"Generally, people were disinterested in what they didn’t consider as a war, but as a police action.” 

(Kwon)

 Many Americans were opposed to the war in Korea. One reason was weariness following the heavy casualties suffered in World War II. Many felt the United States did not have a responsibility to intervene in Korea, some felt that it was not our responsibility to be the world's "policemen" (Kwon).

                                                                                         THEN CAME KOREA
"When the American public learned that North Korea had invaded South Korea there wasn't much emotion shown. After all, who cared about Korea, we had no real political involvement there. Besides, it was a very small area which we could crush in a week. Most had not even heard of it. We had a small number of troops in South Korea and very shortly they were in danger of being pushed back into the ocean, an embarrassing thought. It would take time to send troops, and pretty soon it was panic time. A defeat was unthinkable. The United States completely underestimated the capability and determination of the North Koreans. The story is well known and I will not write a book here on the Korean War. Briefly: Truman placed General MacArthur in charge, and an immediate controversial relationship arose between the two. MacArthur wanted to drop the bomb, Truman was afraid it would lead to World War III. As our troops approached the Yalu River, hundreds of thousands Chinese troops rushed across the border attacking our forces. Russia was making menacing threats and the possibility of us fighting China and Russia was unthinkable. For the first time United States forces were outnumbered and forced to retreat. The final ending was an insulting defeat for us as we had to accept a negotiated ending. This defeat was hard to swallow, because the U.S. had obviously made a costly misjudgment, embarrassing to this day."

Quote from a Korean War Veteran (Mayo)

Cost of War and the Amount of Casualties of U.S. Troops

A rough approximation of the incremental costs of American intervention in Korea, from FY1951-53; in today's dollars, were $678 billion including the following:

• Directly linked to Korea: $390 billion
• Mixed costs (Korea & the general defense buildup): $216 billion
• Indirect/Related Costs: $72 billion

U.S. Troops Statistics
Source: Dept. of Defense
U.S. Deaths:
Hostile: 33,739
Non-Hostile: 2,835
Total In-Theater: 36,574
U.S. Wounded in Action - 103,284

("Topics - Cost of the Korean").

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