It's not a "forgotten war"

If we never forget.

Task Force Smith Memorial -- Osan, South Korea

Ahead of the 61st anniversary of Task Force Smith on July 5th, I went to Osan today to visit the memorial dedicated to the US task force, which was sent from Japan to stop the North Korean juggernaut in the opening days of the Korean War.

The first time I visited the memorial was on July 5, 2000 for the 50th anniversary of Task Force Smith, which I wrote about for The Korea Times.

This was my first trip back.

This is one of the inscriptions on the monument:

As the vicious troops of the North Korean Army crossed the 38th Parallel, U.S. troops were ready to fight to preserve freedom of world. Determined to punish the aggressors, Lt. Colonel Smith’s special task force stood on Jukmi Pass. Supported by the 17th of the Republic of Korean Army, the first Korean and UN forces joint operation commenced. Blood formed a stream after over six hours of fierce struggle. Firing lines stretched as far as the Naktong River. While forlorn souls sleep on this hill, how can we forget our friendship with allied nations created in blood?

Approximately 181 Americans out of the 540 men in the task force were either killed, wounded or captured during the seven hours of battle against over 20,000 North Koreans and over 30 Russian T-34 tanks.

In Chapter 7 of War Remains, I write about the battle. In Chapter 9, I write about Bobby's first time in battle, which is based on a short story about the aftermath of The Battle of Osan.

A mean little fighter

On display at the War Memorial Museum in Seoul is this simple, yet nasty-looking jet plane, which terrorized the skies over the Korean peninsula during the Korean War.

Yeah, it's a MiG by golly.

Looks just as menacing here.

For the story about the air battles over the peninsula, I recommend Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea by John R. Bruning.

For the story about one man from the US Second Infantry Division who battles his way through the bitter first winter of the Korean War, longing for home, his wife, and newborn son, there is of course War Remains.

On sale now at Lulu for only 19.76. And until the 31st, 25% off! Just add the code, CYBERMAY when checking out.

Welcome Home Soldier

News like this always gets to me; when a service member is finally coming home.

And, it is what my novel War Remains is all about.

Remains of US Soldier from Korean War Identified

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The remains of another American soldier killed in the Korean War have been identified, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

"The remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors," the Pentagon said in a statement. "Army Cpl. Primo C. Carnabuci of Old Saybrook, Conn., will be buried May 12 in his hometown."

The identification came after U.S. President Barack Obama last week awarded the nation's highest medal posthumously to two American soldiers who fought in the Korean War.

The awardees of the Medal of Honor are Pfc. Anthony T. Kaho'ohanohano and Pfc. Henry Svehla.

More than 36,000 American soldiers were killed and over 8,000 were captured or went missing in the 1950-53 war, in which the U.S. fought alongside South Korea against invading communist North Korean soldiers backed by Chinese.

About 28,000 American soldiers are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the war, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, which leaves the two Koreas technically at war.

"On Nov. 1, 1950, Carnabuci's unit, the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, occupied a defensive position along the Kuryong River, near Unsan, North Korea," the Pentagon said. "Chinese units attacked the area and forced a withdrawal. Almost 600 men, including Carnabuci, were reported missing or killed in action following the battle."

His remains were among those recovered in Unsan County, south of the area known as Camel's Head, in North Korea in 2000 by a joint U.S.-North Korean team.

Forensic doctors have found his DNA matched that of his brother, the Pentagon said. "With this identification, 7,997 service members still remain missing from the conflict."

U.S. excavation operations in the communist North have been suspended since 2005 because of escalating tension over the North's nuclear ambitions. At the end of the Korean War, North Korea returned the remains of about 3,000 Americans.

North Korea has threatened to stop returning the remains of American soldiers unless Washington agrees to an early resumption of excavation operations.

Welcome Home, Primo.

Once Upon A War – Jeffrey Miller Looks Back

Once Upon A War – Jeffrey Miller Looks Back

South to Massacre Valley -- Hoengsong County, South Korea

Leaving Changbong-ni (where the beginning of War Remains takes place), this is the main highway leading to Massacre Valley in the south and beyond that, Hoengsong.

