HAUNTED BY LIVES INTERRUPTED DESPITE A HALF CENTURY OF U.S. LIFE, EMIGRES STILL WAIT, WONDER.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

With her health failing, 74-year-old Song Bok Soon of North Hills would like to finally make peace with a chapter of her life that goes back a half-century to the Korean War.

Like so many other Korean-Americans of her age, many of whom are now grandparents and great-grandparents, Song is haunted by what was left unfinished.

``It's not a good memory. I want to forget it but it comes out in nightmares,'' said Song, a frail, petite woman whose face is etched with wrinkles that testify to a lifetime of hardships.

The Korean War ended 50 years ago today with a cease-fire, but closure seems as far out of reach as ever for those who lived through and fought in the so-called ``Forgotten War.''

The peninsula remains divided by a demilitarized zone, preventing family reunification between North and South Koreans. Many Korean families still don't know the fate of relatives conscripted to fight on either side of the conflict.

Worse yet, the threat of war lingers as tension escalates between the United States and North Korea, which has boldly declared its intentions to build nuclear weapons.

``I pray every morning for Korea to be reunited without war,'' Song said through a translator during a recent interview. ``We don't want to see war happen over there.''

Thousands of Koreans fled to the United States in the wake of the war, creating a new life for themselves and their families. More than 91,000 Koreans now live in Los Angeles, including 19,500 in the San Fernando Valley. Many still have strong ties to their homeland.

When the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, Song Bok Soon was just 21 - a young mother married to a prosperous North Korean farmer with one son and two daughters.

Lee Heeman of Woodland Hills was a 15-year-old student from a South Korean family of seven children living in Seoul.

Samuel Oh of Porter Ranch was a 19-year-old Seoul resident and the son of a Methodist minister at a Los Angeles church.

Lee Bum Euk was a 21-year-old farmer married with one child, also living in South Korea.

For the four San Fernando Valley immigrants, the war resulted in the death of a daughter, loss of brothers and lifelong family separations. They are tormented by traumatic memories that won't fade with time.

Song's husband refused to fight for the communist North, so he was beaten and became disabled. They lost their 4-year-old daughter during the war.

As bombs fell, the Song family hid underground and in the mountains. With the help of U.S. troops, they later fled south, piling their elders and belongings on an ox-driven cart.

``We could have died - the whole family. The U.S. Army saved our lives,'' Song said. ``Thank God, to have the U.S. Army in Korea.''

Song had hoped to return to her hometown right after the war but never had the chance. What was supposed to be a temporary move to the South turned into a lifelong separation from her North Korean relatives.

``We never heard any news of who lived, who died,'' said Song, who longs to visit her hometown, which is just north of the line that divides her country today.

``I miss it so badly,'' she said, her face contorted by emotions. ``There is no word to express that feeling enough to tell.''

Today, Samuel Oh and Lee Heeman also wonder what happened to their brothers. At the outbreak of the war, Oh, the eldest of four children, and a younger brother enlisted with the South Korean army to fight the communists.

Oh, whose father worked for the counterintelligence corps of the U.S. Army, grew up staunchly pro-American and was nicknamed USA by his classmates.

Lee Heeman's brother, who was 18 or 19 at the time, was conscripted to defend the South as was Lee Bum Euk, who went into combat with no training.

Both Oh and Lee Heeman's brothers are missing in action.

``There are many missing people,'' said Lee. ``We don't get any information from North Korea. There is no cooperation at all.''

Since the end of the Korean War, the equivalent of the Berlin Wall has been erected between North and South Korea in the form of a demilitarized zone - a 2 1/2-mile buffer zone heavily patrolled by American forces on one side and North Korean forces on the other.

Ruled by a communist dictatorship, North Koreans are cut off from the rest of the world.

Oh last saw his brother, who was just a year younger, in a brief family reunion in 1951 during a lull in the war. It was shortly after Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed in Inchon on the northwest coast of South Korea, beating back enemy forces with a surprise attack.

``The Chinese had to pull back. The North Koreans had to pull back. We briefly came back home. That's the last time I saw him,'' said Oh.

Oh's parents were originally from North Korea, and some of their North Korean relatives came down to the South during the war, but Oh has since lost track of them.

``We saw them last in 1951. They were alive and healthy at the time,'' said Oh, who was one of a lucky few who left Korea during the war to come to the United States on a student visa.

Over the years, Oh and Lee had both tried to find out what happened to their missing relatives. Lee contacted the American Red Cross, but got no response.

While on a tour of China in 1995, Oh wrote to his North Korean relatives to let them know he was living in America and asked if his brother was with them.

He hoped a letter coming out of communist China would have a better chance of getting through. He didn't put a return address on the letter to keep it from getting intercepted.

``I don't know if they received it or not,'' Oh said. ``I briefly mentioned my brother's name. I hope he's well and healthy. Maybe he shed his (military) uniform and joined the family in the North.''

Sometimes, Oh, who fought on the front lines for 18 months, and Lee Bum Euk, who served the duration of the war, are tormented by what ifs: what if MacArthur had been allowed by then-President Harry S. Truman to continue the war until the communists were defeated and ousted from power?

On April 11, 1951, Truman dismissed MacArthur from all of his commands because the general favored ``all-out measures'' to achieve total victory, but the president feared escalating violence would lead to World War III.

Foreshadowing the Cold War, the communist Chinese and Russians joined the war on the side of the North Koreans, while the United States led the South Korean counter-offensive with aid from 15 United Nations countries.

A year and a half after MacArthur was replaced, the allied forces and the communists signed an armistice on July 27, 1953. As part of the truce, a buffer zone was created along the final battle line, dividing North and South Korea.

``That is a big mistake of the United States,'' said Lee Bum Euk through a translator during a recent interview. ``I was not ready for cease-fire.''

Although he faced death countless times during the war, he said he was prepared to fight all the way to the Yalu River at the northern end of Korea near the border with China and Russia.

Oh shares Lee Bum Euk's sentiment.

``The day Truman fired MacArthur, the Chinese crossed the Yalu River,'' he said. ``If he didn't fire MacArthur, the Korean War probably would have ended then.''

Nevertheless, all four Korean immigrants today express deep gratitude for what America has done for their country and the opportunities they and their children have enjoyed here.

Since the early 1980s, Lee Heeman has been making small donations to veterans groups, as well as giving his time to community service.

``Without the United States, South Korea would be completely controlled by Communists, just like North Korea,'' he said.

On Saturday, he attended a Veterans of Foreign Wars memorial service in Canoga Park to honor fallen South Korean and American soldiers who served in the Korean War.

Some of the war survivors proudly noted they are American citizens and their children are doctors, lawyers and pharmacists with degrees from some of this country's best universities.

``This is a wonderful country to live,'' Oh said, over and over again. ``United States is the best country to live in this world.''

Helen Gao, [phone]

helen.gao(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Heeman Lee of Woodland Hills, right, attending a VFW commemorative service on Saturday, was a 15-year-old living in Seoul when the Korean War broke out in 1950.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(2 -- 3 -- color) Samuel Oh, left, was 19 when the Korean War broke out and he joined the South to fight the invaders. Song Bok Soon, right, fled Korea with her family. Standing behind her is Lee Bum Euk, who was a 21-year-old farmer with a family when he left to fight in the war.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

John Lazar/Staff Photographer