McCains Heyday, Obamas Legacy
By Lee Keun-yeop
The 1950-53 Korean War reminds me of many things: death and life, fallen comrades, and ``if'' about myself ― as a wounded veteran.
I joined the army in late 1950 and was assigned to B Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment, the Capital Infantry Division as an infantryman. My morale was high when I was first put there. I was apathetic when I saw the charred corpses of North Korean soldiers hit by the U.S. napalm bombs.
But when I saw 16 corpses of our company comrades after the Yaksuri campaign, I thought, ``This is the wrong place to be.'' All I thought about was a transfer to a rear unit. But no way.
Who says some dying soldiers yelled, ``Long Live the Republic of Korea!'' Isn't it a hypothetic creation by the propaganda unit?
During my two and a half years of service in the front, I saw a couple of my comrades on their last breaths, uttering feebly, ``Mom.''
When I was in an assault squad I welcomed it as fate. In mid-July 1953 amid the hell of the middle front; wounded in action; evacuated by helicopter; the army hospital; and finally so called ``honorable'' discharge and promoted to the rank of corporal. That's my trail.
Battle is not that romantic. It is a matter of life and death. On June 6, Memorial Day, I visited the National Cemetery, pondering my fallen comrades and sharing grief with the bereaved families.
Now I have come of age as to think of the grief of the bereaved families of the above mentioned North Korean soldiers as brethren. Siegfried Sassoon, an English poet and author, is honest in his verse, ``To His Dead Body.''
When roaring gloom surged and you cried, Groping for friendly hand, and clutched, and died, Like racing smoke, swift from your lolling head Phantoms of thoughts and memory thinned and fled.
Interestingly enough, I didn't hear of any South Korean political leaders' sons assigned to the front during the Korean War. In the bunkers I heard that a son of U.S. president-elect Dwight David Eisenhower was battling in the middle front.
I also heard that a family member of J. P. Morgan, a U.S. railroad tycoon and financier, was fighting in the middle front. It was John Morgan. His father Warren Morgan participated in WWI, WWII and again in the Korean War. His son David, married to a Korean, is serving the U.S. army in Korea.
In the army hospital I heard that the son of Gen. Van Fleet, commander-in-chief of the U.N. Forces was killed on the last of his 22 flights over Pyongyang.
But here is a special breed. He is the supreme commander of the U.S. Army ― yet none of his family members or relatives is serving in Iraq. He is George W. Bush.
John McCain's grandfather was an aircraft carrier task force commander during WWII. His father was a WWII submarine commander and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War.
Son of the commander-in-chief as he was, John McCain went on 23 bombing runs before he was shot down over Hanoi in 1967. His plane was hit by a missile in the right wing. He ejected, breaking both arms and leg. Our common sense calls him just ``gallant,'' though in a wrong war.
Lots of South Korean leaders have successfully helped their sons evade compulsory military service, whether in wartime or peace.
In 1968 McCain was offered early release as the son of the admiral of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. But he declined, thinking of fellow POWs captured earlier.
He was kept in the ``Hanoi Hilton,'' the POW camp, until his release in 1973. Patriot McCain's heyday seems to be ``Gone with the Wind" with the end of Vietnam War.
Bold as he was as a warrior, he was regarded as a tempestuous loner by his fellow lawmakers. Some say he lacks the art of compromise. Newsweek's Evan Thomas says, ``John McCain comes from a line of warriors stretching back to the ferocious highland clans in Scotland.'' Is there once again the West Point ballad, ``Old soldiers never die, but fade away,'' after Douglas MacArthur?
John McCain delivered a few jabs at Barack Obama by mentioning the latter's patriotism and visiting Iraq only once in 2006 compared to his eight visits. The mathematical count is meaningless. What matters is the insight into the cause and nature of the Iraq War. It is the realm of philosophy.
Obama's stand on the Iraq War is consistent from the beginning ― opposing the unilateral invasion war and putting an end to its illegitimacy.
On Feb. 10 this year in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln made his famous farewell speech on Feb. 11, 1861, Sen. Barack Obama made an announcement. He said that the restoration of the essential decency of American people cannot come to pass without ending the Iraq War.
Obama's intention to meet with the leaders of what George W. Bush called ``the Axis of Evils'' is also consistent with the late President John F. Kennedy's remark, ``I do not fear negotiation (with the Soviet Union), I do not negotiate out of fear.'' Just see his firm determination at the time of Cuban missile crisis.
We can trace Obama's legacy back to Kennedy and Lincoln. I think all Americans may well be proud of this son of American soil and a creation of the triumphant American education.
Dr. Lee Keun-yeop is director of the nonprofit Korea Center for Social Sciences and Humanities on Vietnam and founding member of the Korean Association for East European and Balkan Studies. He is a regular contributor to The Korea Times. He can be reached at kylee30110@hanmail.net.