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Primary Sources:

1. Bill McWilliams, On Hallowed Ground: The Last Battle for Pork Chop Hill (New York: Berkeley Caliber Books, 2004), p. 214, 218, 327-328, 330-331, edited by John Richard Conway, Esq., Primary Source Accounts of the Korean War (Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2006), pp. 11-12.
2. James Brady, The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2000), pp. 111-112, 114-115, edited by John Richard Conway, Esq., Primary Source Accounts of the Korean War (Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2006), pp. 56-58, 61.
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5. Joseph R. Own, Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company at Chosin Reservoir (New York: Random House, 1997), pp. 177-179, 213, edited by John Richard Conway, Esq., Primary Source Accounts of the Korean War (Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2006), pp. 70-73, 76-77.
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7. Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea; October 1, 1953, American Foreign Policy 1950-1955, Basic Documents Volumes I and II, Department of State Publication 6446, General Foreign Policy Series 117 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957).

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10. Reg Grant, Atlas of Conflicts: The Korean War, (Milwaukee: World Almanac Library, 2005).
    

May 16, 1961

Today, the South Korean military took matters to its own hands by taking direct responsibility of the government. Personally, I have even less reasons to look up on politics as a war veteran, but I am a little concerned about this reversal of fortunes. The new junta, “The Supreme Council for National Reconstruction”, said they will stabilize the political and economic situations in this country, but by the very tone of its proclamation, I think it wants to roll back the reforms the Second Republic has done.

On April 19, 1960, student and union protesters forced President Rhee Syngman to flee Korea after he consistently failed to make necessary reforms for 7 years after that terrible war. The new government was created via free elections and it managed to dole out some needed legislation, but this Second Republic was simply too overshadowed by chaos. As a plantation owner in Boseong County, the only loud chants I hear regularly are that of sparrows and swallowtails in their nests, but wartime buddies at the capital complained of how they could not sleep because of street brawls at night. Crime in the cities had hit the roof, since nobody trusted the police, the former President's henchmen, to do their job.

Maybe a brief military rule is much better than that of pro-Red college boys and kkangpae gangsters. But then again, I still remember how I retired from the military as captain 7 years ago, so that I could start all over by buying the old tea plantation in my home village and clearing my head of maimed bodies and melted toothbrushes. With my back on the army, do I really want the army facing me forward again?

July 28, 1953

Today, I returned to my hometown in Boseong County of the South Jeolla Province. The green of the tea leaves my family have toiled on for generations is now the ash-gray of artillery and mortar craters. Every building, landmark, and large boulder that have seared deeply into my childhood memories are in ruins. I even visited an old willow tree several meters near the family cottage, rumored to be the largest and oldest willow tree in the entire village. I still remember climbing almost all the way to the top sturdy branch of “Grandfather” as a youth. Now, a Katyusha case is planted on exactly where the tree was, the single rocket having incinerated even the splinters.

It was pretty ironic for me to write the previous entry just a day before the Chinese crossed the Yalu River. Had they not come for their toady Kim Il-Sung, the Republic would have already and proudly won this wretched war 3 years ago. Instead, the Little Red Invasion of Mao completely pushed ROK and UN forces down, back where this war has originally started. On January 4, 1951, the Reds retook Seoul, only to lose the city on March 14 when we turned 180 degrees for a counter-invasion.

Nothing and so much terrible things happened at the same time since that date. The war was now entrenched almost exactly on the 38th Parallel, with neither sides making any gains for 2 years. All the two sides have managed to achieve at the 38th Parallel trenches was the brutal game of wasting the lives of thousands of soldiers in fruitless attacks. My brand-new toothbrush, made of American plastic, fared much better among the termites, except one day, when a recoiless gun blasted my mess kit into smithereens, it splattered back on ground a sizzling, amorphous blob of melted plastic. Having my rations obliterated along with it was not as much a shock: The daily sight of maimed bodies and shrieking, gore-covered amputees can make any man lose his lunch.

April 10, 1951 was when General MacArthur was fired by President Truman, as well as the day I was promoted to the rank of captain. I was then promptly restationed to a less hellish area of the stalemate line, where I finally took a break from war's murderous ironies aside from a few nighttime raids by both sides. Two years after the promotion, I should tell this particular war's murderous irony. I have heard then on intel of how American forces mounted a massive assault on a coveted position they allegedly nicknamed, “Pork Chop Hill”. They successfully held on to the hill against Red onslaughts despite heavy losses, but yesterday, a fellow captain told me that Pork Chop Hill now belongs to the Reds: It was apparently north of the armistice line.

I deeply miss the dear comrades whose lives this war has ruthlessly vaporized. I also show my sincerest solidarity with every ROK and UN soldiers who perished in this hellhole. Most shockingly of all, I bear respect to the Red soldiers, Korean and Chinese, who died on Korea's hills and plains. They may have been our cruel, bloodthirsty enemy from the very start, but in the greater scheme of the world, both of us were mere pawns for fate to meddle around with. Most of all, I will miss the generous American, (now) Major Monnathy, who is now headed for his home city of Boston. Just before he hitched the boat ride, the major gave me one last present: A pork-flavored cake popular in America called “Spam”.

October 24, 1950

Today is my birthday! On this day, a lieutenant has survived five months of hell on earth to turn 24 years old. This morning, an American officer once told me that where he comes from, it is customary to give a large cake to the birthday boy. A birthday cake is obviously absent in the rations stockpile, so Captain Monnathy (I think that is his name) was generous enough to send a chocolate bar as a present. That was the first time I have ever had chocolate, and believe me, the first bite puts even a drip of the purest honey to shame. The captain said it was mainly children who ate chocolate, but to me, chocolate is not a child's treat, but a drug, a dose of creamy barbiturate which, for a few seconds, can numb a mind from war's terror and anguish.