Changbong-ni , Hoengsong County -- South Korea

One of the crucial scenes in my novel takes place at Changbong-ni, which is located north of "Massacre Valley" and Hoengsong. It was here on February 11, 1951 where elements of the 38th Infantry Regiment, Second Infantry Division comprising a task force (Task Force 21) were attacked by the Chinese.
I thought the area would be more developed but aside from a few modern buildings and the highway, the area was not populated. In the distance is Oum-san, the mountain that Bobby describes in the novel.
This is the valley where the prologue in my novel takes place.

Praise from a Korean War Historian

Some more praise for War Remains from Andrew Salmon, author of To The Last Round:

In middle-class middle America, the accidental discovery of a missing veteran’s footlocker jogs buried memories of the Korean conflict. This is the starting point for Jeffrey Miller’s “War Remains,” a novel themed around war, amnesia and remembrance that is published, appropriately, on the 60th anniversary year of the conflict’s eruption.

There are few American historians or novelists of the Korean War; fewer still with first-hand knowledge of Korea’s landscapes or people. Miller, an American resident of South Korea and former columnist for The Korea Times, is the exception. Having interviewed dozens of veterans, he is as familiar with the soldier’s gun-sight view of the battlefield as with the big picture presented in cold war political histories.

Miller’s protagonist is a just-married soldier in the US 2nd Infantry Division, an ill-starred unit that endured some of the most hideous battles of the war. As his grandson searches for information about the grandfather he never met, the novel’s switching of locales between millennial USA and 1950-1 Korea carries the contemporary reader deep into this largely unknown but still simmering conflict

Unlike World War II and Vietnam, Korea was never memorably captured in literature or on film. “War Remains” helps fill that gap. Miller’s novel casts vivid light on a forgotten conflict in which superpower grappled with superpower on Asia’s grimmest killing fields, but his real achievement is in the poignant illumination he sheds upon the human cost stemming from statesmen’s failures.

"Silent night...Holy night..." -- Korea, 1950

Christmas Eve in Korea, 1950...

They clanked their cans together and took a drink of the icy cold beer. It was the first beer either had tasted since the regiment withdrew to Chunju. They were about to take a second drink when they suddenly stopped. It had gotten very quiet outside and inside the tent and that’s when they both thought they heard what sounded like some far-off singing.

“Did you hear that?” Bobby asked. “Sounds like singing.”

What Bobby and Harold had thought was singing had started off low, almost like a whisper and had grown louder and nearer. They recognized the song immediately. One by one, the men in the platoon crept out of their tents to find the source of the mellifluous melody, which turned out to be a dozen young Korean boys and girls aged around 10 or 11 huddled together with a middle-aged Korean man around a fire burning inside an empty fuel drum. Bobby, Harold and the rest of the men who had come out of their tents to investigate, gathered around these tiny carol­ers.

Silent night, Holy night,

All is calm, all is bright.

‘Round yon virgin Mother and Child

Holy infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace.

It was the first time that most of the men had had close con­tact with any Koreans, especially children. They had come across thousands of refugees fleeing burning villages along the Pusan Perimeter last summer, had passed thousands on the road to the Naktong and on the road to Pyongyang. Seeing all these refugees had always put a different perspective on the war for the men, but this was different.

Flames from the fire burning inside the fuel drum danced in the cold night air and illuminated the dirty, rosy-cheeked faces of the children. The girls were bundled up in thick woolen jackets over traditional Korean hanboks while the boys wore similar jack­ets over baggy trousers. They sang slowly and eloquently, enunci­ating each word clearly and carefully.

The men stood silent, transfixed by the carolers and their sweet, angelic voices. A few of the men with children of their own back home thought about them and how much they missed them, especially at this time of the year. Those without children, thought about parents, brothers, sisters and other loved ones at home. Al­most all of the men were a little misty-eyed, even First Sergeant Marshall, who was never known for showing any kind of emotion in front of the men, looked a little choked up.

Honored

Today I was honored with the comments left by the son of a Korean War veteran who discovered my post about the US Second Infantry Division monument at Hoengsong and the battle that was fought there in February 1951.

