On the recordJune 23, 2010
I rise in strong support of this important resolution which honors, as the inscription at the Korean War Memorial reads, our ``sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.'' On a predawn Sunday morning in June 1950, while the world slept and the church bells of Seoul had yet to ring, North Korea launched a sudden, unprovoked military strike on the Republic of Korea. President Harry Truman, when he received the news, immediately returned to Washington and summoned his Cabinet. Within 48 hours, the President had directed General Douglas MacArthur to undertake a vigorous defense of South Korea and her people. The rest is history, history of what has come to be known as The Forgotten War. The conflict in Korea became the first test of the mettle of the West in confronting Communist aggression in the Cold War. Over 50,000 of the boys and young men and women of the summer of 1950 who left for Korea did not return, including over 33,000 who fell in combat.
