Editor:
Observation suggests that South Delta is home to a number of veterans, at least as evidenced by vehicle number plates. What is not so obvious is which service and which war did the veterans serve in, and for how long for each.
The very definition of the word veteran, as given in the Gage Canadian Dictionary, means: a person who has had much experience in war; therefore one might expect Second World War, Korean War, Gulf War and Afghanistan to be prominent among the responses. Most Canadians give indications that they are reasonably knowledgeable about the Second World War and Afghanistan but few know much if anything about either the Korean War or the first Gulf War.
The Second World War has been front and centre for decades via films, newspapers, magazine and personal accounts and for Canadians, the sight of caskets containing Canadian servicemen's bodies being unloaded from aircraft brought home the seriousness of war and the real possibility that some of this country's service personnel might die, was a first as previously, Canadian dead were buried in the country of their death. Fortunately, Canada did not lose any personnel during the short-lived first Gulf War but when it comes to the Korean War, many Canadians, including those who ought to know, reveal they know little or nothing about the first United Nations Force assembled from UN members. Why is that, one must ask?
Possibly it is because the education ministries of the provinces and territories fail to present the Korean War as it ought to be presented to students; possibly it is because the Korean War has been and continues to be known as the Forgotten War, despite the very strong support Senator Yonah Martin of B.C. has given the cause and what the Conservative government passed with respect to Canadian veterans of the Korean War.
One wonders why the Korean War, the one war that stopped the spread of an evil known as communism in the Far East and sowed the seeds of democracy that led, eventually and with some assistance, to the tearing down of the hated Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union is shoved aside and forgotten.
It all began on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950 and throughout the 37 months of intense, sometimes hand-to-hand fighting, came to a halt with an armistice in July 1953 with a cost of five million casualties [dead, wounded or missing] including: Canada 1,558 [516 killed]; USA 136,528; UK 3,362; Australia 1,652; South Korea 843,572; Holland 704; Philippines 448; Thailand 913; Turkey 3,130; Greece 714; Belgium/Luxembourg 452/28; Columbia 657; Ethiopia 656; France 1,124; South Africa 36; and on the communist side, China 900,000 and North Korea 520,000.
And yet, the Korean War is still referred to as the Forgotten War. Why?
So, how many among those veterans served in the Korean War? Who knows? It seems all to be rather forgotten or as one American woman said, the Korean War was the Unknown War - but how, with 136,528 U.S. casualties, might it be either forgotten or unknown?
Bob Orrick, CD
Former national public information officer, Korea Veterans Association of Canada, Inc.
