Aaaand another one! GFA sure inspired me.
To be fair, I must say that I was inspired for this particular story by a short story, and particularly its final sentences, from a writer called 'TakenHawkeye' here on this site. I hope he/she doesn't mind! The final sentences was 'Their lives, their time, reduced to a paragraph in textbooks and a lone photograph. Though they may have never forgotten, the world forgot them.'
I was just touched by these words, because they are true. I'm not American and so the Korean War has never been part of the history I've learnt at school (The Netherlands didn't even fight in Korea). However, one of the two history exam subjects for me was the Vietnam War (which is connected to Korea in the way that both were anti-Communist wars in the same era), and it contained several chapters about the time before the Vietnam War. But Korea is only mentioned in passing. At that time, I was actively watching M*A*S*H and, well, a little obsessed with it. So the fact that it didn't even 'get' more than a fleeting mention sort of bugged me.
Anyway, to cut a long, pointless story short... I wrote this, I guess, as a way to make up for what the world has forgotten. I know it's M*A*S*H, and it's only a TV show, but the Korea War did happen, and over one million people did die. There are so many wars, and most of them are forgotten - but pointless deaths should never be forgotten, if only to prevent more of them.
And on a last note... Today is Veteran's Day in my country. It seems only fitting to dedicate this story to them.
He leafs through the history book, occasionally reading bits and pieces. It's similar to what he remembered from his high school textbooks – dry, factual.
But history is his daughter's favourite subject, and so he thought he'd look through the book.
It contains little in the way of foreign history. The focus is on America, and with his life experience, he's a little disappointed that his daughter learns so little of the world's history.
He'd been fascinated with Korean history once. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but in fact, only thirteen years had passed since that phase. He'd managed to get his hands on a book about Korean history, and he'd been amazed at the things that had happened in the very place his own country was occupying. He'd been angry, too, at the way the war destroyed the lives of the civilians, especially as he started to see how similar the Koreans' lives were to the lives of those who lived three hundred, four hundred, even thousand years ago.
He had resolved to teach Erin himself, so that she may know a little more about the world than this history book told her.
He flips forward, finally reaching the 20th century. There are chapters on the First World War, the Roaring Twenties and the Depression. His memories of that time are quite clear, although his family had been mostly spared from bankruptcy and he had been quite young. He still remembers his parents' worried looks, the homeless people on the streets. And he remembers the Second World War.
The textbook covers that war quite extensively, and he reads of all the things that had not yet been history when he had been studying at Stanford University. His memories of that war are very clear. He still remembers the shock of Pearl Harbor, remembers the maps that had hung on classroom walls that documented the progress of the allied troops. He still remembers when, in 1944, his father had been drafted, and his entire family had anxiously awaited any news. Thankfully, they had continually received letters, although they were quite often late. His father seemed to write every day, a trait that BJ had taken over in Korea.
He flips the pages, catching glimpses of atomic bombs and peace talks. There are pages on the Soviet Union, the Communist threat, the division of Berlin…
And finally, he finds it.
It's only a small piece of text, only three paragraphs. He reads it greedily, hungrily, wondering what he will recognize, the way he recognizes things from the other pages.
There's a bit about the 38th parallel, General MacArthur, the Chinese intervention.
He reads nothing of the casualties, nothing of death, and suddenly he is sickened by the casual mention of an event that had changed the course of his life.
These were people, damn it. That war had cost the lives of over million people who had mostly been young, hopeful, innocent… People who had not deserved to die. People who did not deserve only a few lines in a history book, to be looked at mostly by bored teenagers who did not care for historic events.
So many lives… Lost. Gone.
Erin knows about the Korean War, of course. She has been told, by both Peg and himself, about the time in their lives when they had been separated. Of course, BJ has not told her the most painful matters. Now, as she grows up, he thinks she is more ready.
Still, the sadness is not what he wants to remember.
And so he shares his and Hawkeye's antics with her, tells her of Radar and Colonel Potter, Margaret, Klinger and Charles. To her, the characters had taken somewhat mythical proportions, but she had still been able to recognize all of them, from BJ's descriptions and a few photos, at the five-year reunion. She'd pointed at the men and women and they had all laughed at Erin's quick wit.
Yes, he thinks. Erin knows, and she won't forget. Even if the war has been forgotten to most people, or is a mere smudge on a far larger plate, it will always matter to the ones who were in it.
He doubts people will remember in forty or fifty years. It is generally not in the nature of people to dwell on things they have no connection to. For most of the world, Korea was nothing but a blip on the radar, a tiny knot in the long course of history.
How long does it take before a war can be rightfully forgotten?
I don't know if this is accurate, or how important the Korean War was to America. I know that relatively few films have been made about it, particularly compared to WW2 and Vietnam, which is what I based my assumptions on.