By Lee Sang-don

On Dec. 7, the 63rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, U.S. President George W. Bush visited Camp Pendleton in the United States, which is the 1st Marine Division's hometown base. Bush had good reason to visit Camp Pendleton as the marines from there were engaging in heavy fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, the stronghold of radical Islamic militants. The U.S. assault on Fallujah was long overdue because of the U.S. presidential election, and probably because of such lateness, the marines endured many casualties. Bush talked to a large crowd of marines at Camp Pendleton about the war on terror and the valor and sacrifice of the U.S. troops.

Bush then mentioned the Changjin Lake Campaign (or the Chosin Reservoir Campaign as it is commonly known in the U.S.) during the Korean War, a major battle fought by the U.S. marines in the mountainous area near Changjin Lake of the eastern part of North Korea in the cold winter of 1950-51. Bush said that the 1st U.S. Marine Division heroically fought against 10 divisions of Red China’s army that had already infiltrated deep into North Korea. Bush animated the marines at Camp Pendleton by saying that the troops in Korea at the time were in the right place to kill many enemy soldiers as they were completely surrounded by them. Most Korean news media overlooked this event, which I think has an important implication for the current Korea-U.S. relationship.

The Changjin Lake Campaign was one of the most notable battles won by the U.S. military. The 1st U.S. Marine Division under the command of Major General Oliver Smith had fought in severe cold weather, successfully repelling the Peoples Republic of China’s 9th Army that had 10-to-1 superiority over the U.S. Marines in manpower. If the U.S. Marines couldn’t have defeated China’s 9th Army, the Red Army might have well pushed the U.S. 8th Army and ROK Army to the southern end of the Korean Peninsula. One can easily imagine how the Korean peninsula’s political map could have been shaped after such a major retreat of the Korean and U.S. Army. That means those brave young marines virtually saved Korea from falling into the bloody hands of the communist regime. The Changjin Lake Campaign is also meaningful as a major battle won by the U.S. armed forces fought in severe cold weather.

However, the importance of the Changjin Lake Campaign is not well understood in Korea. Though many Koreans know or at least heard about General MacArthur’s brilliant Landing Operation on Inchon in September 1950, a scale-downed version of the Normandy Operation during World War II, not many Koreans remember or have even heard of the Changjin Lake Campaign. The reason may be that the battle was fought between the two foreign armies, American marines and the Red China army, not between the South and North Korean soldiers. Clearly, it is a shame that very few Koreans remember the U.S. Marines heroic campaign during the Korean War.

The Changjin Lake Campaign was never forgotten in the U.S. President Ronald Reagan mentioned the Campaign in his 1981 inauguration address. In 1999, Martin Russ published a best-selling non-fiction novel ``Breakout¡¯¡¯ about the campaign. Then came President Bush’s mention at Camp Pendleton.

Bush’s mention made me feel mixed emotions. Korea dispatched a military unit to Iraq, but it is a non-combat duty force. While the U.S. marines are engaging in a fierce combat mission against radical militants in Fallujah and other places of Iraq, Korea’s non-combat soldiers are simply digging in. Of course, I do not argue that the Korean soldiers should engage in combat operations in Iraq. But, I would like to raise the following question. Do Korea's politicians and people know that the U.S. Marines who are conducting dangerous combat operations everyday in Iraq belong to the same marine division that saved Korea 50 years ago?

Fortunately, there was an occasion showing the American Marine’s efforts were not completely forgotten in Korea. In the spring of 2004, Martin Russ' `Breakout’ was translated into Korean and published in Seoul. The publication itself was a kind of an epic story. Yim Sang-kyun, an insurance firm manager in Seoul, who went to college in Seoul in the 1970s and served as an army officer, had bought a copy of ‘Breakout’ while on a business trip in the U.S. Yim read the book while he was in hotels and airplanes and was very impressed. Returning back to Seoul, he was disappointed to know that the book had not been translated into Korean. He never had written a book or even an article, but he decided to translate it into Korean as a kind of mission. As he was a busy man at his insurance firm, it took him four years to complete. While he was working on the translation, he once visited the Korean War Memorial Hall in Yongsan. On the wall where the fallen U.S. soldiers’ names were inscribed, he found those of U.S. Marines who did ultimate sacrifice during the Changjin Lake Campaign. For Yim, it was a very touching moment.

I would like to tell the Americans that in Korea there are still people like Yim who do not forget what the American Marines did for a small poor country in Asia threatened by the communist aggression a half century ago. God bless the U.S 1st Marine Division!

** Lee Sang-don is a professor of Law at Chung-Ang University.