Beyond dates and headlines. People, power, and the stories behind history. Drawing on historical records, eyewitness accounts, and archival images.
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The Korean War—the “Forgotten War”?
Forgotten by whom?
We in South Korea have not forgotten.
On 25 June 1950, North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel.
South Korean forces fought to keep their country from being overrun. Americans and troops from other nations joined them under the UN flag.
Over the course of the war, North Korea mobilized at least 785,000 personnel from its own territory alone, excluding recruits from the occupied South.
China’s official accounts put its cumulative participation at about 2.9 million.
South Korean official figures list the five largest foreign contributors by cumulative personnel:
United States — 1,789,000 served; 36,574 dead and 92,134 wounded.
United Kingdom — 56,000 served; 1,106 dead and 2,674 wounded.
Canada — 26,791 served; 516 dead and 1,212 wounded.
Türkiye — 21,212 served; 900 dead and 1,155 wounded.
Australia — 17,164 served; 340 dead and 1,216 wounded.
Eleven more countries sent combat troops—16 combat contributors in all.
A further six provided medical support during the war and its aftermath, bringing South Korea’s recognized total to 22 nations.
Across the UN contingents, South Korean records list 40,803 dead and 103,460 wounded, as well as 3,950 missing and 5,819 taken prisoner.
Those who came to Korea faced summer heat, winter cold, artillery fire and repeated assaults.
They fought on hills whose names their families had never heard.
Medics treated the wounded. Others helped civilians escape the fighting.
Many never came home.
For Korean families, this war is not a distant chapter in someone else’s history.
It left empty places at the table, relatives separated by a border, and names carved into memorials.
The armistice stopped the fighting in 1953.
The U.S.–ROK military alliance that followed has remained one of the foundations of South Korea’s security and present-day prosperity.
Koreans rebuilt their country.
The men and women who helped defend it gave that rebuilding a chance.
To every American veteran and every veteran of the other nations who served under the UN flag in Korea:
to those still with us, those who have passed away, and those who never returned—
Thank you.
We have not forgotten you.
ALT South Korean and American honor guards pay tribute during a Korean War remains repatriation ceremony in Hawaii, July 25, 2023.
ALT An American soldier comforts a grieving comrade whose friend was killed in action in Korea, August 28, 1950. Colorized photograph.
ALT British, New Zealand and Australian soldiers share a moment with Indian medical personnel in Korea, circa March 1951. Colorized photograph.
ALT South Korean veterans salute after laying flowers at the Hill 303 memorial honoring American sacrifices near Waegwan, June 15, 2012.
“I’d rather use a nuclear bomb.” — Nixon on North Vietnam
His national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, called that “too much.”
They had been discussing North Vietnam’s dikes.
Nixon had proposed destroying them.
Kissinger estimated that doing so could drown about 200,000 people.
Nixon pressed him:
“I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ’s sake!”
The exchange was recorded on April 25, 1972.
North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive was under way in the South, and Nixon was considering how far to escalate U.S. attacks.
In the same conversation, he also discussed threatening nuclear use.
On May 8, he told the National Security Council:
“Obviously, we are not going to use nuclear weapons but we should leave it hanging over them.”
That evening, Nixon announced the mining of North Vietnam’s ports.
U.S. aircraft mined Haiphong, and the Linebacker bombing campaign followed.
No nuclear weapon was used in the Vietnam War.
Nixon still wanted the enemy to fear that one might be.
How could Hanoi be sure the threat would remain only a threat?
Did Vietnamese Pho Come from China?
Some Chinese readers say it did.
On my previous post, one pointed to similar rice-noodle dishes in Guangdong and Guangxi.
Another comment pointed to Chinese characters in an illustration.
But the origin debate has a history beyond the comments.
Vietnam's Nhân Dân newspaper describes a theory linking pho to ngưu nhục phấn: beef noodles sold by Cantonese people in Hanoi.
