"Everybody went over, they served their tour of duty and when you came home, there was no fanfare," said Wiley, at his home in Scarborough, Maine. "We didn't even get coffee on the ship that took us out of there, which irritated a few people a little bit. We sailed home, you got discharged and it was over. I went back to work for the phone company."
Pierce points out that veterans weren't resented, as in the Vietnam era, "but on the other hand, there were no parades when we came home or anything like that. I don't think the country really got behind the Korean War. They sort of accepted it and didn't complain, but it wasn't like World War II where everybody, regardless of his age or position, was involved."
Spring of 1952: Colby cadets receive drill and parade instruction on the Colby athletic field.
Deering, in Falmouth, recalls being welcomed in Waterville restaurants and hangouts ("Hey Red, you're back. Where you been anyway?"). Veterans in general were treated with respect by the community, and Colby student-vets were included. On campus, they were given a wider berth, Deering said. As an older veteran, he was asked by a dean to live in a fraternity house, where misbehavior (profanity in front of the house mother) had been reported and there was a general lack of discipline. Veterans assumed a status and role somewhere between younger students and older administrators.
Pierce, the Navy medic, said he came back to Colby with a new appreciation of America and life at the College. "It was kind of nice to have a roof over your head instead of a tent, flush toilets instead of an outhouse, hot showers instead of a bath out of your helmet," he said. "And it was humorous to hear kids complaining that they had to wait in line for a shower for a couple of minutes. Having waited in line for everything for four years, it was kind of amusing."
But Pierce said he kept his thoughts to himself, for the most part. After graduation, he went to work, married and raised a family. In hindsight, he said, he's not sure "we did Korea a favor." Like Koons, who grew up in Korea and immersed in its culture, Pierce says the mistake was made at the close of World War II when Korea first was divided.
Weisbrot believe decisions that could have changed the course of the Korean War would have to have been made in the 1940s. At one time the U.S. supported the Japanese over Korean reformers, he noted, then backed a reactionary faction in South Korea that had very little popular backing. The two Koreas were created, polarized, separated, "and then things played out tragically," Weisbrot said.
As North Korea rattles sabers, the schism born in the final months of World War II continues to play out today.