His father served with the 38th Infantry Regiment and fought in the battle that I described in my novel.

He wanted to know the exact location of the monument because he is planning to visit Korea on the 60th anniversary of some of the battles his father fought in during the war.

I am honored because that was one of my original intentions all along, when I first started writing War Remains, was that I wanted to honor all Korean War veterans and their loved ones and especially, those who served with the US Second Infantry Division and the 38th Infantry Regiment.

Welcome to Korea! Lost Luggage, Digestive Crackers, & David Letterman

Not long ago I blogged that I first started to write War Remains back in 2000 when I decided to read and review Retrieving Bones, a book I came across at the Kyobo Book Centre in downtown Seoul, one cold February afternoon.

Yes, it's true that after I read and reviewed that book, I would review many more books on the Korean War. And yes, those book reviews enabled me to cover Korean War commemorative events, which eventually took me to one commemorative event at Chipyong-ni where some of the veterans I met would become the inspiration for my novel.

However, if there was a starting point for all of us, it would have to be twenty years ago today, when I first came to Korea and when the die was cast.

This originally appeared in a blog in October 2009 and later, in the anthology, The Sanctuary.

When you decide to leave your country and travel halfway around the world to live and work-in my case to teach English in Korea-there are some things that you are never going to forget about your experience abroad and your life as an expat.

It goes without saying that for every foreigner who has set foot in Korea to live and work a universal chord is struck by what we all have in common. Whether it was getting accustomed to a new culture (with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies), attempting to speak the language, as well as making new friendships and enjoying a lifestyle commensurate with our professional and personal pursuits, much of what we might remember fondly is of this shared experience.

On the other hand, for better or worse, there are other things of a more personal nature, which will always remind us of the time, we spent in Korea. For me-after living and working in Korea for 19 years (and still counting)-one thing that will forever stand out most was my first week here and how I ended up in Korea in the first place.

“How did you end up in Korea?” asked an acquaintance who I had not seen since 1984 and who I had recently reconnected with on Facebook.

“I turned left at Japan,” I replied, tweaking a famous line from The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.

(In the movie, John Lennon was asked, “How did you find America?” upon which he replied, “We turned left at Greenland.”)

One thing is for certain, I didn’t end up in Korea based on what I knew or didn’t know about the country. To be sure, if you were to have asked me prior to 1988, which Korea was the Communist one, who Kim Il-sung was, or where Korea was located specifically in Northeast Asia, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get all three right.

I had heard of Korea though. Two of my uncles had fought in the Korean War, my high school friend “LJ” had learned Taekwondo in the 70’s, and I had (until he decided to return home) a Korean roommate when I was at college. I knew a few Koreans in some of my classes, but we never talked much about Korea. Sadly, for most people our knowledge of Korea was limited to what we could glean from the popular TV show M*A*S*H.

On the other hand, the few times that we did hear anything about Korea was when there was some disaster or tragedy like the USS Pueblo seizure in 1968, the Panmunjom Axe Murder Incident in 1976, Koreagate, the downing of KAL Flight 007 in 1983, and student demonstrations in the 80’s.

Despite these international events our knowledge about Korea was limited. Even the Korean War, which was for all semantic purposes a substitute for World War III, had sadly been called “the forgotten war.” Even my two uncles who had fought in it never talked about it.

Of course, the world would learn much about South Korea in 1988 with the Seoul Olympics that could be best described as one massive “coming out party” for the nation and its people.

Korea was not some place that you just heard about one day and decided that is where you wanted to go. No, Korea was a place that you had to have heard about somewhere from someone who had either been there or knew someone that had. People just didn’t end up here by accident. Fate maybe, but not by chance.

Two years after the Seoul Olympics, I found myself in Korea to teach English. I had not intended to teach in Korea when I graduated from graduate school in 1989. After a year in Japan and a semester teaching ESL at a community college in my hometown, all I could think about was getting back to Asia. Call it the lure of the Orient or something that I had to get out of my system before I could get on with my life, I applied for teaching positions at various schools in Asia.

One day, out of the blue I get a call from a language school recruiter in Culver City, California asking me if I wanted to teach in Korea.

