"Korea 1950~53"

I was thinking about the Korean War. It's probably one of my first memories. I'm with my Uncle Clyde in his 1950 Ford...blue plaid upholstery. We're driving past the downtown docks. New York was still a major shipping port then. Was till about 1970 or so.

There are so many men in dark brown coats. I now know they were soldiers. Giant cranes were lifting trucks onto ships. Someone in the car maybe my Mom or Aunt Agnes said something. She said, "...they're going to War."

This is a vivid memory.

It's also as I said one of my earliest. I suppose I was perhaps three, 1953. So this had to be the Korean War she was referring to.  It started in 1950 a few months after I was born. My youngest Uncle, Reginald, was drafted into it. My Dad, and other Uncles were all WW2 Vets.

Luckily they were 'not' in the reserves so weren't dragooned into Korea. It was a Reservist War...at least at first. The regular Army was in Europe waiting to fight the Russians.

Uncle Reggie..actually I called him "cousin" because my Dad married late, and all my cousins on Dad's side were 10 or 15 years older than they should be.

I ended up care-giving for him later in life, but that's another story. The thing about "cousin" Reggie is that he was captured by the North Koreans. Even then these guys were insane. Reggie witnessed the mass execution of United Nations troops. Americans Brits Turks others.

He himself was tortured, and testified at the U.N. inquiry after the War. Of course North Korea didn't give a shit just as now. It's an interesting twist of history that Chinese troops..yeah the dreaded so-called Communist Chinese saved thousands of western POW's.

The Camps were slaughter houses of murder, and torture. The Chinese intervened, and took control of most...sadly not all of the camps from the North Koreans who seems intent on killing every U.N. POW under their control

Again my cousin Reggie witnessed this. He himself was tortured, and was on the death list. Yeah the fuckers had such a thing. So ironically when the Chinese entered the camp they in fact saved his, and everyone else's lives. 

There are footnotes here, and there that refer to this, but the Cold War raged for decades more. So anything positive about China was ignored or suppressed. I 'd love to see some of this in a documentary or feature film.

Red Chinese troops entering a North Korean Death Camp, and saving U.N. prisoners. That would be interesting to see.

War all wars even the insane ones were fighting now are full of interesting ironies.

Stay Tuned.