Therese Park

Throughout history, men with a sense of obligation did great deeds for mankind. The Honor Flight Network is no exception. Today the national organization has 114 chapters and sub organizations all dedicated to taking veterans--mostly WWII and Korean War veterans--to Washington D.C. to tour the Memorial Park, which is built to honor their armed services. But when it started in Ohio in May, 2005, a few volunteer pilots flew twelve World WWII veterans to Washington D.C. in six small private planes.

Locally, Gary Swanson--a retired IBM employee, who received recognition for interviewing more than 1,000 WWII veterans and recording their battle experiences for the Library of Congress-- launched the first Heartland Honor Flight in Overland Park under "Kansas City Metro Honor Flight" in 2008 and served three years as the president. His successor, a Lee's Summit resident, Jerry Ameling, changed the name to "Heartland", and "advanced" it to another level by involving more volunteers and with vigorous fundraising efforts.
"Our first flight in May 2008 was possible because of a well-respected local community leader named Norman Polsky who donated $20,000 to cover the cost," Swanson said. "He died in 2011, but his family still donates for the cause that Polsky and his wife Elaine strongly believed." He also mentioned a few others who have been giving money or other gifts to make the Honor Flight possible for the past six years, including John Doole, an entrepreneur who, with his wife, owns a company that makes uniforms for various national sport events around the country.
Swanson fondly remembered the day he met John Doole in early 2008. It was some time before the first Honor Flight took off to Washington D.C. with 44 veterans and 12 guardians. "I went to see him because the veterans needed some sort of travel uniforms with our logos on, including baseball caps, so that they could be recognized, and someone gave me his name," Swanson said.
"I was a bit surprised that John Doole was a young man about 40 years old. But I told him anyway--what we needed and when, and asked him to give me an estimate. John smiled and said he'll make them for free! I said, 'John, we have money. Don't feel that you have to donate them to us.'
"John was dead serious! He said that he'll be happy to provide the travel outfits for those who fought for our country! I was speechless. Then, I knew I was meeting our future president! Last year we elected him as our third president."
Swanson introduced me to John Doole a few days ago, at a coffee shop. Doole's "sense of obligation" toward those who served in the U.S. armed forces in their youth was obvious as he talked.

"What we do is all about showing our gratitude to those who fought for our freedom," Doole began with a certain pride. "Most of the veterans never heard anyone thanking them for their sacrifices after the first 'welcome home' ceremony, even those who returned with injuries or severe Post Trauma Syndrome from their battle experiences."

A Korean-American, who witnessed American troop's sacrifices in our country six decades ago and learned what freedom means to people at a young age, I saw a chance to put in a few words here, so I told him that the Korean War veterans had even more difficult time than WWII veterans, because the war ended without a peace treaty, and two Koreas were still worst enemies when they returned.

That's why, Doole said, the Honor Flight is all the more important to the veterans, because "the trip to Washington D.C. gives them a sense of closure to their troubling memories."
He proudly said that Heartland Honor Flight will make its 12th trip to the capital on October 7th with about 90 veterans--50 from WWII and 40 from the Korean War--and they will have everything they need--wheelchairs and wheelchair-lifters, a medical team with a physician, nurses, and Emergency Technicians, and guardians who do everything to make them comfortable during the flight as well as the ground tour in Washington, D.C..
I recalled listening to a Korean War veteran, Dale Kuhn, at Matt Ross Community Center last May when he shared his flight experience to Washington, D.C. with about 100 veterans, both World War II and The Korean War. The program was presented by Gary Swanson.
"I cried so much...." Kuhn said. "It was the most memorable trip I've made…The men who I traveled with could have been my combat buddies during my 11 months and 29 days in Korea, including the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the freezing weather. By the way, I lost two toes to frostbite, among other things… (During the trip) we veterans shared what we went through, both in Korea and after we returned… I must tell you; every non-veteran on the trip with us were superb; they were truly dedicated to making the trip safe and memorable for us."
Who said a nation's conscience can be measured by the way its people treat their old soldiers?

