Five, six years ago, a buddy asked me if I had any interest in the Korean War and if so, would I think about ever "...drawing (a particular airplane) of that era?" At the time, I wasn't. For me, there's value in learning of the noble traits of sacrifice, focused creativity and belief in an Ideal. That's why I can so easily call the ordinary service of the WW2 generation, "Heroic."
But Korea? That was the war that pulled the WW2 guys away from their young families. That was the war that taught me that politicians can determine targets. Yeah, I'm generalizing, but the first taste I had of the Korean Conflict was watching "The Bridges at Toko Ri" on late night TV. A fantastic film, but it left me - even at age ten or so - with a kind of emotional heartburn. The movie ends with the quote of grizzled Admiral asking the audience, "Where do we get such men?" Like I wrote, Korea is the war that pulled the WW2 guys away from...
My understanding is that the Korean Conflict was not about the disease - (Communism) - but about the spread of the disease. That doesn't quite make sense. Patton may have been crazy, but he may have been as a fox when he stated that the Allied world should plow through Russia and met MacArthur in Japan.
Would Korea have happened? The Eastern Bloc? Vietnam? Or did the Yin/Yang of Capitalism & Communism somehow stabilize the world?
Bah. I'm wasting time on a non-issue. But suffice it to say, in the past few years, I've learned that though I don't understand the politics, the same wonderful traits of character were all the more apparent in the heroes of 1950-1953.*
And so, thanks to Morton, I am starting on the machine of a particularly heroic pilot named Dolph Overton. You'll like this one.
*Even now, the "Korean War" isn't officially over.
