Where I Stand — Mike O’Callghan: An ungrateful enemy

Friday, June 25, 1999 | 10:18 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

IT WAS 49 YEARS AGO today that Kim Il-sung's North Korean hordes invaded South Korea. Before the war ended three years later, more artillery shells were fired than in all of World War II. It was a full-blown war from beginning to end, with more than 33,000 Americans killed in action and more than 100,000 wounded in action and hospitalized. The Second "Indianhead" Infantry Division had 7,094 men killed by enemy action and 16,575 wounded during that three-year period. According to military records, 302,483 was the United States' peak strength during the war with a total of 1,587,040 personnel serving in Korea; 198,380 or 12.5 percent, actually fought in combat.

Although only 12.5 percent of the Americans actually saw combat, much of America's staying power came in thousands of Military Air Transport Service planes that flew the treacherous route to Anchorage, Shemya and then into Japan and Korea. They brought in ammunition, personnel, medical supplies and took the seriously wounded to hospitals in Japan, Hawaii and California. The MATS pilots didn't have to worry about North Korean and Chinese fighters, because our fighter pilots controlled the Korean skies.

The war was always referred to as a conflict and it ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a treaty. Actually the war is still going on today as the two Koreas battle over fishing grounds and continually test each other on the demilitarized zone (DMZ). It's not just the Koreans who are being tested, there are also 37,000 United States troops serving on and below the DMZ.

Seven years ago, the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine told of the conflicts along the DMZ that caught the eyes of Americans who had served in Korea during the 1950-53 period. One paragraph was especially poignant as it related: "Defending the 'Z' cost America 44 of its sons, as well as 111 wounded, from 1966 through 1969. If the seven GIs killed previously, the sailor from the Pueblo, 31 men of the Navy plane shot down in April 1969 and the seven Americans killed in the '70s are included, the total comes to 90 dead. That's nearly three times the number of Americans killed by the enemy in Grenada and Panama combined."

Today there is a continuing high alert along the DMZ but fewer bloody battles. However, last week there was a clash that resulted in some North Korean line crossers being wounded. Kim Jong-il, son of the late Kim Il-sung, heads up a country that has been starving for almost five years. Nevertheless, that country has continued its belligerent attitude and expended much effort producing modern weapons of war for other rogue nations. Soon North Korea is expected to test its sophisticated Taepo Dong 2 long-range ballistic missile. An earlier edition of the missile traveled almost 4,000 miles over the ocean.

The United States and South Korea have been leading several nations in providing food for the North Koreans in hopes it is reaching the people and not gobbled up by the country's oversized military machine. Also talks have been going on, but the arrogance of the North Koreans continues in an effort to save face. For example, a week ago today they didn't show up for a planned ceremony at Panmunjom with the remains of American servicemen.

This week the most recent act of defiance also reflected a weakness. The North Koreans at first refused to participate in high-level talks with the South Koreans in Beijing. The reason for not showing up was because South Korea had failed to deliver 22,000 tons of fertilizer last Sunday. The ship carrying the fertilizer had been delayed by a storm but did reach its destination on Tuesday. Then the meeting was held and resulted only in charges and countercharges over the fishing grounds and nothing was agreed upon.

So the North Korean problem continues 46 years after a shaky cease-fire was agreed upon. Several more U.S. ships and combat planes are being deployed to the waters of Korea to referee the contest over the fishing grounds in the Yellow Sea, which has already cost the North Koreans a torpedo boat and at least 20 lives.

The United States made its first hot stand in a cold war with communism 49 years ago. Since then the Moscow-directed brand of communism has come completely unraveled, but the Chinese brand has replaced it and is now using North Korea as its cat's paw. When all is said and done, things have changed so much they have remained the same.