In February each year, we hear about men who changed the old “whites-only America” to the “all-color America” we live in today.
Black History Month began in 1926 when a black historian named Carter G. Woodson designated the second week of February as “Negro History Week.” He chose that week because it marked the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, a former slave who marched on the front line of the abolition of slavery. Half a century later, in the bicentennial year of 1976, the observance was expanded to Black History Month. President Gerald Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is probably one of the most powerful black leaders who awakened the conscience of America in racial issues, but long before him, growing up in Korea, I became acquainted with Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Might Korea’s long slavery to Imperial Japan from 1905 to 1945 have helped me understand Uncle Tom’s sorrow-filled life? It’s possible.
Shortly afterwards, the North Korean Communists invaded South Korea with Russian tanks, and we actually saw many black soldiers along with white soldiers who came to defend us. Korea had been so isolated from the rest of the world for so long that people treated all foreigners with suspicion and distrust, but their attitude toward black soldiers was worse. When a native woman was raped by a white soldier, the media ignored it because we were on the receiving end of America’s generosity. But when the rapist was a black soldier, it was a big deal; we read and heard about the news. More black infants born to the native women showed up in orphanages than white ones.
In late July 1950, a U.S. battalion combat team, including the 24th Infantry Regiment, which was made up entirely of black soldiers, recaptured the enemy-occupied town of Yechon and made big news both in Korea and in the States. It was one of the most successful offensive operations, and it allowed the U.N. Forces time to build a strong defense line called Pusan Perimeter along Nakdong River. A year later, in October 1951, the 24th Infantry Regiment was disbanded, ending long segregation in the U.S. military. Over the following two years, until the truce of 1953, hundreds of black soldiers held command positions in the infantry as well as in air units. This historic event happened in Korea.
Now, without a physical wall between white and black soldiers, mistrust settled in. White officers spread rumors that blacks would abandon any injured white officer on the battleground in cold blood, therefore shouldn’t be trusted. A black chaplain was accused of dampening black soldiers’ combat spirit by asking why men of color were forced to fight for white America. A black officer of a white unit was reassigned before combat because his subordinates didn’t respect him.
Still, many black officers proved their bravery through their exemplary conduct. Nearly 10 percent of the 54,000 fallen Americans were believed to be African Americans, though casualty records did not differentiate men’s race.
In spite of the fact that African-American soldiers did not receive the public recognition they deserved from their countrymen, we South Koreans are thankful to all Americans who delivered us freedom from the Communists. Since 1975, the South Korean government has been inviting their old heroes — of any race — to revisit the new Korea as guests of honor, paying all expenses, including the costs of lodging, meals, bus tours and entertainment, except half of their airfare. Since 2010, the program got even better. Now veterans’ spouses and companions get a 30 percent discount on their airfare, in addition to free stay.
Those who have participated in The Korean War Veterans Revisit program have expressed their awe at the new Korea and the warm hospitality they received. One veteran said to me, “We were treated like kings. Wherever we went, we were lavished with feasts and were showered with thanks. It was touching.”
I foresee that a few years down the road, we will see a segment of the Korean War on TV during Black History Month.

No Gum Sok escaped the communist regime on September 21, 1953, liberating the Russian-made MiG-15 he was in during the 16-plane patrol near Pyongyang undetected and landed at a military airfield manned by the United States Air Force at Kimpo near Seoul.

Recent news that Father Emil Kapaun's remains were identified in Hawaii stunned all those who had heard of him, including veteran and Catholic communities worldwide, as well as the Vatican where Father Kapaun received the title "Servant of God" by Pope John Paul II in 1993. He served as the Catholic chaplain in the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, during the Korean War (1950-1953). He died in POW Camp Five in North Korea on May 23, 1951. He was 35 years old.

It was previously believed that Father Kapaun had been buried in an unmarked grave by the Yalu River in North Korea, along with thousands of others deemed "unaccounted for."

But according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, who contacted Ray Kapaun (Father Kapaun's nephew), his remains had been buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii for decades. Thanks to modern medical technology, Chaplain Kapaun's dental records and DNA (provided by Ray's father Eugene, the younger brother of Father Kapaun) matched those of his remains.  

