Local Korean War veteran readies Jeep for Memorial Day event

From the San Bernadino Sun: Local Korean War veteran readies Jeep for Memorial Day event
Phillip Miller remembers what it was like, patrolling the north central mountains of Korea's Demilitarized Zone.

As part of the Demilitarized Zone police force, Miller said he could see the enemy but had a hard time telling the good guys from the bad.

"It's like the soldiers now, who can't tell our friends from our enemies," said Miller, 71, who recalls the 13 months he spent in Korea - on the line between the North and the South.

A resident of San Bernardino, Miller will attend the annual Memorial Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Monday at Mountain View Cemetery, where a local Medal of Honor recipient is interred.

And he will be there with his Jeep.

His Jeep is a 1953 Willis, restored to its original condition.

His 7th Infantry Division 8th Army patch is stenciled onto the Jeep's olive body paint.

"I bought it like it was, and didn't have to change anything," he said, adding proudly that some of the paint is peeling.

Miller said he could have added an iPod but didn't want to alter it.

"It was my baby. I didn't want to tear it apart," said Miller, who has two sons, a daughter and four grandsons - one of whom loves to ride in grandpa's Jeep with a steel pot on his head.

Miller purchased the Jeep in 2009 and had time to work on it when he retired from his job as a contractor in 2010.

The Jeep has been in a lot of parades, including the Cruise for Sight to benefit the Lighthouse for the Blind on Saturday.

For the ceremony, the vehicle will be on display near the entrance of Mountain View Cemetery.

Glenn Abercrombie, Mountain View Mortuary and Cemetery general manager, said the ceremony has been held there for decades.

"The ceremony is a respectful way to honor those who have served and are serving, and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice," Abercrombie said.

The cemetery is the final resting place of Army Col. Joseph Rodriguez, a San Bernardino man and hometown hero, who lived from 1928 to 2005.

Rodriguez was awarded the Medal by President Harry S. Truman in 1951 for his action in Korea.

"The local hero is the focal point of the cemetery because he could have chosen to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, but he chose San Bernardino," Abercrombie said.

Monday's ceremony, which honors all veterans, is a memorial for the Medal of Honor winner, Miller humbly insists.

"We used to call it Decoration Day when it was just the Army, Navy and Marines," he recalled.

Before his Jeep makes its appearance, Miller will spend time readying it for the big day.

"The Jeep gets a lot of smiles and salutes from people," he said.

Korean War veterans honor fallen, pass on memories at Portland ceremony

From OregonLive: Korean War veterans honor fallen, pass on memories at Portland ceremony

Amid thousands of American flags waving in the wind Sunday afternoon, Korean War veterans and their friends, families and supporters honored the more than 280 Oregonians who died during the conflict.

"It means an awful lot to us," 82-year-old veteran Lewis Rumpakis said of the ceremony at Willamette National Cemetery, where speakers heralded the bravery and commitment of those who fought.

Rumpakis, of Troutdale, is a member of the Chosin Few, a group of veterans who fought in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in November and December 1950. Each year for nearly two decades, the group has held a ceremony at the Oregon Korean War Veterans Memorial at the cemetery.

The United States sent troops in 1950 to help South Korea fend off attacks from North Korea, which were seen as an attempt to spread communism. Government figures account for about 36,900 American deaths during the conflict's 3-year active period.

After Sunday's observance, Mike Ruselli, 44, chatted with the veterans he met through his father, George, who fought at Chosin.

Ruselli, of Portland, is an honorary member of the Chosin Few and regularly attends the group's monthly luncheons. Sunday he carried his father's helmet, showing off its battered exterior and unfaded inner lining.

"I adore it," he said.

Ruselli said his father, who died last September, passed along stories that instilled in him and his siblings a deep respect for the Korean War veterans and other military members.

Some of the heaviest fighting of the war came during a winter where wind as cold as minus-35 degrees blew into soldiers' faces, painfully crystallizing their tear ducts, Ruselli remembered his father telling him. They had to urinate on their weapons to keep them functioning and press scorching spent shells to their faces to keep blood flowing.

"He saw all kinds of horrors," Ruselli said.

But Sunday, there was little talk of bad memories. The veterans hugged, laughed and caught up on one another's lives — a simple joy Rumpakis said kept him going during rough times in the five decades since the group formed.

"Usually (veterans) don't talk to outsiders about a lot of it, so it has really helped to get together like we do," said Rumpakis, who wore a suit and his Chosin Few cap. "The group is one of the things that really holds us together."

Rumpakis recognizes that preserving the past requires help from younger generations. The group, he said, is showing signs of age. Usually, the memorial is followed by a potluck, but health issues forced this year's hosts to cancel. Some members of the Chosin Few, of course, have died.

