier.
"We knew the same nurses. We were there at different times, but we could
talk about the people there," Yasutake said.
"We're just like brothers here (at Like Like)," Tanaka added.
Sharing stories
At a long table in the back, they share veterans benefits stories, aches
and pains, and information on who is in the hospital.
Nishimoto, who was in a North Korean POW camp for nearly three years, had
to leave the breakfast get-together for a dialysis appointment.
The club said three of its members — Shermaih Iaea Jr., Lawrence Uruu and
James Akau — died in the past six months.
The vets experienced a war more than 55 years ago that forever changed and
bonded their lives.
Yasutake, a Kalihi boy, remembers firing at the enemy one minute and then
being on a stretcher the next. He found out he suffered a concussion from
an exploding shell.
After living in bunkers and making a bed atop ammo cans, Yasutake was
evacuated on a train and he still vividly remembers the simple comforts of
a bed with springs, the smell of clean cotton sheets and the nurses'
perfume.
"You don't know what you have, how good you have it, till it's gone," he
said.
Reach William Cole at
wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.
-------------------------
posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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