Many Americans first heard of Father Kapaun when President Barack Obama awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor on April 23, 2013, for the gallantry and bravery he showed to his comrades in combat, during what's known as the Battle of Unsan (Nov. 1-2, 1950). Ray Kapaun received the award for his uncle at the White House. The medal citation reads: "Chaplain Kapaun calmly walked through withering enemy fire in order to provide comfort and medical aid to his comrades and rescue [the] wounded from No-Man's Land."  

In September 1953, 60 years before Ray Kapaun received the award for his uncle, Father Kapaun's extraordinary courage and compassion for his comrades reverberated throughout the world as the result of a prisoner exchange in Panmunjom along the 38th Parallel after the war ended.

A Jewish man named Gerald Fink, who had never met Chaplain Kapaun, was so touched by what he heard about the late chaplain that he crossed the Bridge of No Return clutching a 4-foot-tall crucifix in his arms, which he himself had carved to honor and remember the chaplain. Today, this crucifix hangs on a wall at St. John Nepomucene Church in Pilsen, where Father Kapaun served as an altar boy, and later as a priest — three years as an associate pastor and a year as the pastor.  

Local Korean War Veterans Association Chapter 181 honored Father Kapaun by dedicating one of the red granite panels in the memorial at Lowell and 119th St. in Overland Park to him. The memorial bears the names of 415 sons of Kansas who never returned from that war.

The unveiling of the panel took place on Veteran's Day 2013. The guest speaker was Abbot Gregory Polan of Conception Seminary College in Conception, Missouri, where Father Kapaun studied for four years, preparing for the priesthood. Abbot Polan spoke eloquently about the "humble priest" who not only cared for his injured fellow Americans during the battle and in the North Korean POW camp, but also managed to show compassion to his captors.     

Abbot Polan said that Father Kapaun spent seven long months at POW Camp Five near the Yalu River, where the conditions were so terrible that 1,700 American soldiers died in the first six months. Yet Father Kapaun "displayed perseverance through prayer and dedication to his fellow inmates" and conducted prayer services, all the while disobeying the prison's rules. He talked about the chaplain's nightly visits to the shack where "his boys" were locked in, encouraging them and praying with them.

He volunteered for burial duties, Abbot Polan said, so he could remove the clothes from the deceased prisoners, wash them and give them to his fellow prisoners in need. 

Two years later, in the summer of 2016, Father Kapaun was honored again in his home state, this time by recreating the "Jeep Mass" that Father Kapaun had celebrated 66 years earlier in Korea. On Aug. 1, 2016, Father Peter Jaramillo, then pastor of St. John the Baptist, Holy Family and St. Mary-St. Anthony parishes in Kansas City, Kansas, who had served as an Army chaplain during the Iraq War, celebrated Mass on the hood of a jeep at Prairie Star Ranch in Williamsburg during an  archdiocesan summer youth camp.

Over 1,000 local residents were in attendance and reflected on the saintly priest's services to mankind. 

The news regarding Father Kapaun's remains will again spread his message to the world: "Love your brothers as Jesus has loved us!"

During his five-day visit to South Korea in May 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 Korean martyrs who gave their lives for their eternal Father rather than surrendering before their persecutors. This was the first canonization held outside of Rome in more than six hundred years. In his homily for the occasion, the Pope made these observations:ll

"The truth about Jesus Christ reached Korean soil in 1784. In a most marvelous way, Divine Grace moved your ancestors first to an intellectual quest for the truth of God's word and then to a living faith in the risen Christ. The splendid flowering of the Church in Korea today is indeed the fruit of the heroic witness of the martyrs. Even today, their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the North of this tragically divided land. The Church on Korean soil desires in a solemn way to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the gift of the redemption. To this lofty price, the price of redemption, your Church desires on the basis of the witness of the Korean martyrs to add an enduring witness of faith, hope, and charity."

Unlike the Church in most other countries, the Korean Catholic Church was founded by the laity. In the spring of 1784, a scholar, Sung-Huhn Lee, went to Peking as a member of the Korean delegation to China, and there, he was baptized by Fr. Alexander de Gouvea, a member of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, who later became bishop of the Peking Diocese. Though the Catholic Church entered in the Far East in the late 15th Century, Korea remained in the dark due to its own isolationism and allowed no foreigners.

