LITTLE ROCK — WELCOME BACK, soldier. Finally. We're sorry we couldn't get you home from Korea earlier. Like a generation or three earlier. But that's the way your whole war seems in retrospect: FUBAR.
We're not even sure if you knew this, Private Johnny Mayberry, but you could have been killed by a Chinese soldier. Yes, the Chinese got involved. They came across the Yalu, hundreds of thousandsof 'em, October 25, 1950. By the time you were killed in action about a month later, our Marines and GIs were facing Chinese bullets, mortars and bayonets. The Chinese sometimes outnumbered our boys five to one, if not by more here and there. You didn't have much of a chance. We blame the brass for not seeing it coming.
No longer fighting just the North Koreans, the UN units had to fall back to the 38th Parallel, yielding all that hard-won territory to the enemy. Territory you'd fought for, and some of your buddies died for. All left behind as the Allies retreated, or, as it was said at the time, advanced in a different direction. Damned shame, private, damned shame.
Allied troops had all but overrun North Korea when the Chinese came into the war. You wouldn't believe it, but it'd be 1953 before your war would end, and-you wouldn't believe this, either-it ended in a stalemate. The North Koreans are still there, still threatening war, still armed to the teeth. This time they've even got a nuke or two. Thanks to the usual neglect we Americans call foreign policy.
Most of us Americans these days associate the Korean War with a television show, and a comedy at that. There's a reason your war is called the Forgotten War. We're sorry about that, too.
But your family didn't forget, Private Mayberry. Neither did the families ofthousands of other MIAs.
The story goes that you died at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. In a war featuring the likes of Heartbreak Ridge and Pork Chop Hill and Bloody Ridge, the Chosin Reservoir was particularly brutal. First you and your buddies had to move, shoot and communicate in the unbearable cold. You were the Chosin Frozen. If there's anything more uncomfortable than being shot at, it's got to be being shotat with frostbite nibbling at your fingers and toes.
You'll be laid to rest in your home state, sunny Arkansas, where you belonged all the time-at the National Cemetery in Fort Smith in the year of our Lord, 2009. For almost 60 years your remains lay in North Korean territory, but you're home now-thanks ingreat part to the efforts of the U.S. military and new technology that can better identify the remains of our troops. We didn't have that in your time.
In your time. Your time was short, soldier. You lived to be all of 18 years old only to be lost, almost forever, in a foreign country on frozen soil as a hundred thousand screamin' enemy troops streamed past like an unstoppable wave.
Well, you're back now. With all the honors your country can give you. You still live in the memories of your family, who plan to bury your remains today.
Your country owes you so much, Private Mayberry. The very least we can do is give you a decent burial, wrap your coffin in a flag, and play taps over your grave. The very least.
Oh, yes, the rest of us can offer up a snappy salute, too. We lost a lot of you all over there. Sometimes literally. It's a damned shame, private, a damned shame. And we're not sure our leaders mean it when they say it will never happen again. If they say it at all.
Editorial, Pages 18 on 08/28/2009