At the 2026 State of the Union, President Donald Trump awarded the Medal of Honor to 100-year-old Korean War veteran Royce Williams. In 1952, South Dakota native Williams, then 27 and serving in Korea, engaged seven and downed four Soviet MiG‑15s in a 35‑minute dogfight while flying an F9F‑5 Panther, the longest aerial battle in U.S. Navy history. The Pentagon kept Williams’s aerial accomplishment secret for fear of escalating Russian involvement in the Korean War.The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when communist troops from the North invaded the South. The Armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, after an estimated 4 million deaths, including 36,574 U.S. military personnel. Why did Williams and thousands of other Americans fight in Korea?In a July 1957 essay, Eric Sevareid (1912-1992) had observations on the Korean War and Americans. Sevareid was a journalist with CBS News from 1939 to 1977. He reported from Europe during World War II and commented on the Korean and Vietnam Wars from Washington.
THE BACKGROUND THAT MADE THE REVOLUTION POSSIBLEFor CBS News Radio, Sevareid’s commentary was broadcast at 9:55 p.m. on weeknights. He described these broadcasts as “capsule commentaries on the American scene.” He published some of the commentaries in two book collections. In One Ear was published in 1952. The beautifully titled Small Sounds in the Night was published in 1956.In Small Sounds in the Night, a collection of 124 broadcast commentaries, Sevareid’s topics included the Korean War and the Truman and Eisenhower White Houses. In his “Why Did They Fight?” broadcast on July 27, 1953, Sevareid made some observations worth recalling.“The achievements of this war,” Sevareid wrote, “may be very great indeed, but they lie in the realm of what might have been had not we fought.” American families who lost loved ones in Korea, Sevareid wrote, “are conscious of what might have been” due to “an empty chair at the dinner table.”Sevareid said the big mystery of the Korean War was “what made American youngsters fight so hard, so long, and so well in this kind of war.” What made men like Royce Williams display such courage?“[T]hey have bled and died in the mud and the stones of that bleak and incomprehensible land, in full knowledge that half their countrymen at home were too bored with it all to give the daily casualty lists a second glance,” Sevareid wrote. Soldiers in Korea were “living the worst life they had ever known” while their countrymen “were living their best, and most prosperous life they had ever known.” “And they fought on with no particular bitterness,” he wrote.When American soldiers “saw emaciated Korean children,” they gave them food, comfort, and medical attention. “Why have these youths behaved magnificently?” Sevareid asked. The professionalism of the U.S. military was only part of the answer. There was more. There was something else.“The rest of it lies very deep in the heart and tissues of this American life,” Sevareid wrote, “and none of us can unravel all the threads of it.” Parental and religious upbringing, public school education, 4-H, scout troops, and community centers were some of the “threads” Sevareid mentioned. There was more.MENDING BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS: A FOURTH OF JULY STORY“[I]t also has to do with their implicit, unreasoned belief in their country, and their natural belief in themselves as individual men upon the earth,” he wrote. “Whatever is responsible, their behavior in this undefinable, unrewarded war outmatches … the behavior of those Americans who fought in the definable wars of certainty and victory.”Sevareid’s analysis of why Americans fought in Korea might offer some comfort to Korean War veterans and their families. Sevareid might help Americans to better understand why Williams and others fought. The courage of Williams and the words of Sevareid might help us to understand an earlier time in our American life.James Patterson is a writer based in the Washington, D.C. area.
