The Korean War has often been named the “Forgotten War.”
In what ways do you agree or disagree with this statement? (5pts)
What insight do the personal memoirs provide into the Korean War? (5pts, memoirs should be cited specifically)
In what ways do you think the United States changed between World War II and Korea that changed the way in which Americans perceived the war in Korea? (10pts)
This should be 2-3 pages, double spaced, and submitted to the Dropbox.
*For this question, you will want to reference the links to the Korean War. Try citing your information using Chicago Style Citations (e.g. footnotes/endnotes), although points will not be taken off for incorrect citations*
The Korean War touched the lives of many Americans, blood
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Unfortunately, for decades this conflict has been so elegantly swept under the rug by the US Government, history books, and society as a whole that it seems that no one remembers the war, or the soldiers lost. As the grandchild of a veteran of the Korean War, I would like to think that it won’t ever end up completely forgotten, as legacy can carry history when no one else will. As a younger student, I took numerous history classes, some even specifically relating to US conflict, and the Korean War was either not mentioned or briefly reviewed in a paragraph or two. As a nation we must learn from our history and this conflict provides great insights to future conflicts (some of which are now past/present conflicts). The Korean War memoirs appear as one small way that we can light the candle that ‘so others may …show more content…
During WWII Americans clearly viewed the atrocity that presented itself as inhumanity, mass murder, and slaughter; while the Korean War was likely viewed as a civil war that America didn’t need to be involved in thus perpetuating a ‘head-in-the-sand’ mindset. While the reality remains that the US Government looked at the war as a war on the Sino-Soviet bloc. Ultimately, the main changes within America, as a collective, between the end of WWII and the Korean War boil down to moving outside of isolationism, McCarthyism, a strong belief in patriotism and nationalism while also dealing with a strong sense of fear in entering another war. As a nation all of the previously mentioned factored into both the government and the civilian sector view points of entering into the Korean War, as well as how the civilian sector responded to the war once it was entered
The Korean War changed the face of American Cold War diplomacy forever. In the midst of all the political conflict and speculation worldwide, the nation had to choose between two proposed solutions, each one hoping to ensure that communism didn?t sweep across the globe and destroy American ideals of capitalism and democracy. General Douglas MacArthur takes the pro-active stance and says that, assuming it has the capability, the U.S. should attack communism everywhere. President Harry Truman, on the other hand, believed that containing the Soviet communists from Western Europe was the best and most important course of action, and that eliminating communism in Asia was not a priority.
The Korean War, also known as the forgotten war , was one of the most brutal and violent wars of the 20th century. Less than five million people died during this war. My grandfather, Herbert Victor Sapper, was drafted during the time of the Korean War, but, he wasn’t sent to Korea, he was sent to Japan. Since my grandfather passed away in 1995, I gathered all of my information about my grandfather from my grandmother, Lelia Bell Sapper. Here is their story.
as 822nd Squadron Operation Officer and then Assistant 38th Bomb Group Operations Officer. Received a combat promotion to 1st Lieutenant 15 July 1945.
The Korean War , although successful in preventing the spread of communism, was one of the first tests of communism in Asia. North Korea was strictly communist while South Korea was democratic. As usual, the United States supported democratic South Korea and the Truman Doctrine was applied to the Korean situation. The North Korean forces crossed the dividing line (38th parallel) and invaded South Korea. Thus, they provoked a war over communism. With the possibility of democratic South Korea falling to the communistic North, the U.S. stepped in and supplied aid mostly through troops. The U.S. then urged the United Nations to support South Korea and fight against the communist North. Once the North Korean forces were defeated at Inchon, they eventually got pushed back to the 38th parallel. However, against President Truman’s word, American General MacArthur decided to keep pushing back the North Korean forces by crossing the dividing line. This caused more trouble because the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) now sent troops to aid the communists against the pro...
Comparison of the Practices and Strategies Utilized in the Korean and Vietnam Wars Two of the greatest battles which were fought by similar foes were those of the Korean and Vietnamese wars. Both conflicts involved a "communist" and "capitalist" participant(s) which had their own ideals and reasons for why to include themselves into such conflicts. There are also other similarities other than the opponents in these wars, such as the military tactics and strategies which were effectuated during this time. In both cases, the U.S. intervened forcefully introducing large masses of militia and using a considerable amount of armament, yet on the other hand, their enemies were supported by their allies throughout the duration of both conflicts and succeeded militarily against the democratic forces. To start off with, during the Korean War, North Korea invaded the southern sector of the country without any warning.
