We spent some time talking this morning about the wars causes and about sort of how the three years that most americans think of when they think of the korean war fit into a longer and a broader history. For our second part, well try to focus in a little bit on how the war played out in the lives of the individuals that were affected by it. As war in south and north korea, it ravaged the homes of millions, sometimes more than once. And we were talking about the yo yo effect of the war means war moves through your home once and then then again. It drew 6 million military personnel, not only from both north and south korea, but also from china, the United States, the soviet union and other United Nations countries, including britain, canada, australia, france, the netherlands and many others. More than two and a half Million People lost their lives, and millions more found their lives forever changed by the war. So im honored to introduce four historians whose work centers, individuals in their in the history of war and who will help us to see war through their perspective. To my immediate left is tarak barkawi, who is professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins university, a historian of the relation between war armed forces and society in modern world politics. He is the author of soldiers of empire. And he is currently writing a book on the korean war and on the American Experience of military defeat. David p klein is professor of history at San Diego State university, where he is the founding director of the center for public and oral history. Hes conducted interviews for the library of Congress Civil rights project and the National Museum of African American history and culture, and his most recent book is twice forgotten. African americans and the korean war. Suzy kim is professor of asian languages and cultures at rutgers university. His story of modern korea. The cold war and women. She is the author of life in the north korean revolution, as well as women across worlds north korea and the global cold war. And last but not least, is dancing. Mcmanus, who is the curators, distinguished professor at Missouri University of science and technology. Hes the author of 15 books on the u. S. Military experience and the host of two podcast and his work on the korean war includes the seventh infantry. Three combat in the age of terror. So one of the things that i think is really interesting about the korean war is that as a military conflict, were thinking about it as a conflict, as a war. The korean war blended some seemingly contradictory ways of war. It occurred at the dawn of the nuclear age. And if some had had their way, might have been a war of nuclear and global catastrophic proportions. And yet much of the war occurred in. Trenches reminiscent of world war one. And so im wondering if you could speak a little bit about how the wars participants experience this sort of dual ity, not just for military personnel from around the world who came to the war, but also for koreans whose homelands this war was raged. Thank you, carol. So soldiers always compare their war to other wars, their battles to other battles in order to make sense of whats happening and this sort of process, whats going on. And the war on everybodys mind in the early stages of korea is, of course, World War Two. And the u. S. Had demobilized very sharply after World War Two. So, you know, one thing that many of the returning veterans discover, first of all, theyre angry that theyre being called back up. Having done their bit. But initially, you needed a lot of trained personnel. So people were called out to the reserves or just have after theyd started, families started careers and this kind of stuff. But, you know, when the veterans get there, they realize its not the World War Two army. All the training, all the careful tactics, the veteran formations who could carry this out were gone. And they had to relearn the stuff. They had to relearn things like aerial support of Close Air Support. And this became a very, you know, serious issue early in the war where they work out, again, how it is that youre going to fight, provide Close Air Support. Airmen want to interdict for up the peninsula, but the marines and the soldiers want always the planes overhead getting the guys that theyre immediately in contact with. Things of this kind. Another thing youre doing is using battles. So dunkirk figures back in the imagination of americans were in there in pusan and later in the chosen Reservoir Campaign and maybe all ill stop this and turn this over to my friends with this quote from colonel paul freeman, who was in charge of the 23rd Infantry Division just as the chinese he you know, hes he he like the commander of the First Marine Division thinks theyre in trouble when the u. N. Forces are far in the north. And and macarthurs hoping to overall, the chinese, who he knows are present. And colonel paul freeman, he says, you know, he writes home to his wife, he says, were in a combination of the second crusade, the march on moscow and bataan, you know, so but he gets his guys out, even if that got. Musical chairs. Thank you. I just wanted to start by thanking you and the History Department for making this occasion possible and also those Schmidt Family for their generous donation. I guess i would i would take a little bit of issue with the question and the way that it was framed. I mean, rather than a comparison to world war one and trench warfare, i would say that the probably the apt comparison would be the vietnam war, which is very much a guerrilla war. I mean, given the terrain of the Korean Peninsula, where there are many hills and mountains, theres stories about the fact that when the war came to a stalemate starting in 1951, you were essentially, you know, trying to take