That's why he's grateful a group called Children of the Chosin – the Chosin's children and grandchildren, including his daughters – has formed.

"After we disappear," he said, "they'll keep things alive."

For now, though, the experiences of the Chosin Few are still being passed on firsthand. Sunday, more than a dozen of the veterans shared memories with family, friends and a few fans they've picked up along the way.

Hattie Kelley, an 89-year-old Beaverton woman who served as a recruiter during World War II, met the men through her Marine women's group and makes sure to make it to the memorial each year. They deserve more recognition for their bravery, said Kelley, who moved from group to group hugging and joking with the veterans.

"I'm madly in love with every one of them."

I crave your indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.


My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.


So I'll be posting back here Thursday.


Thanks for your patience.

Korean War Memorial is Copyrighted—Just Not by the U.S. Government

From DCist: Korean War Memorial is Copyrighted—Just Not by the U.S. Government

A postage stamp first issued in 2003 could wind up costing the United States Postal Service quite a bit if an appeals court sides with the artist who claims his work was appropriated without his permission. And in this case, the the "work" is the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the sculptor of which says the Postal Service did not have permission to sell reprints of his design for the memorial.

Frank Gaylord first sued the Postal Service in July 2009, claiming that as the holder of the copyright on the memorial, he was entitled to a share of sales of the stamp. Of course, this unleashed a debate over whether one can actually claim copyright over a public memorial. Most likely, as Techdirt surmised at the time the photographer commissioned by the Postal Service to capture the Korean War Veterans Memorial went through hundreds of shots from innumerable angles before settling on the image preserved on the stamp.

But Gaylord argued in U.S. District Court that as the memorial's designer, he was entitled to remuneration for the sale of images of his creation. Based on licensing payments the Postal Service to use legitimately copyrighted works on its stamps, the court awarded Gaylord $5,000. He appealed, saying he deserves 10 percent of the Postal Service's $30 million revenue from the Korean War Veterans Memorial stamp.

And yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took the first step in agreeing with Gaylord, declaring that the lower court was incorrect to award him just $5,000, Techdirt reported. As a result of that ruling, the District Court will have to award Gaylord a higher figure.

But to Techdirt, the potential intellectual damage is far worse than any monetary amount. Leaving the copyright on a public monument in the hands of a single actor could set a very dangerous precedent:

So, can we convince the federal government of a rather simple idea going forward: if you have someone create a memorial or statue or piece of artwork for public display, part of the deal is they put the whole thing into the public domain. If they don't like it, find another artist. The fact that this work is not in the public domain is a travesty. The fact that the photo is not considered fair use on the sculpture in the first place is a travesty. The fact that he may end up getting another batch of money for this is a travesty. And all of it could have been avoided if someone (anyone) in the U.S. government realized ahead of time that artwork created for public display should belong to the public.

Navy to name destroyer after Korean War hero from Concord

From Boston.com: Navy to name destroyer after Korean War hero from Concord
<br>
WASHINGTON - In a rare honor for a living person, the Navy plans to announce it is naming a new destroyer after Fall River native Thomas J. Hudner, who earned the Medal of Honor in the Korean War for intentionally crashing his fighter plane in an attempt to save his wingman, the Navy’s first African-American pilot.<P>
The decision, made by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, is the culmination of a swift lobbying campaign championed by Senators Scott Brown and John F. Kerry to honor the 87-year-old Concord resident and retired Navy captain.<P>
Brown’s office told the Globe it was informed of the decision by the Navy on Monday.<P>

The move, the lawmakers argued, would bring well-earned recognition to Hudner, who later served in the Vietnam War and as Massachusetts commissioner of veterans affairs, and also to his wingman, Jesse L. Brown, a native of Mississippi who overcame fierce prejudice to become the Navy’s first black fighter pilot.<P>
At the time of the incident, during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in December 1950, the armed forces had been integrated for only two years.<P>
Critics of desegregating the ranks continued to raise doubts that men of different color would risk their lives for each other.<P>
Hudner’s actions when Brown’s plane was shot down in a snow-covered valley behind enemy lines proved those critics wrong.<P>
“The only thing to do was go down and get Jesse,’’ Hudner told the Globe last month. “I didn’t agonize over it at all because I’d made up my mind. Jesse and I weren’t that close, but he was a good man.’’<P>
Brown, trapped in the burning wreckage of his Corsair, could not be freed, and as darkness descended, Hudner had to leave him behind.<P>
“Tell Daisy I love her,’’ Brown said of his wife before losing consciousness.
After the war, Hudner received letters from strangers thanking him for what he had done.<P>
One came from an African-American who wrote: “I never thought that would happen. I never thought that a white man would help out a black man like that.’’

