America In Context

War is People

There’s something uniquely moving about the Korean War Veterans Memorial. The focal point is a series of nineteen stainless steel soldiers, in rain gear, moving through the muck.

That’s it. That’s all it is. No big, granite arches*, no marble columns, no big, bold, brash, sweeping landscapes. Just nineteen men, nameless men, marching through the slop, hoping to survive to get to the other side. To me, this monument is a stern reminder:

War isn’t about guns.

War isn’t about tanks.

It’s not about bombs or bullets or planes or ships. It’s not about politics or economies or resources or vendettas.

War is about people: the people who march, the people who fight, the people who hide, the people who flee, the people who live … and the people who die.

* I visited the site in 1998. A memorial wall was added in 2022, listing the names of Americans who died in the war, I have yet to see it at the time of this posting.

(I did not have a digital camera when I visited this site in 1998, the above picture is from the Department of Defense.)