over one hill and, you know, thousands of soldiers are being killed as a result of that one hill. So and what does it mean . Talk about a guerrilla warfare. From a Soldiers Point of view, i think it means that its very difficult. Tell friend from foe, given that, you know, it was a war. It began as a civil war between the two koreas. And so, you know, from a Soldiers Point of view, whos coming in as a foreigner into korea, you cant really tell whether someones from the north or the south and that made the fighting very difficult. And in fact, it led to many of the sort of, you know, the tragedy that weve heard about. There was one particular story that came out through the Associated Press in 1999 of civilian massacres in a town called kobani, where basically soldiers were given orders to shoot them all because they could not tell the difference between the refugees and who were enemy combatants. And from the civilians point of view, you can imagine just how terrified it would be to try to flee the war front. There was essentially difference between the war front and the home front. War zones were, you know, going up and down the peninsula and towns and cities were being taken by the Occupation Forces, multiple times. And basically, depending on what your behavior during that opposing Occupation Forces were, you would be held responsible essentially for having colluded with the previous regime. But of course, you know, as a civilian, you have essentially no choice. I mean, you have to do what you have to do to survive. And so i would just say that the korean war was a total war. And part of the tragedy for the civilian experience also was mentioned briefly. I think, in the first panel. But the the kind of carpet bombing that particularly the north was exposed to was very severe. So just to give you a little bit of statistic. I think rough estimates are Something Like 600,000 tons of bombs were dropped in north korea. And 32,000, 32,000 of those bombs were actually napalm. And as mary so eloquently explained in the first panel, i mean, napalm started to be used at the end of world were to and it demonstrated its explosiveness, particularly with the bombing of tokyo and some of the japanese cities which were you know, because of the fact that so many of the homes were made of wood. I mean, it completely decimated it from the fires that went through these towns. But by and large and i think most of the public were not quite familiar or aware of the devastating impact of napalm and it was really with the korean war that that the full strength of that weapon was shown. And even though in the american memory today, its much more often associated with the vietnam war, its actually during the korean war that napalm was really used and not only did it impact the soldiers that were fighting, but you can imagine the impact on the civilians. So the comparison is that in all of the Pacific Theater during World War Two, the there were 500,000 tons of bombs dropped. So during the short period of the korean war, there were more bombs, at least by 100,000 tons more bombs dropped in north korea than all of the Pacific Theater during World War Two. Yeah. In terms of the the comparisons with with vietnam, from the communist point of view, its really similar in the sense of attempting guerilla war first because north korea attempts to basically destroy south korea via guerilla war in the late 1940s and then leads to the course conventional invasion, which is, you know, over a much more protracted period of time in in vietnam. But the takeaway from a military historians point of view is that the korean war, like the vietnam war, is both a convention deal and a guerilla war at the soldier level with well, with a mix of ingredients coming from world war one in terms of fixed trench type positions that going to have in the stalemate period. You know, but if were thinking about the sort of impact of Nuclear Weapons in this whole kind of soldier. I think for the average american soldier, at least, theres really much more concern about whats actually tactically in front of you on any given day. And its its the nuclear side of it is much more for the Senior Leadership to kind of wonder and sort of nightmare game. For instance, when general ridgway takes over as commander of eighth army and then later succeeds, macarthur is the theater commander. Hes constantly having to worry and wargame about the possibility of this thing Going Nuclear, mainly through soviet intervention. He has to figure out exactly how are we going to be tenable on korea, especially, you know, if if the soviets get in and and, you know, the nuclear side probably be the u. N. Side having the initiative in that regard of Going Nuclear first because they had greater capability at that stage. But its really quite interesting because ridgway is having to kind of sort of work through these nightmare scenarios. The average soldier on the ground, though, is is mainly worried about hell x, y or z and where theyre going to go. What youre going to eat the next day is always and the conditions do we havent even touched on that. Thats such a huge part of the experience. Yeah, ill just take as my cue so the, the work that ive done is sort of a deep dive into the soldier experience itself, right . By focusing mostly on the African American soldier experience and so when the war broke out, you know, so this is picking up on a couple of points. When the war broke out, you know, most of the at least the segregated black units, they you know, they were on occupation duty in japan. They were on maneuvers in hawaii, and they got sent in, you know, immediately as part of task force. Smith some of the units anyway, you know, in summer uniforms with rifles that didnt work and know this was part of the downsizing of the military. But