I badly needed this mental release. The road from the deathtraps of Busan Perimeter to the frigid autumn winds of northern Korea has been generous to me, in terms of doling out sheer, blinding pain on both the pus-covered outside and the guilt-ridden inside.

After the Americans landed on Inchon, the ROK army finally broke through the Busan Perimeter on September 23. Three days later, the platoon happened to come across a burnt-down village 4 kilometers from Suwon. The scene jumped out at my eyes like a starved, bloodied tiger upon a silver of meat: Three trenches, 20 meters long and 2 meters wide, were filled to the rim with mangled, bloated corpses, dozens of villagers shot mercilessly by retreating Reds and their folksy village torched down to cover up the stench of spoiled human meat. Few minutes later, I finally gave in to my stomach churns, then while crouching down, with rations covering my face, I tried hard to cry. But I could not cry. The tiger already scratched out my eyes.

After witnessing such atrocity, I expected myself to viciously hate the Reds for what they have committed upon the Korean people. But how could I? I continuously see soldiers in this very ROK army mowing down captured Reds, with absolutely zero sense of empathy towards their pitiful, imprisoned conditions. Not even innocent civilians are spared: I have heard lately of mobilized brigades rounding up ordinary people, whose only supposed crimes can even come down to talking to a Red, and killing them without even a benefit of a trial.

I keep hearing in the radio of how everything horrible in this war comes down to Red cruelty and godlessness. I disagree. Both sides of the war, whether if one side speaks of workers' paradise or another constitutional rule, can and will descend down into the deepest, ugliest, and most wretched point of humanity. My only hope for myself now if that I would never go down such depths.

August 25, 1950

It has been exactly two months since that day. I still could not brush off my mind the catastrophic series of events that removed me from a comfortable officers' quarters on the Seoul to the grit and mud here. The stagnant rations, the termite-bitten excuse of a toothbrush, and the sweat-moistened cakes of grime on the back of my neck really tells me how years of privilege as an academy graduate made me a spoiled brat, unfit for the rigors of combat as a true soldier.

The trenches around the Busan perimeter are muddy, sweltering, and reeking of bloodied bodies. The odor of dead bodies tortures me the worst here; officers like me can occasionally have soju instead of the sour coffee, rainstorms can handily wash off the grime on my skin, and the Reds at least have the courtesy to hold the mortar fires on the weekends. But it is not like if dead soldiers withhold their rotting stenches on the weekends, nor can anyone dare risk enemy fire to pick them up and give them peace.

Only one word, “retreat”, is sufficient in describing what happened from June 25 to now. Even the Americans alongside us retreated, though I did hear of incoming reinforcements from the United Nations. I wish I could write more of this bleak situation, but paper is running thin at the front, and I actually feel lucky to take possession of a few sheets. The Americans and us are holding off the best we can, but for how long can our sanity last in this futile scape, let alone our skins and bones?

October 2, 1949

Red October.

Yesterday, the Reds took over the land of China after decades of civil war. General Chiang and what remains of the legitimate government is now exiled in the island of Taiwan. Yesterday also happened to be the day when Red guerrillas raided an army depot only 6 kilometers from where I live. Believe me: they stripped down the entire place, even to the last strip of paint on the wall. Either the two awful incidents occurred at the same time by chance, or they could foreshadow something terrible, possibly a full-scale engagement between us and the Reds.

Perhaps becoming one of the first officers of the ROK army was not the big break I have been praying for. By now, I do not know which could have been worse: Heading to prison for being involved in the Japanese military, or taking advantage of American clemency, only to end up at the cross-hairs of a potential war. But what I do know is that if Kim Il-Sung invades the free portion of Korea, American forces are the only ones who could prevent the entire nation from falling under communist clutches.

Though the Americans have helped us greatly in creating a functional government, there is no absolute guarantee of their aid, even with the new Truman Doctrine, if a war should arise. It is possible that President Truman might be concerned with incurring Russian and Chinese counterattacks, even a nuclear World War, if American troops are deployed anywhere near their borders. However, if they should respond to a Red invasion, the Americans must strike back at all cost, because if they do not, I am sure that the Reds will.

August 15, 1948

Today, Dr. Rhee Syngman became the first president of the Republic of Korea. For me to follow national politics to a point of responding to a news at the first opportunity, even I am surprised of this, since my comrades, family, and I always thought of myself as a rather pragmatic, apolitical person. Yet, I am guessing that my sudden interest in domestic politics must be instinct telling a clear message about the days ahead.

The Reds currently hold numerous advantages over the Republic. Their portion of the peninsula, the northern region, has been industrialized by the Japan, whereas our portion is still mired in agrarian poverty. Their ideology apparently appeals to the lower classes, thus explaining how I see workers' marches at least once a week around here. Though these are only rumors as of now, the communists even received tanks, artillery, and heavy war machinery from the Russians, while the ROK army does not even own a single tank. Lastly, I may be apolitical, but I could imagine how ruthless can communist troops be in any country. While serving at an Osaka military HQ, I have heard of how Russians massacred and deported not only Germans, but also Poles, Ukrainians, and other people they were actually supposed to liberate.

Dr. Rhee's election may be a wise decision for the sake of national security, since as a longtime American resident, he must have a great deal of ties with the Americans. Another wise decision would have to be the amnesty to Koreans involved in the Japanese Imperial forces. Okay, I am just saying this since I was second lieutenant during World War II, but just like so many of my Korean compatriots in the Imperial Army, I can contribute valuable military experience to this nation.