Two Koreas, six decades later

History may show that U.S. mil- itary intervention is not always a success, but 50 million South Koreans have only to look north to see how different their lives might be but for the sacrifices of Americans and other United Nations forces 60 years ago.

The war that began June 25, 1950, when the Soviet-back North invaded the U.S.-backed South, raged for nearly three years. American troops suffered through some of the bloodiest combat and most brutal conditions our armies had seen before or have seen since.

The toll was high

By the time fighting ended with an armistice, 33,665 Americans had been killed in action and 3,275 died there from non-hostile causes, according to statistics at the The Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Nearly 1.8 million Americans served in the Korean theater during the war years, and 92,134 were wounded. It was the nation’s fifth most deadly war, behind the Civil War, two World Wars and Vietnam. South Korea’s own losses were staggering at 1.3 million casualties, including 415,000 dead.

The war is recorded as a draw, not a win or a loss. But north of the 38th parallel, 23 million people subsist on less than $1,000 a person under a brutal dictator who would rather spend on the military forces he needs to protect his regime than on feeding his people. There is no freedom of press, expression or political dissent. Power is handed from father to son.

In South Korea, 50 million people live under a democratically elected government in First World conditions. The GDP per capita is $28,000 in a nation that has the fourth largest economy in Asia. The war was fought at a high cost, but clearly there were 50 million winners and 23 million losers.

Today we remember and honor those Americans and their families who sacrificed so much for the cause of freedom — and the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea even today.