War Memorial of Korea

During the past week I visited the War Memorial of Korea. Our professor had recommended the museum to us, so my friend and I decided to go. I definitely learned a lot from the museum, especially because the history of Korea is not taught in depth in America. I had recently gained an interest in the Korean War, so I was very excited to go. Our professor, however, had advertised the memorial as the Korean War Memorial so I thought it was only about the Korean War, but it was actually the War Memorial of Korea and had wars starting from 100 AD. Honestly the wars from all the way back then were not too interesting to me just because I tend to find more recent wars more interesting. But starting from the Japanese occupation, I learned a lot.

The statue below is located outside of the War Memorial, right when you walk in. It was interesting to see how the North Korean soldier and the South Korean soldier are portrayed. The South Korean soldier is the one posed taller, whereas the North Korean soldier is crouching into the other soldier’s arms. 

It shocked me when I saw how huge Korea once was. However, after the country started getting invaded by China and Japan, it got smaller and smaller. Of course, the division of North and South Korea also decreased the land of each countries.

It was very interesting to me because during the culture part of our lesson, our professor asked us to make sure we read the rhetoric the museum used. Although the U.S. made plenty of mistakes during the war and contributed to the deaths of many, they were still written in as heroes. None of the words used to describe America’s actions used any negative terms, whereas North Korea was depicted as evil.

This is a reenactment of the war scene during the war. My grandfather was 17 years old, a high school senior, when the war started and was drafted into the war at his young age. This reenactment brought to mind how scary and traumatizing it must have been for my grandfather to have been a part of this horrific war.

I was also surprised to find out that it was such a large war fought between many different countries, however, is left out of most of our history classes. The U.S. played a large role in the war and the division of North and South Korea, but we rarely ever talk about the Korean War. I hope that soon we will start to include the Korean War in our history classes.