A related explanation traces the name phở to the Chinese word 粉, used for rice noodles.
Other accounts begin with xáo trâu, a local water-buffalo noodle soup.
Vendors replaced buffalo with beef and changed the noodles as the dish developed.
French demand for beef also enters the story.
Vietnam's tourism authority describes beef bones being used by Chinese and Vietnamese vendors to develop the broth.
But notice where the Cantonese vendors in that theory were working: Hanoi.
A Chinese cook helping develop a dish in Vietnam and a finished dish brought from China would be different histories.
The origin of the word, the noodles, and the finished dish need not be identical.
Chinese characters in an illustration cannot, by themselves, settle where the recipe was first created.
These accounts place pho's early development in northern Vietnam.
Who first made it, and exactly how it developed, remain disputed.
Did everything originate in China?
ALT A Hanoi noodle vendor in a 1908–1909 woodblock print, paired with the modern Vietnamese slogan “Pho belongs to Vietnam!”
“Vietnamese pho was made from French diners’ food waste.” Is that true?
One story circulating abroad places pho’s origins in the French colonial period.
Vietnamese servants supposedly collected the scraps and broth left from French diners’ pot-au-feu, added rice noodles, and ate the mixture.
This habit, the story goes, gave birth to pho.
That is not an established history of the dish.
The often-cited explanation about beef bones describes a different process.
In the account presented by Vietnamese food writer Andrea Nguyen, growing French demand for beef left Hanoi butchers with bones and trimmings to sell.
Street vendors already making noodle soups found a use for these ingredients.
Vietnam’s tourism authority also describes a surplus of beef bones used by Vietnamese and Chinese vendors.
These accounts concern ingredients from the meat trade.
They do not document people collecting half-eaten French meals.
One theory traces pho’s development to a local water-buffalo noodle soup.
Cooks replaced buffalo with beef, changed the noodles, and developed a new dish.
By the 1930s, vendors carrying their cooking equipment on shoulder poles were a familiar sight in Hanoi.
“A dish of sliced noodles cooked with beef.”
That was how a Vietnamese dictionary described pho in 1931.
Its exact beginnings remain disputed.
French influence on the food economy and the use of beef bones do not establish a food-waste origin.
The familiar bowl took shape in Vietnam’s kitchens and streets, through the work of its noodle sellers.
So who keeps spreading this malicious rumor?
ALT A steaming bowl of beef phở in Hanoi, Vietnam, photographed in 2012.
ALT A mobile phở vendor in Hanoi before 1950, shown in a colorized archival photograph.
ALT Beef bones, charred onions and spices simmer together to make phở broth.
ALT A cook prepares beef phở at Pho Suong in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.
Ghost of Tsushima
The World's Mightiest Empire Arrived with 900 Mongol–Goryeo Ships
In 1274, foreign ships appeared off Sasuura, on Tsushima’s western coast.
Recorded figures put Kublai Khan’s entire expedition at around 900 ships and nearly 40,000 people.
On the island, Sō Sukekuni assembled just over 80 mounted samurai and their retainers.
The force included 25,000 Yuan troops, 8,000 Goryeo soldiers from Korea, and 6,700 sailors and guides.
The 80 horsemen were not the entire defending force, and only part of the invading army landed at first.
Even so, the difference in strength was enormous.
The Hachiman Gudokun, a Japanese account compiled after the invasions, describes Sukekuni riding through the mountains toward Sasuura.
The next morning, he sent an interpreter to ask the newcomers why they had come.
The reply was a volley of arrows.
About 1,000 troops came ashore from seven or eight vessels.
Sukekuni’s warriors formed ranks and shot back.
One mounted enemy leader was struck and fell, but the landing force pressed forward.
The defenders were overwhelmed.
Sukekuni, his son, and several of his warriors died.
The invaders set Sasuura on fire.
The Korean chronicle Goryeosa records that the army entered Tsushima and “killed many.”
Two of Sukekuni’s retainers crossed the sea to Hakata to report the invasion.