Korean War cpl.’s remains ID’d, buried in Ohio

From Army Times: Korean War cpl.’s remains ID’d, buried in Ohio HAMILTON, Ohio — The remains of a southwest Ohio soldier who went missing during the Korean War have been identified more than 60 years later and will be buried this week with full military honors.

Army Cpl. Clyde E. Anderson, of Hamilton, is scheduled to be buried Saturday in Blanchester, about 30 miles northeast of Cincinnati, the JournalNews in Hamilton reported.

DNA tests by military forensic scientists helped confirm that Anderson’s remains were among those mixed together in more than 200 boxes of remains returned to the United States by North Korea in the early 1990s. As many as 400 individual remains were believed to be in the boxes.

Scientists used circumstantial evidence, dental records, radiography comparisons and DNA, which matched that of Anderson’s niece and nephew and niece, in identifying his remains, military officials said.

Anderson’s niece, Carol Snider, said she and her brother provided blood samples in 2002 for DNA analysis to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Snider, of Bowersville, said she was amazed when she received word about a month ago that the Army could positively identify her uncle’s remains.

“After 62 years, I wasn’t expecting anything,” she said. “We’re going to lay him to rest next to my mother. And the next day is Mother’s Day.”

Anderson was assigned to the medical company of the 31st Regimental Combat Team, the newspaper reported.

The then 24-year-old private first-class was last seen on or about Nov. 28, 1950, when a witness recalled seeing him driving a Jeep in a convoy near Chosin Reservoir. The convoy was ambushed by Chinese forces about seven miles north of the town of Hagaru-ri, according to the Defense Department.

Anderson was reported missing in action on Nov. 29, 1950, and was promoted to the rank of corporal before the military listed him as presumed dead in 1953.

More than 7,900 Americans who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, according to the Defense Department.

Toni Morrison's 'Home' about Korean War veteran

From Detroit Free Press: Toni Morrison's 'Home' about Korean War veteran

GRAND VIEW-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- The Hudson River extends from the back of Toni Morrison's house, illuminated and infinite, undimmed by an unseasonably drab spring afternoon. "It's interesting and soothing, and it changes constantly," she says from the comfort of a white armchair in her living room. "And at night, with the stars and the moon ..." The Nobel laureate has lived in this converted boathouse since the late 1970s, when she spotted a "For Sale" sign while driving by and soon agreed to pay the then-impractical sum of $120,000. Her commitment was tested, then confirmed, after the house burned down in 1993, destroying everything from private letters to her sons' report cards. But she had the house rebuilt and upgraded and so enjoys a setting both spacious and personal, with bookcases and paintings, plants and carvings, a patio and private dock. It's a Saturday, and the 81-year-old Morrison is in a relaxed, informal mood, wearing a gray blouse and slacks and dark slippers, a purple bandanna tied over her gray locks, her laugh easy and husky. You might mistake her for an ordinary neighbor ready for gardening until you see the pictures of her with James Baldwin, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Elie Wiesel among others, or learn that the low, wooden table by her chair was a prop from the film version of "Beloved," her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Morrison has a new novel out, "Home" (Knopf, $24), a brief, poetic story of Frank Money, a traumatized Korean War veteran who returns to the States in the 1950s. Morrison has long used fiction as a private and alternative history, whether the Civil War ("Beloved"), the 1920s ("Jazz") or colonial times ("A Mercy"). With "Home," she wanted to add some truth -- about war, about racism -- to the standard '50s narrative.

"I was really trying to take off that scab, or that veil, or whatever it is off the '50s," she says. "We're told that it was good times, postwar, GI Bill, people had jobs and the television was full of happy stories and so on, and that's it."

Like "Beloved," "Song of Solomon" and other Morrison novels, the book is a journey and a reckoning. Using bus money given to him by a pastor, Money travels from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago to his dreaded hometown, Lotus, Ga., "the worst place in the world," where nobody "knew anything or wanted to learn anything." Warned from the start that the North is no less racist than the South, he encounters violence and segregation and the lawlessness of police. Once in Georgia, he is almost relieved. At least the pace is "human," Money observes, there was "time to instruct one another, pray for one another, and chastise children in the pews of a hundred churches."

Morrison, a native of Lorain, Ohio, never lived in Georgia. But for "Home" she drew upon stories from her father, a native of Cartersville, Ga., and from her memories of the South when she was an undergraduate at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She was on tour with fellow theater students in the early '50s and was moved by how blacks took care of her and each other, a bond dramatized in "Home" and many of her works. She knew what to expect from the whites in the South, but the revelation was how "lovely and generous and capable" the blacks were.

