From Bruce Cumings, _War and Television_ (NY: Verso, 1992):
***** I suppose the response to our film [_Korea: The Unknown War_] that I found most gratifying came from Bill Stokes, columnist for the _Chicago Tribune_. The documentary got him musing about some letters sent home by a Marine in Korea in 1952. The letters overflowed with patriotic and heroic longings, written by 'a naive, uncertain boy, as obedient to authority as a circus dog.' The enemy was 'dehumanized into "gooks" and "chinks."' Stokes contrasted the 'mawkish absurdities' in the letters with the experience of Vietnam: 'hadn't the napalm in Korea burned as deeply? Hadn't our purpose been as confused, our tactics as heavy-handed, and our killer roles as mechanical?' The letters, he said, left him with 'a monumental sadness.' They were his letters.[385]
[385] Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1990 *****
A moving story, well told, except that 'our purpose' was not really 'confused.'
Yoshie