Cemeteries are the keepers of our memories. When others have forgotten, they remember — in stone, in monument, in a chiseled line here or there, a carved symbol, a record of past deeds, who we were and what we stood for.
At Crown Hill Mortuary & Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, there is a special grave site. It is special because it commemorates a stunning military achievement, heroism, self-sacrifice, and, most importantly, the life of a young American who paid the ultimate price for his country.
A polished, raspberry-red granite slab, lying flat and more than casket-length and casket-wide, is flanked by two similar stones, mother on one side, father on the other. The son’s stone has a Marine Corps emblem in the upper right-hand corner. The inscription, about a fourth of the way down, reads:
“OUR BELOVED SON
RALPH L. YOUNG JR.
NOV. 28, 1928
SEPT. 17, 1950
HE GAVE HIS LIFE AT INCHON
IN SERVICE TO HIS COUNTRY”
More than 70 years have passed since this young American died in battle. Instead of aging into his 90s, he remains forever 21 years old when he gave his life at Incheon (formerly Inchon) in service to his country.
The word “gave” is a poignant reminder of what the country requires of service members when they are sworn into the military. The military recruit, right hand raised when taking the oath, is giving himself or herself to “… defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic …”
Embodied in defending the Constitution of the United States is the preservation of the United States as a country and its symbols: the American flag and the National Anthem.
“Defend” may require the ultimate sacrifice of life.
Near the middle of the smooth, raspberry-granite slab is a cross. Chiseled mountains are at the bottom of the slab, probably depicting the mountains of Colorado more than the mountainous country of Korea. Then, more poignant words (From Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”):
“BRIEF, BRAVE AND GLORIOUS
WAS HIS YOUNG CAREER”
Why had the young American from Littleton gone to Incheon, a place he had probably never heard of until days or maybe even hours before his death? Why had he, other Marines, and soldiers sailed on ships into the harbor at Incheon?
MacArthur’s daring plan at Incheon
In 1945 at the end of World War II, Japan gave up control of the Korean peninsula that it had conquered years before. The Soviets occupied the North and the United States took control of the South.
North Korea attacked South Korea with an overpowering force of tanks and troops on June 25, 1950. Three days later, the capital of South Korea, Seoul, fell to the enemy. Two days later, President Harry Truman ordered U.S. ground troops into Korea, rushing U.S. forces in from Japan. A sudden surprise war ensued, and Americans began to bleed and die in a faraway land to try to stop Communist aggression.
Initially, they could not stop it. Pushed back down the Korean peninsula after their scrambled rush into battle, Americans, South Koreans and a smattering of United Nations allies grimly held a pocket at the bottom of the peninsula that came to be called the “Pusan Perimeter.” Bloody days, bad days, but they refused to be pushed into the sea. They held until they grew stronger with experience, incoming supplies, and increasing troop strength. They grew strong enough for Gen. Douglas MacArthur to launch an invasion of Incheon from the sea over 150 miles behind enemy lines.
Almost none of the military higher-ups believed that an amphibious invasion at Incheon was a good idea. Only 70-year-old MacArthur, a legendary leader in World War I, a commander in World War II, and now in command of United Nations Forces in Korea, believed it possible. He conceived it. By force of will he convinced others of its probable success.
The harbor at the port city of Incheon was an unlikely place to have an invasion because of the difficulty of alternating high and low tides. An island fortress guarded the harbor. Mudflats at low tide and a 16-foot-high seawall of rocks further complicated getting troops ashore.
Thousands of troops on ships readied themselves, poised to pounce on Incheon, awaiting Gen. MacArthur’s order to begin the invasion. American planes prowled the sky over Incheon to lend support to the infantry. MacArthur gave the order from his command ship and watched in the early dawn the flashes of flame from the guns of the big ships, lobbing shells of death and destruction toward Incheon before the landing craft left the protective sides of their mother ships.
