The Other Side of the Korean War

The Korean War was a civil war that drew in outside forces on both sides. In every war each side believes that they are right and that they alone are fighting the good fight. With that said it is sometimes easy to overlook the other side of a conflict that your nation was on one side of.

As an early battleground of the proxy wars between major powers during the Cold War.  Officially it is still going on, just on pause and any glance at a newspaper reminds you that at any time it could flare back up.

In the picture above is a simple plaque in a display case in a museum. In the case (and we see them later in another article) is a North Korean flag, a soldiers fur covered hat and a rifle, but it us the badge in the picture that is interesting on this point.

Casualties

Estimates on casualties during the Korean War put the North Korean losses at between 215,000 and 350,000 killed and another 300,000 wounded. On top of that an estimated 1,550,000 civilians (estimated) lost their lives.

War sucks and the goal of war is to win. People die in war, soldiers and civilians. Those numbers above are astounding and should cause you to think about the other side for just a minute. As a comparison the other side, (South Korea and the United Nations) had an estimated total of 178,426 dead and around 566,000 wounded, civilian dead,wounded and missing totaled about 990,000.

So the other side can have their medals, just like we do. The main lesson in all this is that war is terrible. Honestly if you are reading this odds are you already know that.