Tsushima had fallen.
How could Japan stop the fleet now advancing toward its main islands?
ALT A later painting by Yada Isshō depicts the fighting on Tsushima during the Mongol-led invasion of 1274.
ALT Takezaki Suenaga faces enemy arrows and an exploding projectile during the 1274 fighting near Hakata, as depicted in the Mongol Invasion Scrolls.
ALT A votive painting at Komodahama Shrine commemorates the defense of Tsushima against the Mongol-led invasion.
ALT A modern view of Komoda Beach on Tsushima, where Mongol–Goryeo forces landed in 1274.
“After they attacked the house, they raped, and after that they burnt the house.”
In May 1998, ethnic Chinese residents in Indonesia became targets of violence.
Murder, rape, looting and arson followed.
A women's rights organizer described the attacks to Reuters the following month.
“Burn! Burn!”
Rocks crashed through Philip Lo's windows.
An iron spike punched through his kitchen door.
The pastor and his family hid in a locked bedroom for two hours.
They survived. Their car was burned and their church ransacked.
Elsewhere, a woman jumped from the fourth floor to escape a mob, severely injuring both feet.
A father climbed a barbed-wire fence carrying his three-month-old daughter.
His hands were torn as he fled men shouting anti-Chinese slogans.
Human Rights Watch later interviewed both survivors.
Indonesia's currency had collapsed and food prices were soaring.
Ethnic Chinese shopkeepers were blamed for shortages and high prices.
On 12 May, four students protesting against President Soeharto were shot dead.
Chinese-owned shops and homes were looted and burned in the days that followed.
More than a thousand people died in the riots, many trapped in burning shopping centers.
The dead included Chinese and non-Chinese victims.
The government's fact-finding team identified 85 cases of sexual violence, including 52 rapes.
Most victims were ethnic Chinese women.
Yet in August, armed forces commander Wiranto said:
“It is doubtful if any rapes actually took place.”
People documenting the assaults received threats against their children.
A grenade was left outside the office of a group investigating the rapes.
That same month, Jakarta's governor urged Chinese residents to arm themselves against further attacks.
He listed “clubs, spears, sabers, scissors.”
When the governor told them to find weapons, who could they still count on to protect them?
ALT Bodies fill a Jakarta morgue after the May 1998 riots in Indonesia.
ALT Looters carry goods past a burning, overturned vehicle in Jakarta on May 14, 1998.
ALT Rioters burn looted office furniture on a Jakarta street on May 14, 1998.
ALT Residents inspect a burned-out car in a Chinese neighborhood attacked by mobs in West Jakarta on May 14, 1998.
She survived a bullet wound.
Her mother, sister and younger brother were killed.
Nguyễn Thị Thanh was a child when South Korean marines entered Phong Nhị in February 1968.
More than fifty years later, she sued the South Korean government.
South Korea began deploying medical personnel and instructors to South Vietnam in 1964, followed by combat troops in 1965.
By the final withdrawal in 1973, roughly 320,000 personnel had served over successive rotations.
President Park Chung-hee's government sought to contain communism, strengthen its U.S. alliance, and secure military and economic assistance.
The 1966 Brown Memorandum tied additional deployments to American commitments on military modernization and economic support.
South Korean forces fought battles, guarded routes and bases, and carried out medical and construction work.
Their wartime record also includes the killing of unarmed civilians.
On 12 February 1968, South Korean troops killed civilians in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất.
Vietnamese accounts record 74 deaths.
At Hà My that same month, South Korean troops killed 135 civilians.
Women, children and elderly people were among the victims.
In 2023, a Seoul court ordered the South Korean government to compensate Thanh.
An appellate court upheld that decision in January 2025.
These judgments recognized responsibility for her injuries and losses; they did not settle every victim's claim.
Reconciliation between the two countries had already begun.
South Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic relations on 22 December 1992.