"If we arrived at a town where the faculty had made arrangements to spend the night and either the place we thought was nice, wasn't, or they didn't want the students to stay there, one of them would go into a phone booth. They would check the yellow pages for a black church and then call up a minister and say, 'We're from Howard University and we're a little chagrined because we don't have a place to stay,' " Morrison says. "And the pastor would say, 'Call me back in 10 minutes.' And in 10 or 15 minutes he had rounded up his parishioners to take us in. We would go into these houses. And the women, they just fed us, took care of us, put us on these sweet-smelling sheets and cooked, and wouldn't take any money. We had to slip money under their pillows.

"And that happened everywhere. 'Where do we eat in this town that has no places where blacks can eat?' And somebody would say, 'Here is a man who was a chef at the Waldorf Astoria, but he's retired and he cooks sometimes for visitors.' And you go to his house and get the best meal of your life. But that was within the community. There really was a community, there really was a neighborhood."

Morrison has spent much of her life in the North. After graduating from Howard, she worked for years as an editor for Random House, then debuted as an author with "The Bluest Eye," published in 1970. Her breakthrough came in 1977 with "Song of Solomon," a Book-of-the-Month Club selection praised by New York Times critic John Leonard as a masterpiece akin to music. Her name reached ever higher. "Beloved" won the Pulitzer in 1988. The Nobel came five years later.

As she gets older, Morrison says, the world becomes more interesting and more distressing. She is appalled at some of the remarks about President Barack Obama and the speculation that he was not an American citizen.

Saying that her writing process was unchanged by the Nobel -- after a "few mental tricks" cleared the fog of success from her mind -- Morrison tries to challenge herself with every book.

David M. Shribman: 50 years later, MacArthur's farewell to arms continues to inspire

From Newbury Port News, Opinion PIece: David M. Shribman: 50 years later, MacArthur's farewell to arms continues to inspire
Where to start with Douglas MacArthur?

To say that he was general of the Army? To note that he was superintendent of West Point? To recall his famous exit from the Philippines and his even more famous return? To cite his role in the occupation of Japan? To refer to his time commanding U.N. troops in the Korean War? To reflect on his firing by Harry Truman? To quote his remarkable "just fade away" speech, interrupted numerous times by applause, on Capitol Hill?

We may not know where to start, but we surely know where to end — where MacArthur effectively ended his public career, 50 years ago next Saturday, when he appeared among the ghosts and memories of West Point and spoke to the sparkling young men who could have known only vaguely on that day in May 1962 how Vietnam would shape and, in some tragic cases end, their lives.

On the surface, he was there to accept the Sylvanus Thayer Award, a coveted honor named for the father of the military academy. But in truth he was there to take his leave, to share the perspective of a man who was forged in the fire of battle, who thrived on military, moral and political conflict, who had grown weary of war and impatient with the conventions of diplomacy that led nations into armed confrontations that seemed ever more senseless and remorseless.

MacArthur was there to say goodbye to the world stage and to the millions whose lives he touched and commanded and whose spirits he lifted — or repulsed. He did so with his customary flourish and flair and in the florid language that was as much a hallmark of his personality as his corncob pipe, always jutting from his teeth at a crisp 90-degree angle:

Duty ... Honor ... Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

These are the three words most commonly associated with MacArthur, but they trace their provenance back to Sylvanus Thayer himself; and thus when MacArthur chose to make these words the leitmotif of his acceptance speech, he was identifying himself firmly with the grandest traditions of West Point.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution.

This is, in many ways, the most remarkable element of this remarkable speech, for MacArthur is the best-known violator of the most sacred element of the relationship between the military and civilian lives of our nation — the notion that policy is made by civilians and prosecuted by soldiers. It was MacArthur's criticism of Truman, in a letter read on the floor of the House, that led to his dismissal and here, in the late autumn of a life that would end two years later, he presented an unmistakable critique of his greatest failure as a general.

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished tone and tint; they have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

He spoke this passage without notes, leaning and bobbing in his customary fashion, deliberately creating the impression that he was no longer speaking from his head, but instead from his deepest sentiments. This was MacArthur showmanship at its greatest, for he had worked for days to memorize these words.

"No one could improvise such rhetoric," wrote biographer William Manchester. "The awed cadets thought that he was coining the phrases as he trod the platform before them, but what they had actually witnessed was the last performance of a consummate actor."

Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.

These are the final words of the speech, set up by his remark that in his dreams, "I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield." To our ears this sort of rhetoric is antiquarian, more suited to the days of Rudyard Kipling than to the era of Norman Mailer.

