ROK Drop

By on December 25th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

US Servicemembers Spend Christmas in 1953 Korea

» by in: Korean War

Rate My Hagwon has an absolutely incredible documentary video of Edward R. Murrow visiting front line US troops during Christmas in 1953 Korea:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Murrow is interviewing Marines from the notorious Iron Triangle near Chorwon in the central area of the DMZ as well interviewing sailors on a Navy minesweeper vessel, and a few other locations.

I found it interesting when Murrow interviewed one Marine who said he was proud to be fighting to stop communism in Korea instead of fighting against it in America.  The same thing has been said by many people today saying it is better to take the fight to terrorism overseas instead of fighting it in America.  The Christmas tree decorated with beer cans was quite humorous and the scene of the GI’s receiving their Christmas presents from home by helicopter on top of a lonely hill along with the GI’s give present to Korean orphans was amazing footage.

Murrow also interviewed a man on the Naval minesweeper who had been out defusing mines for the entire war.  He explains his most traumatic experience during the entire war as being when the Navy landed at the North Korean port of Wonsan. During an interview with front line US Army soldiers it was especially fascinating to see Murrow ask a soldier how he feels about fighting in the war.  The soldier responded it may have been a possibly necessary war which echoes many of the conflicted feelings Americans had about the United States deciding to intervene in Korea.

Murrow also interviewed the soldier’s company commander Lieutenant Stanley Porter, who happened to be black which had to be an extreme rarity at the time. I also have to wonder if the Marine Corporal that was interviewed and said that they were there for a cause and America should remain in Korea until the cause is accomplished which is peace, would have ever imagined that the US military would remain in Korea 55 years after making that statement?

Anyway watch the whole video because it is an incredible piece of old school journalism.

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