After I finished teaching two teacher training classes in the Solbridge building (the building houses an international school of business associated with Woosong University) near Daejeon Station this morning, I caught a taxi outside to go to HomePlus—about a ten-minute ride away—to pick up a few things.
As soon as I told the sixtysomething driver in Korean where I wanted to go, it must have really impressed him because I got bombarded with a volley of questions (in Korean and English) from where I was from and what I do in Korea.
After we got through that small talk, he told me that he had fought in the Vietnam War for two years and had been stationed first in Saigon in 1965 before moving up country. His English was pretty good—good enough to tell me that he suffers the side effects from the use of Agent Orange during the war.
All this in about a fifteen-minute taxi ride to HomePlus.
As for the South Korean military represented the second largest contingent of foreign troops in Vietnam, second only to the U.S. forces. It has been argued that South Korea willingly joined in the Vietnam War because it represented a fight against communism, which South Korea was eager to stem under the guidance of President Park Chung-hee’s military administration. Park initially sent two Korean infantry divisions and a marine brigade in 1965. At their peak, the Korean military had over 50,000 soldiers on the ground; all together more than 310,000 South Koreans served throughout the war. About 5,000 of them died in combat in Vietnam, and more than 11,000 were injured or wounded.
Without question, it was a win-win situation for South Korea given that these troops were paid for and that those troops gained valuable battle experience, not the least of which the South Korean army became skilled with using some of the most advanced US military weaponry.
Although the price tag in terms of financial and economic aid to the South might smack of mercenary underpinnings, the war actually helped build the economy of South Korea because of massive U.S. military contracts and related economic aid awarded South Korea. To be sure from 1965 to 1975, South Korea’s GNP grew 14 times, and exports increased 29 times. Moreover South Korean automakers as well as shipping magnate Hanjin also benefited from the war effort.
And here was one veteran, a taxi driver talking about his war experience to a foreign passenger. He might have just been trying out his language skills but it turned out to be a mini history lesson.
Two months ago I was approached by a Korean filmmaker who asked me if I would be interested in taking part in a documentary he was making on the Korean War. Turns out the documentary he was making was about the Battle of Hoengseong which I described in my novel War Remains and that one of his friends (who also happened to be one of my Facebook friends) had read my book and told him about it. A few messages and emails later, we met one afternoon at SolBridge in April and talked about his documentary. Two weeks later, I was on my way back to Hoengseong and Massacre Valley to be interviewed and describe the battle that was fought here in February 1951 and the battle which is at the beginning of War Remains.
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