But there remains something intoxicating about the final passage: "the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps." It possesses a martial rhythm, echoing like shots in the very night that occasioned MacArthur's dreams of guns crashing and musketry rattling.

Glenn Edward Schembechler was 33 years old and still an assistant football coach at Ohio State when MacArthur delivered this West Point valedictory. In 1969, five years after MacArthur's death, he would ascend to the top coaching job at Michigan, where he would coach for 21 seasons.

It cannot be a coincidence that the remarks for which Schembechler is most famous — indeed some of the most enduring words ever uttered by a football coach — carry eerie echoes of MacArthur. Some 21 years after the West Point speech, Schembechler spoke of "the Team, the Team, the Team."

MacArthur now is a figure of history, his life remembered by few, his achievements studied by fewer. But this speech, given 50 years ago this month, deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest delivered on these shores, and revered beyond West Point and by more than the Corps, the Corps, the Corps.

• • •

David M. Shribman, a North Shore native and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

All's not fair when it comes to war

From Inside Bay Area: All's not fair when it comes to war
Robert Hooker was an infantry soldier during the Korean conflict. He survived the infamously bloody defense of Outpost Harry. He understands as well as any man that war is hell.

"I was wounded three times in one night," said Hooker, a retired car salesman who lives in Concord. "A lot of my friends died there."

But he and other Bay Area combat veterans of past wars had a similar reaction to photos recently published in the Los Angeles Times depicting American troops posing with bodies -- and body parts -- of dead insurgents:

That's crossing a line.

"What the soldiers are doing," Hooker said, "is inexcusable."

That sentiment was expressed Friday by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., whom he cautioned against lapses in judgment that can affect how the United States and its troops are viewed by friend and foe alike.

"It takes only seconds -- seconds -- for a picture, a photo, to suddenly become an international headline," Panetta said, according to The Associated Press.

It's not just the service members in the L.A. Times photos. It's the military police who were photographed humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. It's the Army staff sergeant found guilty in a court martial in November of operating a kill team that hunted Afghan civilians for sport. It's American troops videotaped urinating on Afghan corpses. It's the burning of the Quran (accidental, according to the military). It's the Army sergeant accused of murdering 17 Afghanistan villagers in a pair of overnight raids in March.

"When you're in combat, things get a little different," said Castro Valley's Jake Dalton, an Army paratrooper in World War II. "You actually have to hate the guy you're shooting at. But when it comes to urinating on bodies, no, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't condone that kind of behavior. Even though all's fair in love and war, some things don't make sense."

A change in attitude

According to military historian Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, senseless acts have always been part of war. He contends, despite what seems like ceaseless anecdotal evidence to the contrary, that "it's a lot less common now than it used to be."

Some of the incidents that have occurred in the nine years since the U.S. invaded Iraq evoke memories of such atrocities as the Bataan death march, German concentration camps and the My Lai Massacre. Others, Hanson said, are "something more like a lack of respect of the dead, of a sacred document. I think I'd come up with another name."

By any name, they don't sit well with a culture that, Hanson said, is more sensitized to the horrors of combat than, say, the "tragic society" that struggled through the Great Depression.

One example of the change in attitude: The L.A. Times photos drew quick and strong reaction from both Panetta, who issued an apology, and the White House. President Barack Obama's chief of staff called them "reprehensible."

Compare that to the World War II-era photo of a 20-year-old woman seated at a desk and examining the Japanese skull her soldier boyfriend had sent her from New Guinea. Life magazine chose it as its "Picture of the Week" for May 22, 1944.

Defining the enemy

The incidents reported from Iraq and Afghanistan clearly bother the combat veterans, who aren't unsympathetic to the plight of the contemporary service member.

"Let's start with examining the boys in combat today," said Alamo's Bill Green, an infantryman in the Vietnam War. "These young people are serving multiple tours into a combat zone. To be told I had to go back, I don't know how I would have handled that."

Added Hooker, who visits wounded Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers at VA facilities, "They've been over there too long. Their minds are scrambled. They get fatigued."

The veterans cite another factor: The enemy is not as well defined and easily identified as those in World War II and Korea. That dynamic began to change in Vietnam with the widespread use of citizen guerrillas. Where the war on terror is concerned, there is no opposing government or formal military to confront.

"When we were in combat," said Dalton, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, "except for a few situations, we knew exactly who the enemy was. He wore a different helmet than we did."

'5 percent breakdown'

Add to the mix technology and social media, which allow incidents to be reported with facility.