On 23 August 2001, President Kim Dae-jung expressed sorrow and offered an apology and consolation for suffering caused by Korea's participation in the war, describing that suffering as unintended.
On 10 October 2004, President Roh Moo-hyun spoke of Koreans' “debt in their hearts” to Vietnam.
On 23 March 2018, President Moon Jae-in expressed regret over the countries' unfortunate history and called for cooperation.
These were official presidential messages, but none explicitly acknowledged state responsibility for the Phong Nhị–Phong Nhất or Hà My massacres.
Moon's office specifically distinguished his expression of regret from a formal apology accompanied by investigation and compensation.
In 2022, the countries became comprehensive strategic partners, deepening cooperation in trade, technology and education.
In February 2025, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry also called for concrete South Korean action to address the consequences of the war.
Responsibility should be established through evidence, without treating every veteran or an entire people as guilty.
A lasting friendship must leave room for survivors' testimony, remembrance and redress.
I will continue researching these individual incidents and examine them in greater detail in future posts.
Speaking personally, as one Korean, I sincerely apologize to the Vietnamese civilians harmed or killed by South Korean troops, and to their bereaved families.
ALT South Korean visitors bow before survivors and bereaved families during a memorial ceremony for the Ha My massacre in Vietnam, February 2023.
ALT Phong Nhi massacre survivor Nguyen Thi Thanh receives congratulations after a South Korean court ruled in her favor, February 2023.
ALT Ha My massacre survivor Nguyen Thi Thanh wipes away tears during a memorial ceremony in Vietnam, February 2023.
ALT South Korean President Moon Jae-in visits the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum for a wreath-laying ceremony in Hanoi, 23 March 2018.
Churchill’s ‘Unthinkable’ Plan for a Surprise Attack on the Soviet Union
The proposed offensive could draw on 47 Allied divisions, including 14 armored divisions.
British and American troops would form its core, with Polish support.
The planners also examined rebuilding and rearming 10 German divisions, though these could not be ready by the hypothetical opening date: 1 July.
Germany had surrendered.
Churchill was already asking how to attack the Soviet Union—and British planners considered putting German troops back into the fight.
The report was dated 22 May 1945, fourteen days after Victory in Europe Day.
Its name was Operation Unthinkable.
Men who had just fought the Western Allies might now fight beside them against the Red Army.
The immediate issue was Poland.
Churchill feared that defeating Hitler had left the country under Stalin’s control.
Could a sudden blow force the Soviets to accept different terms?
The report defined its political objective:
“To impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire.”
But the military arithmetic was grim.
The planners estimated that the Soviets could field the equivalent of 170 divisions, including 30 armored divisions, against the offensive.
Surprise might win the first battles.
It could not guarantee that Stalin would negotiate.
If he kept fighting, a limited campaign for Poland could become a prolonged war across Europe.
The planners warned that a decisive defeat of the USSR would require a vast commitment of American resources.
American participation was assumed in the British study; Washington had not agreed to launch the attack.
The offensive was never carried out.
Germany’s surrender had ended one war in Europe.
Within weeks, a secret British plan was considering rearming German soldiers for another.
Was Churchill serious?
ALT Winston Churchill holds a Thompson submachine gun with a cigar in his mouth during an inspection of coastal defences near Hartlepool, England, on 31 July 1940.
ALT British Sherman tanks advance through Brunen, Germany, in 1945, during the final campaign against Nazi Germany.
ALT German prisoners crowd an Allied prisoner-of-war enclosure near Remagen, Germany, in 1945.
ALT Soviet troops and tanks gather at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in May 1945, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.
“The Most American Americans”
Some guarded rooftops.
Others drove toward the next call for help.
These men became known as the “Rooftop Koreans.”
Los Angeles, April 1992.
After the Rodney King verdict, unrest spread into looting and arson.
Black and Hispanic looters attacked Korean-owned businesses.
Korean shopkeepers, employees and volunteers began organizing their own defense.
