Veterans' day memories

The Flag at Santa Fe Cemetery

Six years ago today, I spoke the eulogy at the funeral for my fav uncle, Michael Henry Clark, at the National Cemetery in Santa Fe, with full military honors for this WWII and Korean Navy combat veteran. 
He and I go way back, and it only occurred to me in recent years that the reason my middle name comes from him is that he was my Dad's favorite brother, the middle of five boys from dirt poor Depression Oklahoma, all of whom escaped. 
Rest in peace sailor, thank you, and salute.

From six years ago:
Reflections on a Final Port of Call 
A Sailor's Final Port

Many years ago at the Grand Canyon, Mom, Jerry, Mike and I

A few years ago, with Susan and Mike in the bar at La Fonda, Santa Fe, and Cuba Libres

'Thank you for your service,' Veterans!

The Thunderbird atop the monument outside the 4th Division Museum

"Thank you for your service, sir," said my veteran, M/Sgt Vance Clark, USAF, last week as we toured the 45th Infantry Thunderbird Division museum in Oklahoma City.

At the base is the roll of combat

He'd been talking to a Korean War vet who was one of the staff.
That veteran replied to him the same way, "Thank you for your service."
They are a unique band of brothers, especially those who have been in combat.
If you haven't been to the museum on NE 36th street, don't be fooled by all the military vehicles outside. That's impressive, along with the monuments  and comments.
Inside is an amazing museum of more than just a division that fought and died in WWII and Korea. There are Bill Mauldin originals, a history of military firearms throughout American history, a room dedicated to WWI, relics from the divisions  WWII battles across Nazi Europe, including Nazi flags and gear, relics that belonged to Hitler. Most moving to me is the room commemorating the concentration camp at Dachau, which the division liberated.
On this Veterans' Day, or on any other, you come out of there, and you know the value of the words,

"Thank you for your service."

Snap a salute, and be thankful.

Korea...60 years later, and still no peace

Korean War Memorial in D.C., where an American infantry brigade moves  weary and wary

This is the 60th anniversary of the signing of  the armistice that brought an end to the fighting in Korea, where 36, 516 Americans were killed in three years. It was an armistice and not a peace treaty, and we still live with that hostility  from a paranoid Communist dictatorship. Only a few yards away, across a "demilitarized" zone,  American soldiers are still on duty, in one of the places in the world where nuclear war could break out. South of the DMZ, flourish a free economic dynamo, South Korea.
Have you been to the Korean War Memorial in Washington? I have, and it was on a rainy day, fitting the mood of the gray soldiers marching uphill,  weary and wary. Here's some things you should know about the Korean War.
I know three people who served in that war. The first was my late uncle Mike, who was aboard an LST, under fire, at the Inchon landing. The next was my late cousin Charles Rogers Lutrick, and I have no idea of his duty there. The third was my former colleague at the OSU j-school, advertising professor Charles Overstreet, who was a "tanker." I think most Americans probably know about the Korean War because of the TV show "MASH."

Here's a salute to those men and women who served, died, or have survived. The veterans observed a solemn  ceremony today. It was a "forgotten" war, except to them.

Flag surviving invasions, wars, division, dictators

Flags tell stories, and one flag of the readers of this blog this week has survived years of invasions, wars, dictators and political division as a symbol of peace and unity in a region of continuing danger to free people.
The distinctive and perhaps most deeply symbolic of flags belongs to the Republic of Korea, known to us as South Korea.
Koreans are hardy, intelligent, hard-working people. They have to be or they wouldn't have survived. The name comes from a Middle Ages dynasty that ruled the peninsula, Goryeo. That and another dynasty ruled for hundreds of years in peace until the rest of the world intruded. Japan annexed it in 1910, and held it until the end of WWII. That's when the country was divided into north and south zones of occupation for the Russians and Americans. A 1948 election led to the creation of the republic and the UN recognized it as the only lawful government. The Russians promptly set up a rival government in the north.

North  Korean flag

In 1950 the North, backed by the Chinese and Soviet Union,  invaded the South, starting the Korean War that involved the US and other nations in a UN "Police Action" to stop communism, just five years after the end of WWII. When MacArthur invaded the north, Communist China retaliated, sending waves of troops into battle and pushing the Americans back. America came close to using another nuclear bomb, but when Eisenhower was elected president, he decided not to.
The war lasted three years and solidified the previous boundaries. The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along a so-called 2 mile-wide "demilitarized" zone. No peace treaty was ever signed,  so the countries are still technically at war. That border is the most heavily fortified in the world, one of the world's danger points, with U.S. military stationed there. North Korea continues to be in the news, raising the dangers of nuclear war.

Mike Clark's ship in the Korean War

The war is personal to me because my late uncle  Mike was in combat at the Inchon Landing in September, 1852. A signalman on LST 975, he was under fire as the first wave hit the beach in the decisive battle near Seoul behind enemy lines. And my late cousin Charles Rogers Lutrick also served in the war.
Still South Korea suffered under despots until 1987, when military rule ended and civilians took over. Today, the country has perhaps the fastest Internet in the world, the fourth largest Asian economy and is a model of progress and economic growth. South Korea also has strict gun control laws, with the fewest firearms per capital. And just north of it, sits this backward country of have-nots, ruled by someone who calls himself the "Supreme Leader." We Americans don't take to people who think they're supreme over anybody.

Flying over this turmoil is the flag influenced by Taoism and Chinese culture. The white background symbolizes cleanliness of the people, and the center symbol, the "yin and yang" the perfect balance of the universe, a continuous move in infinity. The four trigrams represent justice, fruition, wisdom and vitality.
Just to the north flies the red star flag of the so-called "People's Republic of Korea. " Originally that flag also carried the yin and yang symbol but adopted the red star of communism. Today, the rogue state is puts less emphasis on communism, but hasn't changed its ruthless dictatorship and determinatipn to subject its people and threaten the world with war. I have no readers of this blog from that heavily censored country.

Koreas, at night, from space

If you want to see the difference in two countries, look at nighttime energy usage. Electricity usage is the clearest indicator of economy and personal strength, and in this case, freedom, where everything seems to be in balance, regardless of the outside world. I have colleagues and have had students from South Korea. They reflect those values.