"Nothing is sacred any longer with a pocket phone," said Green, who meets with Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers at the Concord Vet Center and speaks to high school students as a member of the Viet Nam Vets of Diablo Valley speakers bureau. "How long did My Lai go unreported? Today you burn a Quran and it's on the news that night."

Ultimately the veterans and the historian concur it is difficult to legislate morality in a combat zone.

"You go through the finest training in the world to kill," Hooker said. "It's not, 'Halt, who goes there?' when you're in the middle of the night in a hot zone."

Added Hanson: "Society doesn't have any idea what Helmand Province is like, or what the Taliban is like. These soldiers know that if they get caught, they're going to wind up on a tape with their head cut off. Then they're told, 'Don't ever conduct yourself in a way that would reflect poorly on the United States.' It's a noble goal that works 95 percent of the time. The 5 percent breakdown, we should seek to correct it instead of vilifying the whole system."

U.S. And South Korea Assault An Idyllic Island - Again

Note I haven't verified the criticisms and claims in this article, about the US's "disgraceful" record in our aggressive foreign policy - I present it because it's history. Do your own research to refute or confirm.

From Scoop: Independent News: U.S. And South Korea Assault An Idyllic Island - Again
The beautiful island of Jeju in South Korea is packed with natural and cultural treasures and designated a UNESCO world heritage site. But it has the misfortune of appearing to the U.S. military strategically positioned to play a part in surrounding China.

Most Americans are unaware of Jeju or of the U.S. policy of increasing its military presence in Korea, Japan, and the rest of the Pacific -- even moving the Marines into Australia. But for the people of Jeju, attempting to nonviolently resist the construction of a new military base, there is an eerie sense of déjà vu.

In fact Jeju's history is central to how the United States became the militarized nation it has been for over half a century.

Veterans for Peace (VFP) recently sent members to Jeju to monitor the local resistance to this militarization, but they were refused entry by Korean security officials who gave no reasons other than following orders. VFP represents thousands of U.S. military veterans who have participated in various overt and covert U.S. interventions violating the sovereignty of countless countries. This aggressive foreign policy, little mentioned in our history classes, has caused incalculable harm to people, cultures, and the environment. Our personal experiences summon us to carefully re-examine the nature and patterns of U.S. foreign policy. Our clear understanding of past and present imperial adventures compel us to passionately and tenaciously oppose further militarism, war and aggression which we see as severe obstacles to the continuation of our species.

n examining U.S. interventions since World War II, historian William Blum has recently catalogued the following disgraceful record: (1) attempted overthrow of more than 50 governments; (2) attempted suppression of populist and nationalist movements in 20 countries; (3) interference in democratic elections in at least 30 countries; (4) bombing of citizens in 30 countries; and (5) attempted assassinations of more than 50 foreign political leaders.

Shockingly, when all the empirical evidence is scrutinized, the U.S. has militarily intervened nearly 400 times since World War II in nearly 100 countries, while covertly intervening thousands of times. Millions of human beings have been murdered, maimed, and displaced as a result of this egregious, unlawful behavior. Adherence to international and Constitutional law, and honest diplomacy, have been thwarted over and over.

One of the darkest, virtually unknown chapters of U.S. intervention occurred in the southern portions of Korea prior to the Korean War. In 1945, a Joint U.S. Army-Navy Intelligence Study reported that the vast majority of Koreans possessed a strong desire for independence and self-rule, and were vehemently opposed to control by any successor to the hated Japanese who had ruled them since 1910. A subsequent U.S. study reported that nearly 80 percent of Koreans wanted a socialist, rather than capitalist system.

Despite the conclusions of these internal documents, U.S. President Harry Truman, after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, imposed a purportedly temporary partition at Korea’s 38th Parallel dividing a 5,000-year homogenous culture. He then commanded U.S. General Douglas MacArthur to “govern” the people living south of the 38th Parallel. In October 1945, needing a trusted Korean with “an [U.S.] American point of view” to be the U.S. strongman, MacArthur flew 71-year-old Korean-born Syngman Rhee from the U.S. to Seoul on MacArthur’s personal plane. Rhee, a Methodist who had lived in the United States for 40 years, was to be a surrogate ruler of Korea that was largely Buddhist and Confucianist.

Rhee unilaterally chose to hold separate elections in 1948 to “legally” create an artificially divided Korea, despite vigorous popular opposition throughout the Peninsula, north and south of the 38th Parallel, including residents of Cheju Island (now called Jeju, hereafter identified as such). What is referred to as the April 3 (1948) uprising on Jeju in response to these elections, actually lasted into 1950, and is the single greatest massacre in modern Korean history. The Jeju uprising in 1948 may be seen as a microcosm for the impending Korean War.

