Yesterday's Memories and Other Useless Thoughts: July 2015

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

We Didn't Start The Fire ~ 1950 ~ North Korea/South Korea

We Didn't Start The Fire

sung by: Billy Joel

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe.

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye,"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen,

Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye!

Chorus:

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez.

Chorus

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide, Oh-oh-oh.

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo.

Chorus

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

Chorus

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, Hypodermics on the shore,

China's under martial law, Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.

We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire...

1950

North Korea/South Korea

taken from http://news.superzoo.co.uk/south-korea-fires-shells-into-north-korean-waters/2450/

Before World War II, North Korea and South Korea were known as the Korean Peninsula. After the U.S. liberated it from Japan the peninsula was split up into 2 different countries divided by the 38th parallel line. The Soviet Union occupied the north while the U.S. occupied the south. In the agreement, after 5 years the country would reunite and be one country. Both sides wanted to be one country but North Korea wanted all of the country to be communist while South Korea wanted more of a democratic way of living throughout the country. As the end of the 5 years came closer, the squabbles became more intense. Finally, on June 25, 1950, North Korea pushed itself down to Pusan.

The United Nations was called in to help. President Truman sent General Douglas MacArthur to attack back and push North Korea back over the 38th parallel, which he succeeded. This was the first military action in the Cold War. Truman never did ask congress for a declaration of war so this remained nothing more than a police action even though it is referred to as The Korean War. Due to the lack of media attention it also became known as "The Forgotten War." Over 6.8 million American's served in this war.

Other countries from the U.N stepped in to help combat against North Korea. They are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Ethiopia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Philippians, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey. China intervened to help North Korea with the battle.

This "Forgotten War" does have it's moment of firsts for many things. The first jet to jet dog fight happened on September 8, 1950 when a F-80 shot down two North Korean MiG-15s. The United States "even dropped more bombs in Korea than the entire Pacific Theater during WWII." (62 Interesting Facts about the Korean War)

To help those who are injured on the front lines the M.A.S.H unit was put into place, which stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. It was also during this war that intravenous use of amphetamines were first used. Even though medical technology was still advancing there were still many causalities in the Korean War.

The South Korean side suffered a loss of 778,000 whereas the North Korean side had a loss of 1.1 to 1.5 million causalities. The U.S lost 36,516 and 92,134 were wounded. At the end, the U.S. even had 8,176 MIA's and 7,245 POW's. As of 2011, there are still over 7,000 MIA's from the U.S. in the Korean War.

The Korean War became a stalemate war. In fact, a treaty for the war to be over with between North and South Korea never happened. Instead, negotiations at Panmunjon to set up an armistice when into effect. Both sides agreed to a demilitarize zone along the front. It is 250 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. It is the most heavily militarized boarder in the world. In 2013, North Korea declared the 1953 Armistice to be invalid.