Kunu-ri

This poem is dedicated to the memory of the men from the US Second Infantry Division who lost their lives during the Battle of the Chongchon sometimes called the Battle of Kunu-ri and The Gauntlet at the end of November 1950. More than 4,900 men perished from the Division on those bleak cold hills and [...]

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A War Was Once Fought Here

Once or twice a month, I board a bus at the Dongbu (East Terminal) Bus Station in Daejeon for about an hour and forty-five minute bus ride to Seongnam.
It’s my day out, as it were, to meet some friends, have lunch, do some shopping and then come back to Daejeon in the evening. I’ve come [...]

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Closure and a Peace of Mind for an 86-year-old Alzheimer’s Sufferer

I’m feeling pretty good about myself today. More specifically, I’m feeling pretty good about what my blog has done for an 86-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s, who, having lost her brother, Robert Golden in the Korean War in 1950, now can have some sense of closure and a peace of mind knowing what happened to [...]

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Guess who’s been stopping by?

That’s what I am always curious to know when I see the number of hits some of my posts get, like the ones about-Buckacre, Howard Air Force Base, David and the Happenings, Family Classics with Frazier Thomas, and Panmunjom to name but a few.
And I am quite delighted when someone leaves comments, like some recent [...]

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M*A*S*H Time

“Our today is their yesterday.”
 
For the past couple of weeks my days in Korea have ended with me watching an episode of M*A*S*H. Kind of reminds me when I was back home and I also would watch a syndicated episode of the series—before shows like Friends and Seinfeld took over the syndication block in the [...]

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M*A*S*H — A nostalgic look back

A nostalgic look back at one of my favorite TV shows
Since turning 50 back in May, I have written a number of essays in which I have waxed nostalgic about my favorite albums, movies, meals, songs, and television shows. What’s been most interesting about sitting down and writing these essays are the things I have [...]

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Bringing them home from a “forgotten war”

Although the Korea War ended with an armistice over 55 years ago there are still over 8,100 U.S. service members still listed as missing in action from that conflict.

According to a recent Yonhap (a Korean version of the Associated Press) news release, “South Korean and U.S. officials will search the area surrounding the heavily [...]

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The Accidental Journalist, Part 23 — The Inchon Landing Commemorated, Sept. 15, 2000

The Story Behind the Story
 
Not even a typhoon could keep me from a story.
 
That’s almost what happened on September 15, 2000 when I went to Inchon (now spelled Incheon) to attend a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Inchon Landing/Invasion. The peninsula was being battered by a typhoon (another typhoon had literally washed [...]

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Hunkering Down for Chuseok

It’s the start of the three-day Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving Day) holiday in Korea and I am hunkering down in my room with a steady supply of downloaded TV programs (M*A*S*H, Seinfeld, Cheers, and The West Wing) to get me through the next three days.
 
Like Sollal (Lunar or Chinese New Year) most of the country literally [...]

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The Accidental Journalist, Part 21 — War Remains, The Long Journey Home

The Story Behind the StoryAfter I had written three articles on the recovery of war remains from the Korean War I was curious about what happened to those remains once they left Korea and went to Hawaii for identification?
That’s when I came up with the idea for an article about the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii [...]

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