TAKING PRIDE IN OUR UTAH/KOREA CONNECTION

            Sixty-eight years have passed since that June day that saw the peace of the Korean peninsula shattered by an invasion of the South by Communist forces from the North, with support from  the Soviet Union and China, and with entire armies of the latter country eventually joining the North Korea People's Army in overrunning free South Korea. Among those who responded to the call for assistance to the beleaguered South were over five million American young men, just 2.2 million (40%) of whom are still with us as of 2017. Some of those were also veterans of WWII, while some went on to fight in Viet Nam.

            These grizzled veterans who were born into the Great Depression and experienced the war years of Franklin Roosevelt's America are in their 80s and 90s. For the most part, they have not been a "noisy" group known for demonstrations and advocacies pleading for special recognition, but to the contrary   returned home to quietly take their place in a society which mostly thought of theirs, as the forgotten war.

            For some of us - and for various reasons - that has not been true. In my own case my particular military mission placed me in regular contact with my opposite numbers in South Korean society, both military and civilian. My interest in Korean history and in particular emerging details about the war I had just participated in tended to keep me involved in further study, especially after I found myself with responsibility for producing a weekly radio talk show with a strong history bent, and eventually as a regular newspaper columnist. Most important was my relocation to southern Utah where I quickly fell into a natural friendship with a Korean-American patriot and neighbor named Sunny Lee who had wedded her life to serving her adopted country in appreciation of the contribution its citizens had made to the freedom of her native land. I also discovered a rare sense of awareness among a group of veterans who had seen Korean combat service with the 213th Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the Utah National Guard which had distinguished itself in the battle of Gapyeong  on May 26, 1951 after taking on large numbers of an invading Chinese Army without the loss of a single guardsman.

            With the generous support of the Korean government - in particular the ministry of Patriots & Veterans - Mrs. Lee literally became the U.S. spokesperson for this veterans group and others, leading a series of return visits for the Gapyeong and other Utah-American veterans of the Korean War. I was privileged to join the 2009 tour, and my granddaughter as part of a special contingent of  K.W. student- grandkids of Vets. participating in a Peace Camp and guided visit the following year.

             After carrying out a number of similar and very demanding veteran visits, Sunny went on to supervise an effort to help the surviving families of Missing-in-action veterans to better understand and "finalize" the story of their loss, concluding with a trip to present-day Korea, a visit to historic and sacred sites and a special memorial service. Only those few of us who know Sunny Lee intimately understand both the personal sense of fulfillment this experience involved, and the deep emotional price it exacted from this remarkable super-patriot.

            Recently a plane landed in Las Vegas carrying two young gentlemen whose errand it was to underline that partner-nation's appreciation of this unusual Utah Connection, and those who have supported the rare friendship it has engendered on both sides of the Pacific:  25-year-old Tae Hwan Park and Joon Chang Lee, both senior cadets at the Korea Army Academy at Yeongcheon stepped down on U.S. soil as representatives of a grateful nation. Prior to their official visits to Utah National Guard headquarters, Cedar City mayor and Veterans' Monument, an Idaho veterans home and a meeting with MIA families, several of us enjoyed a dinner and evening with them at the Springdale home of John and Sunny Lee. The depth of their sense of honor and respect, and their love for America made all of us as proud of these sons of serving Senior officers as if they were from one of our own service academies.

                                 Photo Caption: L to R   Standing: Cadet Tae Hwan Park, Cadet Joon Chang Lee

                                           Seated: Gene Gregory, Marine; Al Cooper, Air Force; Col. Dan Roberts, Army

A NATION ON THE BRINK, AND A MAN NAMED ABRAHAM

            When Abraham Lincoln was born, the Republic was only 33 years old. George Washington had been dead only 10 years and many of those who had signed their names to the Declaration of Independence were still living and active. James Madison was president - our 4th, and the people of Lincoln's generation were not far removed from the events surrounding the nation's painful birth. The population of the infant states was still only 7 million, although that number would double in the next decade; the Indiana Territory was the western "frontier."

            Back in 1783 when the Constitutional Convention reached agreement over a supreme written law- thanks to compromise - they had failed to resolve three fundamental problems. These three "jaw-breaker" questions hovered over all those proceedings, but the founding fathers became convinced that in these areas of disagreement, there could be no chance of compromise. Many present there in Philadelphia believed in their hearts that these unresolved differences would eventually bring about the dissolution of the Union they had forged. Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, and even Madison himself wrote of their fears. The three unsettled problems loomed large by the time Abraham Lincoln was old enough to become a student of Government: Slavery!!   States rights vs. Federal!!  and  Secession!!

            One of the reasons George Washington had allowed himself (reluctantly) to be persuaded into accepting a second term as President was that of a growing trend toward partisanism. The constitution did not contemplate the emergence of political parties. Its framers had grown old and suspicious observing all that was wrong with England's "parliamentary democracy". Despite all his worst fears, Washington witnessed - and abhorred - the rise of multi-party politics, and a growing tendency toward international adventurism. Even before he left office he saw seeds being sewn which would result in the deterioration of relations with England (and the War of 1812;) conflict with the western tribes over Indian land rights, and the insoluble differences between states with respect to slavery.

            The political environment into which Lincoln was born saw two principle parties, the Democrats (pro-slavery, pro-South and largely pro-states rights,) and Whigs (more centrist and largely anti-slavery.) Increasingly though, both parties were becoming fragmented over the slavery issue, and the birth of a new more-solidly anti-slavery party was likely. (This would be the Republican party with which Lincoln would almost immediately align himself along with other Whigs.) Other issues which divided office holders swirled around the development of western lands, and even here slavery and its expansion was at the heart of debate.

            Slavery questions hark back to the founding fathers. Washington, though a slave owner, deplored the practice, freed his own at his death, and worked toward phasing out the system. Jefferson tried to lead Virginia toward being the first state to outlaw slavery outright, and in fact that state had embarked upon the implementation of a solution prior to the outbreak of civil war. When Lincoln observed in his debates with Stephen Douglas, that the nation could not continue "half slave and half free," that it must necessarily become "all one or all the other," he was putting his finger directly on the problem.

            With the passage of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, a national disaster seemed to have been averted when congressional controls on the admission of "new" territories at least produced a temporary quieting of southern outcries of unfairness. But all of that changed dramatically in 1858 with the Dred Scott decision, which among other things denied the former slave's argument while finding that slaves had no standing in any court. As disappointing as that ruling was for Republicans and all abolishioners, Judge Roger B. Taney's southern-leaning Supreme Court went a huge step farther in ruling that Congress did not have the authority to outlaw (or limit) slavery anywhere! Thus reversing the Missouri Compromise, and making the American Civil War inevitable.

Personal Note: For all of my life, I have believed that Abraham Lincoln's birth was no accident. ACC