Commemorations marking half a century since hostilities that ended this weekend are tinged with extra sadness, as it will be perhaps the final time that many veterans, now into their 70s and 80s, will gather in large numbers.

An ominous cloud hangs over the anniversary -- as new tensions between North Korea and the United States have stirred painful memories among veterans -- who know only too well, the terrible price of war on the peninsula.

The thoughts of many veterans who will gather at the MCI Center Arena here and at other venues around the United States are with soldiers in the US garrison of 37,000 in Korea stationed between Seoul and the demilitarized zone, on the very same ground they fought over 50 years ago.

"Most of the Korean veterans are very bitter, including myself, because nobody recognises what they did as being very important," said John Connolly, who fought with the 23rd Infantry Regiment, the 2nd Infantry Division.

"People didn't even know the Korean War was going on. They didn't know anything about it," he said, remembering how he returned to the United States after losing an arm in combat.

Sandwiched in time between World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War merits only passing mention in US school text books.

Yet it remains one of the most blood-soaked foreign conflicts in US history, with nearly 37,000 US and allied troops wiped out along with hundreds of thousands of Chinese, South Korean and North Korean troops and civilians.

The conflict, between communist forces in the North backed by China and a US-supported army in the South was never ended by a formal peace treaty, and still simmers to this day.

In retrospect it was an early stand by the West against communism, one of the first skirmishes of the Cold War.

US veterans remember a fierce conflict, fought out in the peninusla's seasonal extreme heat and bitter cold, punctuated by anxiety over substandard equipment. Guns often jammed, and ammunition sometimes failed to go off.

But the sacrifice of the troops, a mix of battle-hardened veterans of World War II, or fresh-faced teenagers who had just joined up, went unrecognised for decades.

Only belatedly has the US government and public tried to make amends.

The Korean War Veterans' memorial, a haunting tableau in which 19 steel statues of cloaked soldiers march grimly on to an unknown destination, was opened on Washington's National Mall in 1995.

And on behalf of all Americans, then-president Bill Clinton tried to make amends at the start of the Korean War 50th anniversary celebrations three years ago.

On a sun-scorched day, in front of hundreds of veterans, Clinton paid the most fulsome tribute yet to veterans, drawing a direct line between their sacrifice and the eventual end of the Cold War.

"Because we stood our ground in Korea, the Soviet Union drew a clear lesson that America would fight for freedom," he said.

"It is not a stretch to draw the line of history straight from those brave soldiers who stood their ground on ridge lines in Korea 50 years ago to the wonderfully happy young people who stood and celebrated on the Berlin Wall."

But still, as the ranks of ageing veterans begins to thin, survivors cannot shake the thought that they have been forgotten.

"I think a lot of them are afraid that July 27 will end any involvement by the US government in their particular part of history," said Hal Barker, son of a Korean war veteran, who maintains the largest unofficial archive of the war, The Korean War Project, a website stuffed with reminiscences and memorials to fallen soldiers.

A Pentagon unit, set up to run commemorations of the 1950-1953 war will wind up operations later this year, many veterans group activities are expected to tail off.

"The whole concept of Korean war veterans is going to end here this weekend," said Barker.

Ironically, those fears conincide with the highest spike in tensions across the 38th parallel between North and South Korea in years, as the United States tries to frustrate Pyongayng's drive for nuclear weapons.

WAR.WIRE