Profiles
Easter on Okinawa, 1945
On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, Richard (Dick) Whitaker, a Private in the US Marine Corps, landed on Okinawa’s Red Beach-2. For the next 82 days, Whitaker, along with 180,000 American and Allied soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, would fight in a battle so horrific that the world would forever recognize it as the largest…
Read MoreFollow Me! The Life and Legacy of a Medal of Honor Recipient
In one of the most iconic images of the Korean War, a Marine lieutenant climbs out of a landing craft, his right foot on a rocky seawall, his right hand gripping a rifle. Smoke fills the sky. Ladders, with ominous-looking hooks, jut upwards. His body, lunging forward, gives the impression of a man with confidence…
Read MoreShe Eats, Sleeps, and Fights Like the Rest of Us
In a few weeks the 67th publication anniversary of a little-known Korean War book will quietly come and go. The non-fiction work won’t make headlines, and its author won’t be remembered in editorials or magazines. But things were different in 1951. The book, War in Korea, and its author, the award-winning Marguerite Higgins, were hugely…
Read MoreThe Forgotten Fighting Irish of the Korean War
I always look forward to St. Patrick’s Day. My maternal grandfather, Patrick J. Sullivan, did too. His father had come to America from County Kerry, Ireland, at the turn of the 20th century and had settled in Holyoke, Massachusetts, home at that time to one of the largest Irish-American communities outside of Boston. He worked…
Read MoreWorld War II and a Grand Matriarch
On December 7, 1941, Pauline Peyton Forney, like all Americans who heard the fateful news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, knew everything was about to change. The United States was at war, and for her and millions of others, nothing would ever be the same. With over 2,300 American dead, more than a thousand…
Read MoreThe March First Movement and a Tiger Grandmother’s Legacy
I never met Shin Ae-gyun. But I wish I had. To spend just one day with her asking questions about her life and son, Dr. Hyun Bong-hak, the man who helped save 100,000 North Korean refugees at Hungnam, would have been wonderful. I know her only through family accounts, letters, pictures, and her autobiography, “Tiger…
Read MoreHappy Birthday to the Soldier Who Never Left
Stepping off the bus in January 1965, US Army Private First Class John Nowell, a 22-year-old California native who’d been drafted the year before, immediately knew Seoul wasn’t the place for him. The impoverished city of 3.2 million, with few cars, an abundance of ox-pulled carts, spicy food he didn’t like, and people he couldn’t…
Read MoreSmall Town, Big Heroes: South Charleston, West Virginia
I’ve never visited South Charleston, West Virginia, but after spending the past two days reading about the small city, located four miles west of the state capital and on the south bank (hence its name) of the Kanawha River, I feel like I’ve been there. I know it has six elementary schools and a middle and…
Read MoreAlways Faithful: Three Marines, Two Countries, One Mission
In early 1956, with Elvis songs flooding the airwaves, “I Love Lucy” beaming into living rooms, and Eisenhower preparing to run for a second term, three young men reported to Quantico, Virginia. They were beginning The Basic School, or TBS, a six-month training program designed to turn newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenants into knowledgeable and confident…
Read MoreCover of Time Magazine
The cover of Time Magazine may say it all. Showing a close-up of Moon Jae-in, the new president of South Korea, in a serious, weathered stare, with “The Negotiator” in bold letters below him, the editors at Time seem to be implying that a thaw in North and South Korean relations could be around the corner. Having lived in…
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