Radio Korea linked scattered shops with people ready to help.
A call reporting smashed windows or an approaching crowd could send volunteers racing to that address.
One volunteer recalled gathering at a hotel and dividing into teams of ten.
They kept in touch by cellphone.
Others used walkie-talkies.
Some stayed at stores; mobile teams reinforced businesses under threat, functioning like an improvised reserve.
At California Market, Richard Rhee assembled about twenty armed employees.
Store owners organized local defenses, while volunteers answered appeals from other locations.
Parked cars and delivery trucks blocked approaches.
Rice bags became makeshift sandbags.
Their weapons included rifles, shotguns and handguns.
Gun-shop manager David Joo later told Congress that he had used a 12-gauge shotgun and a Beretta 92F pistol.
Some defenders had served in South Korea’s military before emigrating.
Rhee had fought alongside U.S. troops in the Korean War.
They brought military experience to the defense of shops that supported their families.
Across the riots, around 2,300 Korean-owned businesses were damaged, with losses estimated at $400 million.
California Market escaped looting and damage.
A nearby mall burned.
What might they have faced if they had not organized to defend themselves?
ALT Two Korean American men guard a grocery store rooftop with rifles during the Los Angeles riots, April 30, 1992.
ALT Armed Korean American volunteers take cover behind a forklift while defending California Market during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
ALT A security guard watches from street level as armed defenders stand on the California Market rooftop, May 1, 1992.
ALT Korean American defenders wearing white headbands keep watch along a rooftop during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Japan did not face America’s leftovers.
America and Britain had agreed to defeat Germany first.
But that priority tells only part of the story.
By the end of 1943, about 805,000 U.S. Navy personnel were deployed against Japan, compared with 391,000 against Germany.
Roughly two-thirds of those overseas naval personnel were fighting the war against Japan.
The Army was building up for Europe.
Much of the Navy was already fighting across the Pacific—and paying heavily for it.
In September 1942, Japanese torpedoes struck USS Wasp.
Fuel lines ruptured, fires spread, and explosions tore through the carrier.
The following month, USS Hornet was lost after Japanese air attacks at Santa Cruz.
Nearly 5,000 American sailors died in the naval fighting of the Guadalcanal campaign.
American superiority had to be built.
New carriers, aircraft and trained crews reached the front.
In June 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea cost Japan three carriers and devastated its carrier air groups.
American troops captured Saipan, then Guam and Tinian.
Their airfields brought Japan within reach of sustained B-29 bombing.
At the same time, another campaign was cutting into the empire’s supply lines.
Submarines hunted ships carrying oil, raw materials, troops and food.
Carrier aircraft, land-based bombers and mines attacked the same network.
A U.S. postwar survey attributed 54.7 percent of the merchant tonnage sunk or damaged beyond use to submarines.
Japan had conquered oil fields in Southeast Asia.
It was losing the ships needed to bring that oil home.
Island garrisons could still resist, but reinforcements and supplies struggled to reach them.
By April 1945, oil imports from the south had stopped.
Fuel shortages curtailed pilot training and air missions.
Some surviving warships lay idle for lack of fuel.
“Germany first” did not mean an easy war against Japan.
It took years of carrier battles, night fighting, amphibious assaults and attacks on shipping to break the empire.
The effects reached beyond the Pacific battles.
By weakening Japan’s war production and its ability to supply and reinforce armies overseas, the American effort also benefited Allied forces fighting Japan on other fronts.
ALT U.S. aircraft carriers assemble at Ulithi Atoll in the famous “Murderers’ Row” photograph, 8 December 1944.
ALT USS Wasp (CV-7) burns after being torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-19, 15 September 1942.
ALT Japanese carrier Zuikaku and two destroyers maneuver under U.S. air attack during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, 20 June 1944.
ALT Japanese cargo ship Nittsu Maru sinks after a torpedo attack, photographed through USS Wahoo’s periscope, 23 March 1943.