“There’s a position opening up at a school in Seoul in December right before Christmas,” she said. “Are you interested?”

Before she had a chance to finish, I had already made up my mind.

I was going to Korea.

Yeah, I guess it was fate after all.

I arrived in Seoul on a cool, clammy Friday night in December 1990 just two weeks before Christmas. For some, traveling to another country around the holidays to begin work might be a little depressing, but I was too pumped up to feel depressed. The recruiter, who had phoned me back in October and offered me the job, told me that I would be too excited to feel depressed. She was right.

Then again, I had spent the previous Christmas in Japan and there were the two Christmases I had spent in Panama back in 1976 and 1977, so the holidays were not much of a problem.

The only problem, at least after I had arrived in Korea was going to be a change of underwear. I’ll get back to this later.

I had left Chicago the day before at 7:00 in the morning on my way to Seattle and then on to Seoul. The day before I left was a bit of a trip down memory lane. I had lunch with Dick Verucchi at the House of Hunan in Peru, bumped into Steve Stout there, went to Vallero’s Bakery in Dalzell on a bread run for Verucchi’s Ristorante and later that day, hung out with LJ who quizzed me on the Korean flag.

I had to get up to O’Hare early in the morning and my friend Mary Sue Hurley drove me up. It’s sad and ironic when you look back and realize that on what would end up being one of the major turning points of your life, would also be the last time you would see some very special people in your life.

If you had traveled to Korea prior to March 2001 when the new Incheon Airport opened, then you had to go through Seoul’s Kimpo Airport.

What I remember most about Kimpo that night, and all the other times I flew in and out of there, was how dreary and archaic it was. There’s no question that Kimpo was an obvious testament to Korea’s rapid economic development in the 70’s, but still had this sort of “developing nation” feel to it. Even though Korea had hosted the Olympics just two years earlier, one really felt as though they had stepped back into time-back to the 70s-when you had to go through Kimpo.

I have flown in and out of Korea countless times over the years, and usually when you go through immigration formalities, the immigration officials hardly utter more than a sentence or two, if that. However, on that night the immigration official asked me for a stick of gum. Well, it was more like “give me a stick of gum,” but have to give the guy credit for trying out his language skills.

“Mmm… Juicy Fruit,” he said.

If my first night in Korea was going to be a memorable one, it was not going to get off to a good start when I soon discovered that my luggage had been lost.

Great, I thought. I start work on Monday and I don’t have any clean clothes to wear.

After waiting until the last bags from my flight had been unloaded and filling out some forms, one of the ground staff assured me that my luggage would arrive in a day or two. It didn’t.

I wasn’t alone. A few other passengers, who had flown out of Chicago with me on Northwest, were also missing their luggage. I should have known there was going to be a problem when I checked in and noticed that the luggage conveyor belt was broken and the luggage had to be carried downstairs by the Northwest staff. Well, that sort of thing is just begging for a problem to happen.

I was not the only teacher arriving that night. There were three other teachers who would be joining the ELS Kangnam (a district in Seoul, referred to as a Gu in Korean, south of the Han River) school staff (one more was due in from Thailand a few days later). After we had met, we got in a van and headed to Chamsil (located very close to Olympic Park), which would be my home for the next two years.

Say what you will about the pitfalls of the hogwon (institute) system in Korea, (there have been countless horror stories of teachers coming to Korea and after being met at the airport being handed a book and told that their students were waiting for them in some crowded classroom) but ELS, at least back then took very good care of its teachers and made it very comfortable for a person to come to Korea to teach, especially when it came to your accommodations.

(ELS, which was based out of California had schools and franchises around the world. The three ELS schools in South Korea in 1990 were owned by Sisa-Yong-o-sa, at the time, Korea’s largest English book publisher; now it is called YBM Sisa.)

The school put us up in these rather spacious apartments in Chamsil not far from Olympic Sports Complex and only meters away from the sprawling Lotte World shopping and entertainment complex.

Back in 1990, Lotte World was one of Seoul’s major attractions that had everything from a classy hotel, department store, and indoor swimming pool to Lotte Adventure, what came across, for better or worse as a bit of a Disneyland knock-off.