of course, you know, the africanamerican units got the worst of that. And so in terms of the conditions right in a summary uniform and then heading straight, you know, and the beginning of the war was relatively warm when the hit started. But it certainly got cold quicker as soon as they went north. And the p. O. W. Experience is yet another one to look out at the conditions. I talked to a number of of guys who, you know, were captured in the first few days of the war in, their summer uniforms and then marched north and that anyone survived of those marches. Its kind of incredible. And then, you know, on their own and then got to the camps and, you know, the chinese entering the war from the soldiers perspective is fascinating, right . Because you hear all those about what it sounded like and the bugles and and all of that from the p. O. W. Perspective of the chinese entering the war was a little bit of a godsend because they brought quilted uniforms. So for the first time, those who had survived that long finally had some warmth. So thats the only thing ill add on that. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, just a couple of points. Its always important to make a distinction between the first year of the war when it is a war of movement and the rest of the war. When that settles into when we talk about massacres, we often think about things like no country, where theres a straight up massacre or the way that my lai dominates imagination in vietnam. But much of the war was fought around peasant populations, and the peasants would often come out at night thinking that would be safer. But of course, thats not safer. And there is not the same Media Attention in korea. So youll get some american, you know, officers talking about how positions are littered with dead peasants whove come out at night and gotten shot by who are watching their positions. So theres sometimes that kind of quotidian in way in which there are casualties. Like thats kind of one point id make on the napalm stuff is, is, is very interesting because from the point of view of ground troops, it looks for american ground troops, it looks very effective. Its both horrifying, fascinating and effective. They love it. They want more of it. Theres something about wanting to see asian opponents burned that really appeals to american soldiers. But, you know, also just as tactically effective. But for the pilots, people who had been involved in Close Air Support in the pacific, in World War Two, had dropped it on on a toles with small civilian or no civilian population and the japanese anime they hated early in the war. Theyre asked to drop it on refugee columns. Theyre told there may be kpa troops in and you get some pushback by the pilots. Theyre not happy about that. Im not actually going to do that. But by the time you get the war goes north, every single built structure is seen as a target because in the cold that is protection for chinese and north korean troops. So they start literally trying to take out every city and village that you can imagine. So by then, the kind of fears of bombing people have dropped away as as the war really gets more vicious. Just say one last tiny thing, which is that the americans dont have a tactical evac switch in equipment early in the war. Theyre bazookas. World war two, they have m1 rifles. Theyre finding the first ak 47 on on the battlefield, a weapon. They wouldnt get an equivalent until 15 years later. Its sherman tanks first t34 85. And then when the chinese come in, a lot of them are armed with american infantry weapons because the chinese are taking stocks that we sent to support the nationalist chinese. So theyre being fired at by brownings bars, you know, m1 and so on. You can imagine what that felt like. If i would just follow very quickly to a text point about kind of the racialization, i think, involved in order to actually take pleasure or to turn a blind eye towards suffering of the civilians. And as you put it, its to see them burn and somehow take some kind of satisfaction out of that. And david, you could also speak to this, but you know, there was a way in which i think the thinking about the and the asian enemy as a kind of a yellow that that you dehumanize them, that come so that was carried over from the fact that, you know, World War Two had just ended, you know, five years earlier and japan was an enemy that, you know, that we had fought, as in the United States. And so that, i think, was very much in evidence during the korean war. And you you hear about these anecdotes of soldiers essentially, you know, thinking about koreans, not quite you know, there would be basically racial slurs that are to refer to the population in such a way that would kind of immunize them or, you know, kind of be able to not feel the emotions that you would as a as a regular human being. That in some ways is it is basically another way to not just dehumanize the enemy, but really dehumanizes the soldiers themselves. Well, and the other thing to to circle back to to other points earlier about people getting killed at night when they when theyre out there wandering around, when youve got h. A. , you know, artillery fire out there, which is what youre going to do on a on a kinetic battlefield, the enemy could be moving out there at night. We are going to were going to light our fires wherever we think those rights of movement are. The other sort of tradition that been firmly established in the way the americans have made war since World War Two, certainly is hunker down in perimeters at night and shoot at anything that moves outside that perimeter. And i have argued many times that we basically see the movement of the night to our until the night vision era to great extent, because we fight the pacific war this way. We fight the european war this