A CIA National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Rhee was so unpopular that the newly-established Republic of Korea (ROK) would not survive “without massive infusion of U.S. aid.”

The U.S. Embassy described the repression in response to the Jeju opposition to Rhee as a “scorched earth” campaign of “extermination.” Secret protocols placed all Korean Constabulary, police, ROK forces, and paramilitary units under USAMGIK’s (United States Army Military Government In Korea) control.

CIA documents concluded that politics under the USAMGIK and Rhee regime were dominated by a tiny elite class of wealthy Koreans who repressed dissent of the vast majority, using “ruthlessly brutal” policies similar to those of the previous Japanese machinery hated by most Koreans.

Then U.S. Military Governor of Korea, John Reed Hodge, briefed U.S. Congressional Representatives that “Cheju was a truly communal area that is peacefully controlled by the People’s Committee.” Despite this understanding, he commanded three U.S. military officers (among others) – Colonel Harley E. Fuller, Captain John P. Reed, and Captain James Hausman – to advise and coordinate the “extermination” and “scorched earth” campaign. Koreans who had collaborated with the hated Japanese occupiers now served in the U.S.-trained Korean Constabulary and police. Right wing paramilitary units became a brutal element of Rhee’s security apparatus. U.S. advisers accompanied all Korean Constabulary and police (and additional ROK units after 1948) in ground campaigns; U.S. pilots flew C-47s to ferry troops, weapons, war materiel while occasionally directing bombings; and U.S. intelligence officers provided daily intelligence. Additionally U.S. Navy war ships, including the USS Craig, blockaded and bombed the Island, preventing supplies and additional opposition forces from arriving, while preventing flight of boatloads of desperate Islanders.

Hodge’s successor, General William Roberts, declared it was of “utmost importance” that dissenters “be cleared up as soon as possible.” The repressive Japanese organization, “National League To Provide Guidance” (Bo Do Yun Maeng), was expanded by the Rhee regime. Used to systematically identify any Koreans who had opposed Japanese occupation, the League now worked to identify those who opposed the de facto brutal U.S./Rhee rule. Thousands were murdered, jailed, and tortured, and many dumped into the sea as a result.

The Governor of Jeju at the time admitted that the repression of the Island’s 300,000 residents led to the murder of as many as 60,000 Islanders, with another 40,000 desperately fleeing in boats to Japan. Thus, one-third of its residents were either murdered or fled during the “extermination” campaign. Nearly 40,000 homes were destroyed and 270 of 400 villages were leveled. One of Robert’s cohorts, Colonel Rothwell Brown, claimed that the Islanders were simply “ignorant, uneducated farmers and fishers,” a weak excuse for repressing those who, Brown asserted, refused to recognize the “superiority” of the “American Way.”

U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and George Kennan, head of the State Department’s Policy Planning, agreed in 1949 that suppression of the internal threat in South Korea, (i.e., Koreans’ passion for self-determination), with assistance of the newly created CIA, was critical to preserving Rhee’s power, and assuring success of the U.S.’s worldwide containment policy. The 1949 Chinese Revolution made repressing the neighboring Korean’s passion for self-determination indispensable for success in the emerging “Cold War,” complementing successful U.S. efforts using CIA covert actions to thwart any socialist movements in Europe following World War II.

The 1949-50 National Security Council study, known as NSC-68, laid out U.S. aims to assure a global political system to “foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish.”

The Korean War that lasted from June 1950 to July 1953, was an enlargement of the 1948-50 struggle of Jeju Islanders to preserve their self-determination from the tyrannical rule of U.S.-supported Rhee and his tiny cadre of wealthy constituents. Little known is that the U.S.-imposed division of Korea in 1945 against the wishes of the vast majority of Koreans was the primary cause of the Korean War that broke out five years later. The War destroyed by bombing most cities and villages in Korea north of the 38th Parallel, and many south of it, while killing four million Koreans – three million (one-third) of the north’s residents and one million of those living in the south, in addition to killing one million Chinese. This was a staggering international crime still unrecognized that killed five million people and permanently separated 10 million Korean families. Following the Korean War, Dean Acheson concluded that “Korea saved us,” enabling the U.S. to implement its apocalyptic imperial strategy laid out in NSC-68. In Korea, this meant that the U.S. consistently assured dictatorial governments for nearly 50 years, long after Rhee was forced out of office at age 85 in 1960. Since 1953, the U.S. and South Korea have lived under a Mutual Defense Treaty, Status of Forces Agreements, and a Combined Forces Command headed by a 4-star U.S. general. The fact is that despite claims to the contrary, Korea has never assumed sovereignty since the U.S. imposed division of Korea in 1945. The U.S. has possessed more than 100 military bases and nearly 50,000 troops on Korean soil, and even today has dozens of bases and 28,000 troops stationed there. For decades, the U.S. maintained its main Asian bombing range south of Seoul.

