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>> 219 8 More Than Ever a Veteran As men and women trickled back to the States from the Far East during and after the Korean War, a few Americans and groups did seek to honor them and memorialize their sacrifices. The United Nations dedicated a plaque to the Korean War dead at its headquarters on June 21, 1956, and on November 11, 1954, Armistice Day officially became Veterans Day in the United States, in part to recognize these new veterans.ϣ But, with public support for such efforts as tepid in the 1950s as attitudes toward the war had been, early attempts to construct lasting monuments in remembrance of either the Korean War or veterans of that conflict often failed. As with the American Battle Monuments Commission’s proposal to build a memorial in South Korea, neither enough interest nor enough money could be generated to sustain projects.Ϥ Tired of arguing that America “hadn’t ‘lost’ in Korea” and quieted by the country’s apathy, many Korean War veterans made their “earliest contribution to our generation of silence leading to our forgotten war” by trying to put the war behind them and forget that they were veterans at all.ϥ All the same, Korean War service shaped the lives of the men 220 > 221 White veterans of the Korean War, especially those with less than a high school diploma, proved adept at converting military experience into civilian earnings, but minority veterans showed themselves most capable of making their service pay off.14 Whether because a record of military service encouraged employers to hire them, because veterans’ readjustment programs helped neutralize discrimination and other barriers to employment, or because service gave them more confidence and higher expectations, African American and Hispanic veterans of Korea far surpassed their nonveteran counterparts economically. For at least a decade after joining the work force, nonwhite Korean War veterans pulled in 10 percent more income than their civilian equals.15 Minority veterans of other wars also found this to be true, but black veterans of the Korean War exhibited a greater resiliency to unemployment . In 1979, when more than 10 percent of black World War II veterans were out of work, the rate of unemployment among black Korean War veterans remained about half that.16 In addition, some Mexican veterans received more than increased income as a result of their service. Responding in part to the 1952 deportation of Alberto Gonzales, a 21-year-old Mexican Purple Heart recipient wounded in Korea after crossing the border and enlisting in the U.S. Army, congressmen pushed to allow all Mexicans “who bore arms for this country to apply for United States citizenship and to remain here until they got it.”17 While remunerated in some ways for participating in the Korean War, most veterans struggled after separation with the feeling that Americans had forgotten not just their personal sacrifices and the very memory of those who lost their lives on the Korean Peninsula but the conflict itself. In the 1950s and 1960s, World War II veterans dominated Memorial Day and Veterans Day events and parades as well as most veterans’ organizations. By the 1970s, veterans of the Vietnam War began demanding their share of public attention. Where, in between World War II, the “Good War,” with its victorious veterans, and Vietnam, the “Bad War,” with its vocal veterans, did Korea, the “forgotten war,” with its silent veterans, belong? Slowly, especially after the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, in November 1982, Korean War veterans, who had not yet been honored with a national memorial, began to reflect upon their own war and wonder, “We did what our country called us to do. Is it too much to ask that we be recognized for what we did?”18 After many years of silence about their wartime experiences, Korean War veterans found their identity as veterans rekindled.19 Many for the first time began joining existing veterans’ organizations like the VFW and the American Legion or pledged membership in newer groups like the Chosin Few 222 > 223 In addition to struggling for a national memorial, some Korean War veterans fought for other things related to their veteran status. In the 1990s, black veterans launched a campaign to force historians and the military to reevaluate the official record and produce an unbiased account of African American troops in Korea. Though they failed to halt the 1996 publication of William T. Bowers’s Black Soldier, White Army: The 24th Infantry...

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