A battalion of Marines took a major part of the island fortress on the morning of Sept. 15, 1950, and watched the Navy ships sail out to avoid low tide. When the tide shifted again the main invasion force came ashore.
When the 1st Marine Division had secured the beachhead, the Army 7th Division and South Koreans, held in reserve on the ships, came ashore. After the city of Incheon was taken, the drive of about 20 miles to Seoul began.
Incheon was a complete military success and a crowning achievement of MacArthur’s long military career. Casualties were considered “light” at Incheon. But it depends on where the count for Incheon is stopped and the drive for Seoul begins.
Americans died in increasing numbers as they took Kimpo airfield, fought their way into Seoul and took Seoul away from the enemy in fierce street-to-street fighting that lasted for days.
The war he did not witness
Whether the casualties were called “light” or “heavy,” the young Marine “who gave his life at Inchon” was no longer a participant in the war. He never saw the victorious advance into North Korea that took his buddies almost to the border of Communist China. He never saw the hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers who quietly poured across the border from China and attacked in mass waves, blowing tin-sounding bugles, relentlessly trying to destroy the Marines on one side of the Chasin Reservoir and the soldiers on the other side.
He never experienced the freezing, fighting retreat that brought his buddies out of North Korea after fighting Chinese soldiers and frostbite along the narrow mountain road. The Marines brought their frozen dead with them; they were still Marines and they were not left behind.
The young Marine who gave his life at Incheon never wondered about the firing of Gen. MacArthur by President Truman because MacArthur wanted to bomb into China, possibly even using atomic bombs. The young Marine never experienced the stalemate and the peace talks that dragged on and on while hordes of Chinese Communist troops and North Koreans tried to take South Korea but could not.
Three years of fighting and it ended almost where it had begun, with neither side gaining absolute victory. It was a truce, not a surrender or a peace treaty. It was a pause in a war that could be renewed at any time.
Did your death in battle serve a purpose, young Marine? Some would say, “Yes.” Others would say, “No.” The Korean War showed Communist countries that Communist aggression would be met by force of arms. Millions of South Koreans today only have to look north to know that your sacrifice made a tremendous difference in their lives.
It is sometimes glibly said that there are no winners in wars, only losers. That is not true. It would have been a different world if Adolph Hitler had won World War II. In all of America’s wars, it would have been a different world if the American flag had gone down.
Your war, young Marine, made a difference because it jarred American armed forces from the complacency they had fallen into after World War II. The United States had been lulled into the fact that the United States would use the atomic bomb to ward off aggressors; therefore, there would be no aggressors.
Our resolve
Korea awakened America to the fact that flesh and blood would be needed to preserve freedom. You were hastily thrown into battle in an array of military forces that were scraped together as quickly as possible. You and your buddies responded to the challenge admirably. For the next seven decades, America did not let down its guard. America’s “peacetime” military was formidable. Just a few years after Korea, Americans started bleeding and dying in a war in Vietnam.
Vietnam did not end the way the United States wanted it to end, but it showed American resolve, in spite of social conflict in America. If Americans were willing to die for years in a place like Vietnam, Americans were serious about trying to create a world that offered freedom and security for its inhabitants.
The Cold War, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Iraq, the War on Terrorism … young Americans bleed and die. The price of freedom is always high; it has been so in the past; it is so now; it will always be so.
As Americans, we owe eternal gratitude to those who have paid, those who are paying, and those who will pay the cost of freedom.
Young Marine, who gave your life at Incheon, rest in the glory and knowledge that other young Americans are upholding the torch of freedom.
We thank you and them for giving the most precious gift of all, life in service to our country.
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John Dellinger is a retired high school history teacher and the author of a number of articles in magazines, including World War II, Vietnam, Wild West, and Military History. He joined the Marine Corps at the age of 17 and served with Test Unit #1 from 1954 to 1957, attaining the rank of sergeant. He participated in atomic bomb testing in Nevada.
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