Despite this gruesome history, Koreans began to successfully assert some semblance of democratic governments in the 1990s. However, despite creation of a constitution that protects free speech and basic human rights, Koreans once again are experiencing egregious repression. The Korean residents of pristine Jeju Island vigorously oppose the construction of a deep-water port to host Korean and U.S. guided missile-equipped Aegis Destroyers at the village of Gangjeong. The South Korean government headed by reactionary President Lee Myung Bak is ruthlessly repressing their legitimate, constitutionally-protected free speech. This is not acceptable. The residents of Jeju have a long history of living in peace and harmony. They were brutalized in the late 1940s for wanting independence, and are being brutalized once again for attempting to preserve self-determination. It is déjà vu.

We have been following the daily brutal repression by as many as 1,500 Korean police and security forces of Jeju’s 1,500 residents whose voices of passionate and nonviolent opposition have been completely ignored. When we called the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C. to ask why this deep-water port construction continues in Gangjeong over objections of more than 90 percent of its residents, the answer has been, “Don’t call us, call your own (U.S.) government.” Political pressure from the U.S. continues to interfere with sovereignty of the Korean people as their own government disrespects, then represses, the free speech of its own citizens despite protections inscribed in the Korean constitution.

We read reports in the Korean press of more than 2600 politicians, journalists and civilians being secretly, illegally spied upon during the current Lee administration. In January 2009, Korea Broadcasting Service (KBS) aired a program that disclosed a secret deal made by the CIA-style Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), Korean police, and components of the Jeju Island government, to quash any opposition movement to the planned construction of a Jeju deep-water military port, saying such opponents are, in effect, traitors. It is being built by the huge South Korea conglomerate, Samsung, despite watchdog Public Eye citing its history of over 50 years of environmental pollution, trade union repression, corruption and tax flight. Samsung’s power in South Korea is so great that many citizens speak of the “Samsung Republic.”

And we note that the NIS has raided Korean citizens and organizations, even on the mainland, who support the valiant villagers of Gangjeong on Jeju Island who resist the militarization of their Island, of their coastline, of their villages.

The stakes are much higher now that U.S. President Barack Obama has chosen a dangerous policy to militarize the Asia-Pacific region, due to obvious U.S. political intentions to encircle resource-rival China. Jeju, only 300 miles from China’s mainland, is located in a strategic sea route between Japan, Korea, and China. Obama recently dispatched U.S. troops to a northern port of Australia (2,500 miles from China) as part of this plan, while possessing existing jet landing strips in Okinawa (400 miles), Guam (1,900), and new landing bases in Afghanistan (1,000) and Turkmenistan (1,500), and increased strategic relationships with Singapore (1,200) and Philippines (750).

The immensely biodiverse Jeju Island is a most inappropriate location for a deep-water port to host highly armed U.S. and Korean Navy war ships. Former Korean President Roh Moo Kyum designated Jeju as “Jeju Island of Global Peace” when he formally apologized for the April 1948 massacre. A popular tourist vacation spot, famous for honeymooners and sometimes called “women’s Island” due to its matriarchal history, it is also called the “Island of the Gods.” It is Jeju’s incredible unique ecosystem that makes the island so inappropriate for militarizing a deep-water port in quiet coastal village of Gangjeong. It is sheer madness to blow up sacred lava rocks to make way for violent war machines. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has designated no less than three World Heritage sites on Jeju, including the Gureombi Lava Rocks being blown up for construction of the Navy destroyer port that are being covered with cement along the coast. UNESCO has also designated nine Geo-Parks on Jeju, as well as designating it as a protected Global Biosphere Reserve that includes Jeju coastlines and its fragile coral reefs.

The Korean government has claimed the deep-water port will also host commercial cruise ships. Their huge weight and 1,000-foot length makes them twice as heavy and long as the 500-550 foot Aegis Destroyers. The port will not be capable of hosting these tourist ships, revealing this dual-use claim as fanciful propaganda.

Our military experiences tell us this plan by Korea and the U.S. to host missile-equipped Aegis Destroyers as part of its global anti-ballistic missile system on the pristine Island of Jeju is extremely threatening to world peace, destroys the peace of the residents of Jeju and Gangjeong village, and flaunts Korea’s Constitutional assurances of protecting free speech of its citizens. We urge the Korean government act decisively to end its continued deference to pressures from the United States, and instead commence pursuing Korea’s legitimate dignity and sovereignty.