The apartments were starting to look a little rundown back then (the housing complex was leveled a few years ago and new apartment buildings have already gone up), but if you didn’t mind the rats scurrying above in the crawl space and the black soot from people still burning yontan (cylinder-shaped, coal-like briquettes used for heating) which darkened the walls, it wasn’t too bad of a place to call home, especially when you didn’t have to pay any rent.

That night, I was the last person to be taken to an apartment. I remember standing outside and having a smoke and listening to the steady drone of traffic speeding along Olympic Expressway. The housing complex had this “gulag” feel to it, row after row of apartment buildings all looking the same with a central heating plant located in the center.

I might have been in Asia, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

Unlike the other teachers who arrived that night, I did not have a roommate waiting for me when I was taken to my apartment. He was supposed to arrive from Thailand a few days later (which turned out to be a week later). I got a quick tour of the apartment and was told that in the morning another ELS teacher would show me around town and how to get to the institute (just a ten-minute subway ride away). So, at least for this night, my first night in Korea I was on my own.

The apartment came furnished and even included a telephone and a TV. The refrigerator was stocked with a few items to satisfy any hunger pangs that I might have until I could get to the store. I didn’t find the package of “Digestive Crackers” too appealing (gee, I hope I could digest them), but a few hours later and feeling a little hungry, they hit the spot. They were similar to graham crackers and I had no trouble digesting them.

I turned on the TV and the David Letterman Show was on-courtesy of AFRTS, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service or as it was more appropriately called in Korea, AFKN (Armed Forces Korean Network). Weird. I might have traveled halfway around the world and ready to experience another culture, but there was David Letterman beaming into my apartment. And if I might also add, just in time for his Top Ten List.

I walked out on the balcony to have a smoke. On the sidewalk below I could hear people walking home from work and the bars. It had gotten foggier and cooler. A thousand points of light in the towering housing gulags across the street that dwarfed the smaller housing complex I lived in.

I listened to the night. I listened to this strange, new language drifting up, wondering how long it would be before I would be able to understand it.

And I wondered if I was going to like it here.

A plug from ROK Drop

War Remains got a little more press today with a mention on ROK Drop one of the more widely-read South Korean blogs/websites.

I sent them a press release a few days ago and appreciate the plug.

Thanks ROK Drop!

More praise from another veteran journalist and author

War Remains got some more praise today; this time from Korean old hand and veteran journalist and author Mike Breen.

This is what Mike had to say about the book:

Bobby Washkowiak battles his way through the first bitter winter of the Korean War, longing for home. Fifty years later, his son and grandson come across his wartime letters from the father and grandfather they never knew and learn what happen to him on one of the battlefields of that "forgotten war." In this emotional tour de force, Jeffrey Miller vividly recreates the horrors of combat and the yearning for closure experienced by millions of soldiers and their families.

Mike Breen is the author of two very important books about Korea: The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies and Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader.

He is also a regular columnist at the Korea Times. In fact, I first met Mike at the newspaper's 50th anniversary party at the Sejong Cultural Center in downtown Seoul in November 2000.

Thanks for the write up Mike.

A war was once fought here

"Massacre Valley" -- Hoengsong, South Korea

Earlier this month, I went to Hoengsong north of Wonju to visit "Massacre Valley" a Korean War battlefield that was the sight of a major battle from February 11-13, 1951 and one that figured prominently in my novel.

This a monument/memorial dedicated to the US Second Infantry Division

The inscription on the back of the monument/memorial

There's an interesting sidebar to my trip to Hoengsong to visit this monument. I had no idea where it was located; I had come across a photo of it in the Korean War book, Wonju: The Gettysburg of the Korean War. I kind of figured that the monument/memorial would be located somewhere in "Massacre Valley" but I wasn't sure where. While riding in a car, heading north through the valley, I just happened to glance to my left when I saw the monument/memorial on a small bluff overlooking a stream bed.

Inspiration for War Remains

In May 2001, while covering a visit to South Korea by a veteran's group from San Antonio, I had the honor of meeting, (and later interviewing for an article in the Korea Times) Oscar Cortez.

