Tag Archives: Frozen Chosin

Memorial Day

Dear Lord,
Lest I continue
 my complacent way,

Help me to remember that somewhere,
 Somehow out there

A man died for me today.

As long as there be war,
 I then must
 Ask and answer

Am I worth dying for?

Wartime Prayer by Eleanor Roosevelt

Let’s consider Mrs. Roosevelt’s question this Memorial Day and take a moment to remember the “forgotten war” of Korea. Sixty years ago 36,940 Americans (along with many brave Korean, Canadian, UK and other allied soldiers) died fighting Chinese communism in cold and miserable conflict. In Death by China, we shared Marine Lee Bergee’s memory of Frozen Chosin, “We all have memories of buddies killed, of the hordes of Chinese assaulting our frozen lines, and the long dangerous walk out . . .”

Today, most Americans don’t even know that we fought a war with China in the recent past and they are even more oblivious to the fact that we are losing a bigger one right now. That horribly cold war is still in progress, both technically and literally. Technically we are still at war in Korea because the Armistice Agreement of 1953 never progressed into a full-fledged peace agreement. And we are literally in a Cold War as China actively supports a nuclear dictatorship in North Korean, undermines our economy, corrupts our political system, infiltrates our educational system, steals our technology, buys up our land and businesses, and openly prepares for battle with the U.S. seventh fleet.

Every time we go into WalMart and pick up a Chinese product when we could have made another choice we are selling out the brave young men who gave their all to uphold freedom and liberty and the answer to Mrs. Roosevelt’s question is, “NO, we not worth dying for.”

-Greg Autry, Senior Economist with the American Jobs Alliance

 

photos: Greg Autry Korean War Memorial, Washington DC, February 2012