The Korean War has often been referred to as the "Forgotten War" because it has been overshadowed by other twentieth-century military confrontations. By researching local history and popular culture of the time, students can explore how Americans reacted to the conflict. Through this research, they learn about the experiences and perspectives of ordinary people, as well as prominent policy makers and military leaders. Internet research provides access to primary documents and contact information for libraries, museums, and veterans groups.

Objectives
By selecting appropriate projects, students can come to comprehend the history of the Korean War and its impact. They can learn how to collect and analyze historical sources that offer varying viewpoints. An interdisciplinary approach could involve teachers of different subjects cooperating to develop a Korean War unit to study such areas as history, literature, journalism, geography, mathematics, drama, art, and sociology.

Preparation
Students will need access to secondary sources that provide narrative, analysis, and chronology of the Cold War era. There are numerous books on the war, including some excellent short surveys, and several Korean War encyclopedias that focus on battles, leaders, and topics. Community and state histories are also helpful in providing a framework of the war. Copies of 1950s maps of Korea and the geographical areas—town, county, and state—where the students live are also useful.

Primary Activity
Various projects can assist students in discovering their community’s Korean War experiences. They may prefer to videotape a documentary; to script and present a play; or to write a short story, poem, or song about their community during the Korean War. They may also paint a Korean War mural for their community, photograph veterans, or develop a museum display. Regardless of the medium, they should strive to accurately document the community’s response to the Korean War and how the characteristics of their region influenced public reaction and patriotism.

Students should consult local newspapers and conduct oral history interviews with residents to determine how their communities were affected by the war, who fought in it, and why. They should contact local libraries, historical societies, and museums for documents such as soldiers’ letters. These sources will help them determine how the war is remembered and interpreted today.

Questions students might wish to explore include: How did life in their community during the conflict compare to other wars, such as World War II or the Gulf War? Were there Gold Star mothers, rationing, victory gardens, or drives to collect paper and metal? If no, why not? Did local industries produce war material? Did the war interrupt production schedules, or was it business as usual? Were there any special local concerns, such as taxes or strikes? Were any special celebrations staged for Korean War service personnel? Why did individuals support or oppose the war? What were the roles of women, children, and minorities during the war? What did veterans and patriotic groups in the community do during the Korean War? How many veterans groups are active in the community today, and are there any specifically for Korean War veterans?

If possible, students should try to determine how many people served in the war from their community. How many Korean War veterans live in their community today? How did the war change their lives?

Suggestions for Additional Activities

1. Have students search the Korean War casualty database (available on the Korean War Project web site) to collect names of soldiers from your community, county, and/or state who were wounded, killed, or missing in action in Korea.
2. Compare newspapers published in your geographical area during the Korean War. Pick one large urban paper, a local paper, an ethnic or minority paper, and any local college’s paper, and compare their coverage of key events. Did they include or omit news about the invasion, armistice, significant battles, and major events such as General Douglas MacArthur’s dismissal? Students should compare the newspapers’ placement of articles, size of headlines, number of stories, content, maps, photographs, and sidebars. Note how the papers treated negative news about defeats and casualties. Ask your students to prepare a newspaper edition for one day of the Korean War and decide which headlines, stories, editorials, and community news should be included.
3. Have students research Korean War Medal of Honor winners from your community or state, and why they were so honored. Ask students to describe steps in the process of honoring these individuals.
4. Instruct students to compare coverage of the Korean War to the Vietnam and Gulf wars, as well as the recent fighting in Kosovo. Part of their comparison should describe how technology—such as television, satellites, and the Internet—has changed reporting and public access to war information.
5. Assign students to research memorials to Korean War veterans and whether one exists in your community. They should investigate whether local museums or libraries ever display information about the war. If not, direct them to design a memorial and find out local government procedures to approve, finance, and erect war memorials; or design a public exhibit based on their research.
6. Have students interview veterans and perform research to see how interpretations of the war have changed in the decades since 1950.
7. Charge students with surveying residents of your community about the Korean War. Determine how many people know why the war was fought and when.

