It’s a small country on the other side of the world that doesn’t seem to have much that requires the shedding of Canadian blood to defend it, and it isn’t Afghanistan but another country that 60 years ago Canadians were called on for what seemed to be another unwinnable war.

It was June 25, 1950 when North Korean forces crossed the border and invaded South Korea. Within a few weeks, Canadian warships were engaged in operations off the coast of Korea, followed by troops on the ground within a few months.

The invasion triggered three years of war that not only looked difficult to win, but at many times looked like it would be a complete defeat, when United Nations Forces held more than a few square miles of the country.

The war also looked dark late in 1950 when millions of Chinese soldiers crossed the border and the next three years saw a series of grinding battles on hills marked only by numbers.

By the time of a 1953 truce, over 25,000 Canadians had served on the ground, at sea and in the air with the war claiming the lives of 516 of them.

Today, the two halves of Korea continue to stare at each other over the 38th parallel, while clinging to the truce which ended the fighting but not the war.

The situation remains tense and capable of flaring at any time as was recently shown with the sinking of a South Korean frigate, with North Korea suspected of having sunk it.

Sixty years on, the question, as in any war, is asked whether it was worth it, just as the question is asked about Afghanistan today.

Every Canadian who served in Korea would have their own opinion, as do the families of every one of the 516 Canadians who can’t speak for themselves.

But on both sides of the Korean border, the results of the war can’t be clearer.

On one side, fifty million South Koreans live in peace, freedom and economic prosperity, while to the north, 22 million North Koreans, who, if they were allowed to speak, would describe the economic misery of living in one of the worst slave states on earth.

Afghanistan may indeed not be winnable, or even worthwhile if it is, but Koreans could advise us of the benefit of not judging history while standing in the middle of it.