More than 132,000 Wisconsin military people served in the Korean War. Of these, 747 died and 84 are still listed as missing. Some 4,286 Wisconsin residents were wounded in the conflict. Five received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Four of them died in combat.

Some call it the "forgotten war." Those who served, and their families, haven't forgotten.

So the publication of "Wisconsin Korean War Stories: Veterans Tell Their Stories from the Forgotten War" by Sarah A. Larsen and Jennifer M. Miller (Wisconsin Historical Society Press: $24.95) is a welcome addition to state lore.

Among those stories are those told by Darrell Krenz, Madison, who served with the 24th Infantry Division of the Army and who was captured by the North Koreans.

"They immediately took our shoes off and our shirts and then stripped our pockets and took our money. I made the mistake of having a South Korean flag in my pocket. That really ticked the North Korean guard off. He put his burp gun to my head and was ready to pull the trigger. I could almost see it. I said good-bye to my family and my little sister."

He, obviously, did not die. But stories like that remind us of how much we owe those who fight in our name. Krenz later writes about returning home and dreaming about captivity: "I wake up sometimes at night just hitting the wall."

Ray Hendrikse, Monona, writes about being part of a force of 22 tanks, all but three of which were destroyed by antitank mines.

Madison's Robert Kimbrough, an emeritus UW-Madison English professor, joined the Marine Corps to "prove myself a man by fighting for my country and for the United Nations."

He was hit three times and felled by a concussion grenade but kept going back to his unit. In the end, the experience soured him on war as a vehicle for change.

"Our war was a phony thing but people got killed and wounded,'' he says. "One of my sergeants got his arm blown off when we were out on patrol one night. I had a kid whose legs got knocked off and, of course, people died. War is not the way to settle anything internationally. It's a crude way of getting your own way."