It was on a bus to Chipyong-ni, to commemorate the 1951 Battle of Chipyong-ni, a battle that turned the tide of the war for the US Second Infantry Division, when I interviewed Oscar. I was overwhelmed by the story he told me, how he had survived the Pusan Perimeter and Kunu-ri, and then later, how he was captured by the Chinese on February 12, 1951 and spent the rest of the war in a Chinese POW camp. You can read the story here.

When I started to write War Remains last year, I thought about Oscar and the article I wrote back in 2001. In fact, some of the events he described in the article became key events in my novel. It was also one of the reasons why I chose Hoengsong for some of the novel's key scenes.

This photo of Oscar was taken at the War Memorial Museum in Seoul next to an artillery piece similar to the kind of piece used in the Korean War.

Sadly, Oscar changed his email address in 2005/2006 and when I tried to locate him, the email was bounced back to me. I tried a number of Google searches, hoping to contact some veteran's groups in San Antonio, the same way that Michael does in War Remains, but to no avail.

Thank you Oscar. I've included you on my dedication page.

Thank you for your service during the Korean War Oscar, and God Bless you.

Genesis of a novel

One day, in September 2009, I was thinking about these articles I had written for the Korea Times back in 2000 and 2001 when I was covering various commemorative events for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Korean War was when I first started thinking about writing War Remains.

In particular, I thought about three articles I had written in May 2001 when some Second Infantry Division Korean War veterans came back to Korea to commemorate the Battle of Chipyong-ni. (The Battle of Chipyong-ni would become a turning point in the Korean War, especially for the US Second Infantry Division which had been severely defeated just two-and-a-half months earlier at Kunu-ri.) I accompanied the veterans to the Chipyong-ni battlefield as well as to the War Memorial Museum and a Repatriation Ceremony at Yongsan, headquarters of the Eighth Army.

With the 60th anniversary of the Korean War approaching, I wanted to something more than what I had done from 2000-2003 when I covered many of the commemorative events for the Times. Back then, it was easy for me to write as many articles as I did because I lived in Seoul, lived close to the Times’ office, and had many contacts. This time though, it wouldn’t be as easy—especially living in Daejeon.

At first, I thought about compiling all those articles I wrote on the Korean War commemoration events and put them into a book. I also planned to introduce each of these articles with a short essay, “the story behind the story” as it were.

However, maybe there was another way, I thought. “Wait a minute, maybe I could take these articles, glean what I could from them, and write a novel instead?”

And that’s when I came up with the idea for what would become War Remains. One of the articles I had written about the Chipyong-ni visit became the genesis for the novel. In addition, my interview with Oscar Cortez (on the bus to Chipyong-ni with veterans and their spouses), who was captured by the Chinese at Hoengsong on February 12, 1951 and spent the rest of the war in a Chinese POW camp, also served as an inspiration for the novel.

I knew right from the start what I wanted to write, how the novel would begin and how it would end.

Glowing praise from veteran journalist and author

War Remains got some glowing praise from veteran journalist and author Don Kirk for one of the books' blurbs:

"Jeffrey Miller captures the terror and agony of war up front -- not just any war but the "forgotten" Korean War that lives on in the hearts and minds of those who lived through it and the loved ones of those who died. He alternates between images of horror and friendship on historic battlefields with scenes of the warmth, love, longing and sadness of a middle-American family on the home front.

Overall, the plot is imaginative, a portrayal of the suffering of war from vivid action to endless waiting and longing.

His book is a welcome addition to the scant literature of a war whose significance intensifies with awareness of the threat still posed by North Korea -- and the dangers of a second Korean War."

Don Kirk, who is the author of Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine and Korean Crisis: Unraveling of the Miracle in the IMF Era has a long and distinguished journalist career that started with covering the Vietnam War and the political unrest in Indonesia in the 1960s (Remember the Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver movie, The Year of Living Dangerously?).

I met Don back in 2000 while we were both covering one of the Korean War Commemorative events at the War Memorial Museum in Seoul on June 25th, the 50th anniversary of the Korean War.

War Remains now available at Lulu.com

War Remains is now available at Lulu.com.