Pearson, Lester B. "Documents on the Korean Crisis." University of Manitoba. January 24, 1951. http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/canada_war/tribune/website/clippings/korea/Documents_on_the_Korean_Crisis1.shtml (accessed December 18, 2011).
President Truman strategy was a “negotiated settlement” “This would end the war, unfortunately North Korea would remain independent.” His tactics were diplomatic, whenever there would be a dispute he would talk it out not causing any trouble or alarming other countries there is a collision of interests.
To begin with, the foreign policies that affected the United States during the 1950s and 1960s include: “containment,” “brinkmanship,” and “domino theory.” The concept of “containment” involved utilizing “firm” military, economic, and diplomatic tactics to halt the proliferation of communism, improve United States’ national security, and augment worldwide influence. In supplement of “containment,” U.S. involvement in Korea provided an example of how “containment” influenced the decision to enter the country. With China falling to communism at the hands of Mao Zedong, Korea was the next to become “infected.” Subsequently, Korea underwent a physical division, which resulted in the communist state of North Korea and the now vulnerable South Korea. Urgent to unify Korea as a communist nation, North Korea invaded South Korea and war broke out. In the midst of this, the United States had seen China fall to communism and now h...
Sandler, Stanley, ed. The Korean War: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub., 1995. Print. 52-4.
...s differed most significantly between the Gulf War and Korea was that in the Persian Gulf War President George H.W. Bush and (with the assistance of many of his advisors) was able to resist the calls, and the urge, to push operations beyond their originally defined parameters. When presented with the choice of whether or not to overstep the agreed upon goal of liberating Kuwait. It was this decision, to keep the war limited, that Truman could not follow through with, that made military operations in the Gulf War so successful. Though American forces had torn through the Iraqi Republican Guard, if Bush had succumb to public and military pressure to remove Hussein from power, a fate he had earned, the United States would have been mired in the quagmire that American forces were stuck in for nearly eight years after removing Hussein from power in the Second Iraq War.
In a particular instance a woman, Kathleen Cronan Wyosnick, wrote a very heartfelt letter to Abigail VanBuren [Abby] who was the first honorary member elected to the Korean War Veterans Association and previously a newspaper columnist. On November 11th, 1988, Wyosnick wrote to VanBuren pleading to consider a special group of men and women who fought in the Korean War, which is better known as the “forgotten war”. Wyosnick described in her letter how she was a former Air Force nurse who had lost her husband in the Korean War, and how the war is described in nothing more than a few paragraphs in text books. She said the only media reminder to the public of the war was a television show called “M*A*S*H”.
U.S. participation was centered on America’s foreign policy at the time. Although the War did not break out until June of 1950, several conflicts brewed over the attempt to take over the entire nation under one rule for several years after World War II. The majority of these conflicts took place at the 38th parallel where Korea was split. Decisions influenced by President Harry S. Truman and his doctrine, which was essentially the policy to contain the spread of communism, gave the United Nations an opportunity to prevent global domination through communism (“Teaching with Documents”). The fear of international communism from the powers of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was the main reason that caused the United States to intervene.
Throughout history the United States has fought in many wars. Whether the fighting took place in Europe such as WWI or in our own land like the civil war. The one war many people seem to forget is the Korean War. The Korean War also known as the “forgotten war” was a war between North Korea, South Korea and the US together with the South Koreans to help. The Korean War was fought on sea, land, and in the air over and near the Korean peninsula (Brown, p.2). On June 25, 1950, the North Koreans rumbled across the thirty-eighth parallel. The invasion was successful because the south was not expecting or even prepare for a war. The invasion was so successful that they pushed the south to a tiny defensive area around Pusan. That’s when President Truman steps in real quick to halt the invasion of the North Koreans. Truman ordered American armed forces under General Douglas MacArthur to support South Korea. The Korean War was a clash between Communist forces and Free World (Brown, p.2).
1945 marked the end of World War II and the end of Japan’s reign in Korea. Korea had been under Japanese rule since the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910. During this time, Korea had been brutally treated by Japan. The Korean language was suppressed as well as traditional Korean culture. Japan forced Korean people to take Japanese surnames and took many “comfort women” otherwise known as sex slaves for the Japanese military. As a result, the diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan were strained. Japan was determined to forget the past and deny many of the things that happened while Korea was determined to not move past it. There have been disputes between the two countries about acknowledging comfort women and territories, many sprouting up from World War II and before. While there has been improvement, the relationship between Japan and Korea is strained, mainly due to Japan’s unwillingness to remember and apologize for the past and Korea’s stubbornness to not move on from the past.
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation regarding North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.