Korea from a Soldier's View

Seventy years ago the Korean conflict was being fought between North Korea and South Korea. South Korea was fighting with United Nation troops that included American troops. It wasn't an American War like World War I or World War II when the entire country was involved, but a police action or conflict that nobody really wins.

Much has been written about the wars and conflicts Americans have taken part in, but most are written by scholars who were never in a war.

Historians find letters written by men and women in service addressed to their relatives and love ones. There is more to any conflict than just battles. Most of the time it's sit and wait and letters home reflect that unknown and unrecorded history of any war or conflict. The boring day-to-day happenings that are forgotten as the years roll by.

In 1952 a young Southern California kid, Bruce Anderson, from San Gabriel Valley was drafted and sent to Korea with thousands of other young men by ship. So many of these soldiers were just out of high school and never been away from home. Anderson was your typical kid growing up in post WWII America. Hot rods and girls is all a red blooded boy would need.

Anderson sent two handwritten letters back home to his aunt that gives a glimpse of life away from the battlefields. One letter was written in January of 1952 and describes life in the Quartermaster corps and the Korean people around camp.

The second letter written just five months later shows a different side of camp life and longing to return home.

Now is the time to search drawers, dusty trunks and shoe boxes stored in attics and garages for letters from someone in the military who sent home letters just as Anderson had so long ago. Read them again and pass them along to grandchildren and great grandchildren as their family history builds.

 

Bruce V. Anderson

 

Letter #1 written January 11, 1952

Letter #2 written May 02, 1952

Both letters are saved in PDF format

 

 

  Huntington Beach News