Universal Soldier, Forgotten War

I was trying to do something here about camouflage.

This is the memorial to veterans of the Korean War, the forgotten war that sits between the defeat of Japan in WWII and the lunacy of Vietnam. Probably the only reason this war figures in my consciousness is because of the TV series MASH, and later (for me, though it came first) from the film which had fed on the anti-Vietnam sentiment of the time. So I, like many others, tend to forget Korea, and lump it in with the other proxy wars of the 50's, 60's and 70's, when the Cold War was effectively hot.

I'm posting this the day after Remembrance Sunday and the night before Armistice Day, and on my coat is my white poppy, which I wear out of respect for the suffering of the men sent to fight and the women and children so often killed in the process. I know it's controversial, but I can't bring myself to wear a red poppy because to do so would give me the same badge as the armed men in uniform who march in remembrance of past war and preparation for the next and the criminally hypocritical politicians who line up to place their blood-soaked wreaths on memorials around the world, even as they order the deaths of civilians in countries far away. My great grandfather was a decorated hero of WWI, both my grandfathers were conscripted and played their parts in WWII, and both lost men of their generation in battle, brothers, family and friends. I don't know if they'd understand my reasoning.

I watched a few minutes of the Festival of Remembrance on TV. Military men marched around the stage, cannons were fired, guns were held with pride. Switch to an interview with the commander of 2 Para in Iraq, sat in front of a large machine gun. I just can't see how that is remembering the dead in any way other than to celebrate war. After all, if I can be allowed an extreme example, we wouldn't remember the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by saluting a flypast of bombers and a display of tiny parachutes before exploding a firework in the shape of a decorative mushroom cloud. The whole thing upsets me. War is awful, and we should be ashamed.

Anyhoo, here's the map.