Possible Discussion Topics

1. Why is the Korean War called the “Forgotten War”? Why were many Americans apathetic toward it? How aware were they of Korea before the invasion, immediately afterwards, and during truce talks? To what extent did the American public support the war?
   
2. Explain why Korean War veterans returned to little or no fanfare. Compare their reception with that shown to veterans of the two world wars, Vietnam, and the Gulf War, both in the United States and your community.
   
3. Discuss whether there were protest or peace groups in the United States and/or in your community during the Korean War. Why or why not?
   
4. Discuss how the Korean War was presented in popular culture in the early 1950s and afterwards, and how this has influenced people’s perception of the war, its veterans, the United States, and Asia. Compare the movies Pork Chop Hill, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, and M*A*S*H (and/or several episodes of the television series of the same name).
   
5. Have students read and discuss nonfiction essays and fiction printed during the war in such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post and Life. Who were the authors? Why were they predominantly male? Who was the intended audience? Were the accounts written to increase war support? Compare these short pieces with novels about the war. How are accounts biased or propagandistic? How should students evaluate them as sources?

Evaluation

Students should be graded on how well they comprehend and evaluate primary sources. They should defend their interpretations as well as present an informed discussion of the Korean War. ?

Internet Sources
Your students can design a web page featuring their local history projects. Using e-mail, they can contact a school in another region or country that has completed a similar study to compare and contrast results. Many web sites provide information about the Korean War, South and North Korea, and military forces who fought in the war. In addition to consulting these sites for research, students can also analyze them to question their veracity and suggest how they would improve the sites.

• Korean Central News Agency: <http://www.kcna.co.jp>. The Korean Central News Agency posts news releases from Pyongyang, which are examples of North Korean propagandistic rhetoric.
• The Korean War, 1950-Present: <http://www.kimsoft.com/kr-war.htm>. Both South and North Korean sources, maps, and links to news groups are available from this site.
• Korean War Project: <http://www.koreanwar.org>. This comprehensive site offers a searchable Korean War casualty database, bulletin boards, and links.
• Korean War Veterans Memorial Homepage: <http://www.nps.gov/kwvm/index2.htm>. This site offers not only a description of the war and its memorial, but also pictures of the memorial itself in Washington, DC.
• Korean War Veterans National Museum and Library Home Page: <http://www.theforgottenvictory.org>. Of particular use for students are this site’s useful links and photographs of Korean War artifacts and soldiers.
• The Korean War Web Ring: <http://members.aol.com/kwarring/ kwarring.html>. This site links to most major Korean War pages, especially fiftieth anniversary sites.
• National Korean War Veterans Association: <http://www.kwva.org>. This online meeting place for veterans of the war focuses attention to the “Forgotten War.”Novels of the Korean War: <http://www.illyria.com/korea.html>. This metasite provides links to literary pages that deal with the war.
• South Korea: Subject Guide: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~felsing/kstuff/kshelf.html>; and North Korea: Subject Guide: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~felsing/kstuff/nkshelf.html>. Both of these subject guides provide links for South and North Korean newspapers, magazines, and sources.
• The United States Army Center of Military History: <http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg>. On this page, the Center for Military History posts articles, book excerpts, oral histories, books for sale, research tips, and information about Medal of Honor winners.
• The United States Forces Korea: <http://www.korea.army.mil>. The U.S. Army maintains this web site for troops stationed in South Korea.

Suggested Reading

• Ehrhart, W. D. and Philip K. Jason, eds. Retrieving Bones: Stories and Poems of the Korean War. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.
• Higgins, Marguerite. War in Korea: The Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1951.
• Knox, Donald. The Korean War: An Oral History. Vol. 1, From Pusan to Chosin. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
• Knox, Donald and Alfred Coppel. The Korean War: An Oral History. Vol. 2, Uncertain Victory. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.
• McFarland, Keith D. The Korean War: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1986.

Elizabeth D. Schafer, Ph.D., is an independent scholar from Auburn, Alabama, who recently contributed essays to The Encyclopedia of the Korean War; The Korean War: An Encyclopedia; The Encyclopedia of World War II in Europe; World War II in the South Pacific: An Encyclopedia; The Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment; The Encyclopedia of American War Literature; History in Dispute; and American National Biography.