Korea Questions..

[Nagalfar]

Are there any yellow legs around here who can tell us what it was like during the Korean war, not the war aspect of Korea, I think most of us know what a meat grinder it really was, but more the home front aspect of the Korean war, to be more specific, where there Marines who came out and openly did what obviously a few have done here and now, "speaking out tell the world we are nothing more than killers and tortures", while I dont think any of us really know how many of these sh*tbirds where really Marines, logic would dictate there are a few that really were.. did any Marines come home and start pis*ing in the wind to anyone who would listen? would the press ignore them? or enable them like they do now for political gain?.. I have spent some time looking into this and I am unable to find much about it.. maybe some of you guys could enlighten us.. I am thinking we are worse now, a lot worse. because political wins now mean more than the lives of our brothers.. has it always been like this?

[Joseph P Carey]

Nagalfar,

I don't know about the Korean War Guys, but I do know that things are different now! We have faster communications, and there is no telling whom it is we are talking to in this new world media of the Internet.

We may feel that we are talking to our own ilk, when it may very well be that the person on the other end of the line may be something less than what he states he is.

Even in Vietnam, we had guys that would go rear-area for R&R, and for a couple of drinks at a local bar, would talk to anyone, and say anything, because it worked for them. They were no longer a target, and they could glorify their exploits, even if they had to borrowed from someone else's experiences, or even from tales that they had heard in the everyday scuttlebutt the went through the lines like shot through a goose. All they had to do was to claim them as their own experiences, and none of the unknowing would question him.

For instance, there was a story of the 9th Marines up in DaNang were having problems with infiltrators in late 65, and it was said that they captured one of the infiltrators and sat him on a Panji stake, and before he died, his screams were heard all through the night, and as miraculously as it was, the 9th did not have problems with infiltrators any longer from that day forward.

The story was BS, but I did hear some years later that it was customary for the Marines to execute infiltrators in this manner, somewhat like hanging as scarecrow in a cornfield to scare away the crows. This story and ones like the three Victor Charlie Sierra's in a helicopter with an interpreter and an Intelligence Officer, where the first was thrown out the Helo and bounced so well the second was thrown out, but the third was talking like a magpie giving up everything he had ever done in his life before he was finally thrown out all became part of the folklore of the Vietnam Marines. Not very flattering to us at all, and it made great movie footage for the Hollywood set, because it was believed that it was done on a daily basis, backed-up by Mr Kerry and his stories.

The rear echelon, and the reporters frequented these same bars that field Marines would frequent, and even the enemy was there! They heard these stories from the supposed eyewitnesses to the war that they had not seen, or had even dreamed of seeing, and they took the stories as Gospel, because they were from the best authorities figures they had, and we all know that the story never gets told exactly the same twice, and, when repeated by the unknowing, it only gets more theatrically expanded in the telling of the scoop they have heard from the front.

The Internet is open to everyone. There is no verification of just whom it is that we are taking with. The more nefarious the enemy, the more imaginative they become when telling lies and creating propaganda, or collecting propaganda for that matter.

Sometimes, we are our own worst enemy when it comes to the telling of stories, because all stories have a basis in fact, and they expand upon each one of them. A good example of this would be Enviro's story on another thread. Someone, unknowing as they are, upon reading that would be brought to believe that all Marines act that way in combat with their prisoners. This is how folklore gets started.

[greensideout]

I have never heard a Korean war vet p*ss and moan. I have never heard a WW-2 vet p*ss and moan either. I think it is a culture change that has brought on the wave of "woe is me" thinking. A generation of bellybutton lookers that began in the '60's and it continues.
There are always the outstanding exceptions to the rule and they too live on today.

[hrscowboy]

How about the one that a Marine Plt robbed and killed everyone in a bank in the City Hue during tet 68 when they where doing house to house searches and took all the Money from the Vault did anyone hear that one????

[Joseph P Carey]

How about the one that a Marine Plt robbed and killed everyone in a bank in the City Hue during tet 68 when they where doing house to house searches and took all the Money from the Vault did anyone hear that one????

No HRS, I haven't heard that one yet! But there are a lot of them still out there.

But, getting back to the Korean War, I had a Series Gunny named Bond at PI in 64 that was supposed to have gotten a Silver Star for knocking out three Commie tanks in a battle during the War. That story I believe is true!

[hrscowboy]

Or how about the dead chink at the front gate of chu ly that had a sign on his neck welcoming everyone. This another one i had heard when i got there in 69

[Joseph P Carey]

Or how about the dead chink at the front gate of chu ly that had a sign on his neck welcoming everyone. This another one i had heard when i got there in 69

I was there in 65 and 66, and I don't remember this one during that time.

Recently I have been doing some research for a book, and I received some English Newspaper articles from the Hanoi Newspapers of the time, and I was surprised to findout how many Marine Corps Companies and Battalions were wiped out by the VC, with all the Marines KIA. They boasted of killing 500 of us in one battle. Gee! You would think that someone would have told us, especially when one of the units mentioned was mine, and the only thing I remembered on that day was piles of VC and NVA. I guess it just goes to show you, you can't always believe everything you read in the Newspapers along with the battle stories of what you have heard.

I can bet that these poor bastards from the North came down there thinking we were ready to pack up our bags and leave, and what a surprise did they have in store for them?