Pearl Harbor has its day.

Pacific battles such as Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa have their commemorations.

The 100th Infantry Battalion — the "One Puka Puka" — and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, drawn heavily from Hawai'i, have a revered place in history.

Local combat vets who served in the Korean War have Like Like Drive Inn, and one another.

Every Tuesday morning, the aging warriors of the Korean War Veterans Association, Chapter 1, gather at the Ke'eaumoku Street restaurant to shoot the breeze, flirt with the waitresses, and collectively keep at bay the demons of war in which waves of Communist Chinese charge through their dreams.

Fifty-five years after the end of the 1950-53 conflict termed a "police action" by the U.S., Korea remains a forgotten war whose sacrifice gets lost between the global significance of World War II and the social upheaval of Vietnam.

The nation has more recent wars to worry about in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Korea vets don't have a clubhouse. Some still struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. And they feel slighted by history.

As they, too, start to die off with old age like their World War II brethren, breakfast at Like Like and each other's company is probably the last and best therapy, tonic and affirmation they will ever receive.

Club president Charles W. Aresta was in usual form at a recent get-together of about 20 of the vets.

"This bugga' here, lost his brother in the Korean War. He's an Air Force bastard," Aresta, 78, said of Herb Schreiner.

"Listen, when you guys were bogged down on a hill, you would call us to come and help out," Schreiner, 79, shot back. "So we would fly over and drop the napalm so they could move forward."

"Drop bombs from 14,000 feet and head to Japan for rest and recuperation," Aresta added.

"See what I have to put up with?" replied Schreiner, as both bellowed and smiled from ear to ear.

LITTLE MEDIA PLAY

Allan R. Millett, a University of New Orleans professor and author whose books include, "Their War for Korea," and "A House Burning: The War for Korea," said the conflict doesn't get the media play that World War II does.

"When has there been a Korean War movie made recently?" he said. "The answer is none, not since the 1960s, probably."

Hawai'i's losses in Korea — 456 — were the highest per capita for all states and territories.

The survivors' war experiences were as grim as any who have been in battle.

From 1950 to 1952, "Charlie" Aresta was in graves registration, collecting and identifying bodies for transport out of Korea. The U.S. had 36,516 dead in the war. A total of 8,100 are still missing.

"They will never tell you this, but everyone was scared — especially when the Chinese came in," said Aresta, who left Farrington High School in 1947 to enter the Army.

Chinese soldiers crossed the Yalu River in October 1950, encircling United Nations forces in North Korea. At the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, 30,000 United Nations troops faced 120,000 Chinese in the freezing weather of late November and early December.

The Chinese liked to attack at night and close in on a troop position with superior numbers.

The 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, which had deployed to Korea in July 1950, was among the units forced south. Many of the local boys who ended up in Korea had gone through basic training at Schofield.

Lucio Sanico, 84, remembered that when the Chinese surrounded their position, a company commander told him and some other soldiers to get into a Jeep, and they were able to escape.

Out of 270 soldiers, "only 12 came out alive," Sanico said.

He remembers that it "was about 30 below zero" and the blowing trumpets that meant the Chinese were coming.

Nick Nishimoto, who was captured, spent 33 months as a prisoner of war in North Korea. He was fed wheat and barley infested with worms. When his friend Albert Chang died, Nishimoto buried him on a hillside.

Those stories don't often come up at breakfast.

"The funny thing is, we don't talk about war stories. We talk about women," Sanico said.

But he also says, "I've got to get it out. I can't hold it in," as reminders of the past played in a grimace on his face.

Sanico, who went to 'Aiea Middle School but then stopped school to help his dad support 12 kids, said he still has PTSD and trouble sleeping.

"To this day, I feel kind of guilty because I wasn't taken prisoner with the rest of my buddies," he said.

David Higa has a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Mitsuo Imai was wounded three times.

"We did the same thing as the people in the 100th Infantry did, or the 442nd did," said Mike Inouye, 79, a 1947 graduate of McKinley High. "Only thing, we was behind the eight-ball because we just never been mentioned."

Inouye was in Korea three weeks after the war started in 1950.

"We were there when everything was kinda rough," he said. "We didn't have enough ammo, we didn't have enough food. They really didn't know what the left hand was telling the right hand."

SMALL IMPACT

The war and the fighting in stifling summer heat and frigid winter conditions just never had the impact on history that World War II did.

"(The Korean War) is damn important to the Koreans, but let's face it, in our history, it's not all that significant," said Millett, the University of New Orleans professor, who also teaches in the summer at Hawai'i Pacific University. "They (Korean War vets) just happened to be caught up in a war in which the impact on American politics and society was pretty muted."

A Korean War memorial was dedicated in 1994 on the state Capitol grounds, and the Korean War Veterans Association tries to tell its story in local high schools.

The Like Like bunch started meeting in 1989. A smaller group of the vets meets on Mondays in Kane'ohe, and a group of Korean nationals from the war meet down the street.

"Two became three, and three became four, and now, we've got over 20 people coming every Tuesday," Francis Yasutake, 77, said of the Like Like crowd.

Yasutake, who was in a hospital in Japan for three months, found out fellow vet Tommy Tanaka was there nine months earlier.

"We knew the same nurses. We were there at different times, but we could talk about the people there," Yasutake said.

"We're just like brothers here (at Like Like)," Tanaka added.

SHARING STORIES

At a long table in the back, they share veterans benefits stories, aches and pains, and information on who is in the hospital.

Nishimoto, who was in a North Korean POW camp for nearly three years, had to leave the breakfast get-together for a dialysis appointment.

The club said three of its members — Shermaih Iaea Jr., Lawrence Uruu and James Akau — died in the past six months.

The vets experienced a war more than 55 years ago that forever changed and bonded their lives.

Yasutake, a Kalihi boy, remembers firing at the enemy one minute and then being on a stretcher the next. He found out he suffered a concussion from an exploding shell.

After living in bunkers and making a bed atop ammo cans, Yasutake was evacuated on a train and he still vividly remembers the simple comforts of a bed with springs, the smell of clean cotton sheets and the nurses' perfume.

"You don't know what you have, how good you have it, till it's gone," he said.