The evil forces which are now attacking South Korea are part of a world-wide conspiracy against the way of life of the free democracies. Communists...are...engaged in an attempt to mould the whole world to their pattern of tyranny. They seek to sweep democracy and liberty from the world. They are ready to destroy our lives if we don't agree with them. They talk of freedom while they murder it. They talk of peace while they support aggression. They are ruthless and unscrupulous hypocrites who pretend to virtues which their philosophy rejects. The trouble is that quite a lot of well-meaning people are taken in by the Communists and their sham peace propaganda. What is happening in Korea should open their eyes.

The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation. Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were: "Don't scuttle the Pacific!"

There are other people whose fear is if you bring down South Africa there will be a communist regime takeover - and that's a risk I'm prepared to see. I would much rather see South Africa under a communist regime than under the present one if that's the choice I'm faced with.

But the foundation of ROK military power was the South Korean infantryman, courageous, tireless, hungry for the knowledge that would give him more power as a fighting man, disciplined and willing to die in the service of the cause for which his country fought and bled. You didn't have to tell a South Korean that communism was evil. It was an evil that had blighted his country and he saw it all around him, wherever he went.

But they’re as Communist as Russia. They went to war against us when we were only trying to protect freedom in South Korea. We weren’t going to attack them.

Sometimes, I feel that the Administration is working around toward my plan for building up the strength of South Korea and Nationalist China to the point where eventually they can carry the war to the Communists on the mainland. ... There is no justification for the employment of United States soldiers either in the Far East or in Europe. If the people and the governments in these areas do not wish to fight Communism, we should let them be communized.

These were eye-opening years for me. When I’d come back to Warner Brothers after the war, I’d shared the orthodox liberal view that Communists — if there really were any — were liberals who were temporarily off track, and whatever they were, they didn’t pose much of a threat to me or anyone. I heard whispers that Moscow wanted to infiltrate the world’s most powerful medium of entertainment, but I’d passed them off as irrational and emotional red baiting. Now I knew from firsthand experience how Communists used lies, deceit, violence, or any other tactic that suited them to advance the cause of Soviet expansionism. I knew from the experience of hand-to-hand combat that America faced no more insidious or evil threat than that of Communism.

Here’s what I find odd. While South Koreans’ anti-Japanese sentiment gets taken at face value as the inevitable result of what happened well before most of them were born, conservatives’ fears for the security of the South, which was last subjected to a deadly military attack in 2010, tend to be treated as laughable delusions.

I consider the South Koreans one of our greatest allies, a people who know communism and hate it and are not afraid to die fighting it.

Korea was my first experience of fighting a shooting war and a conference table war at the same time. But I had two years of head-knocking with the Russians to teach me what it is that the Communists respect: FORCE.

Communism is all about breaking down nationalism, about uniting workers around the world, and North Korea has always been about the opposite, it’s been about racial purity and pride, so remember North Korea was isolated even inside the old east-block, even inside the Soviet block.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

Let's remember not only how many South Koreans were killed, injured or abducted during a war the North started, but also that one of the most shocking parts of that conflict for people who experienced KPA occupation was seeing neighbors emerge on day one as fully-formed, snitching supporters of the enemy. Many bore titles in the underground organizations to which, it turned out, they had belonged for years. In several recorded cases they denounced people who were shot on the spot. That trauma sits deep.

[T]here has long been in the North a very real contempt for the South Korean left, the kind that radicals always feel for moderates no matter how obsequious the latter might be. Believe it or not, there were always more South Koreans willing to work with the North than it was willing to work with; the history of the underground in the 1960s and 1970s is replete with tales of how this or that Kim disciple got cold-shouldered by the DPRK embassy in East Berlin and had to go begging for funds in Japan instead.