The Koreans dreaded mixed marriages between themselves and foreigners, fearing that foreign blood would dilute the purity of their proud bloodlines and disturb their class system, a system strictly divided into upper, middle and lower classes and slaves and women. However, the volume entitled "The True Doctrine of God" written by Mateo Ricci, St. Xavier's successor in the Jesuit Society, was brought into the country on several occasions between 1644 and 1770 by Korean Cultural delegation to China.

It was through this route, on a yearly basis, that contact was made with Western missionaries in China. The True Doctrine of God, translated into Chinese, attracted many Korean scholars, who called Catholicism "The Western Thoughts." The book provided them freedom from the turmoil of the factional wrangling of politics and the social struggles of poverty and revolts. Their search for faith began with the prayer meetings and worship services suggested in the book.

Lee returned to Korea with many religious books and articles. Enriched with insights and deeper knowledge of the faith, he began to preach the Gospel without a priest. As the Catholic community grew and gathered regularly, the monarch became seriously concerned. In early 1785, worship services were prohibited by law. Thus the persecution began. Instead of diminishing, however, the number of Catholics increased. As the community grew, the members felt a great need for a priest to guide them.

A secret envoy was sent to Peking in 1789 to plead for a priest. Moved by the fervency of Korean Catholics' faith, Bishop Alexander de Gouvea granted their request by sending a Chinese priest, Fr. Moon-Mo Chu.

Fr. Chu arrived in Korea in late March of 1795. By then the Catholics numbered more than 4,000. Fr. Chu expanded the membership to about 10,000 over the next six years, until his martyrdom in 1801. His greatest accomplishment, however, was the establishment of Myong-Do Confraternity, a vigorous women's laity movement, which is still active today.

Two members, You-Il Youn and In-Gill Choi, were killed in May, 1795 accused of helping Fr. Chu enter the country. Along with Fr. Chu, over 300 members were killed.

Despite the oppression, the Church sustained its vitality, sending another secret messenger to Peking Diocese and many more to the Vatican, reporting the persecution and asking for shepherds for the endangered Korean Catholic flock. Pope Gregory XVI officially recognized the Korean Church in 1831, and commissioned the Paris Foreign Mission Society to tend the Korean believers.

Three French pioneers, who had served in China, arrived in Korea in 1836. They were Bishop Laurant Imbert, Fr. Pierre Maubant, and Fr. James Chastan. The missionaries were curious about the Korean Catholics who had founded their Church without a priest.

The missionaries lived in the house of a well-respected scholar, Ha-Sang Chung. Their greatest handicap in this hermit kingdom was their European appearances. To avoid to be noticed, they only preached at night, wearing the loosely fitting mourners' garbs and large brimmed straw hats. These first French missionaries recruited three Korean seminaries and helped them to study in Macao.

The monarch again felt threatened by the steadily growing number of Catholics. In 1839, the second persecution swept the country. The French missionaries were captured along with hundreds of Korean Catholics aged from 13 to 79.

The news of the second persecution reached Peking Diocese at no time. Soon afterwards, two French warships approached the Korean sea to inquire about the death of the French missionaries. Strangely enough, one ship hit a submerged rock and sank, and the other returned to France. More French missionaries arrived in 1850, and the Church continued to prosper.

In 1865, the Church had twelve French missionary priests and 23,000 members. The last and most virulent persecution in Korean history followed the next year, in 1866, during which nearly 10,000 Catholics and nine of the twelve French missionaries were executed. The remaining three missionaries fled to China.

The captured believers were treated cruelly by the persecutors. The government didn't have enough hands to handle the "criminals." The persecutors adopted simple expedient of letting the Catholics starve to death or were taken to a cliff of a mountain over-looking the Han River and were beheaded. Ever since, this mountain is called Juldoo (Behead) Mountain.

They also killed the Catholics by covering their faces with water-soaked rice paper until they died of suffocation. The persecution forced the Korean Catholics to abandon their social ranks, financial security, and even family ties. They scattered into deep mountains and remote shores, hiding their identities.

For early European Christians, accepting the faith was an invitation to persecution, starvation, and even death. It was the same for Koreans, too, but rarely anyone abandoned their faith. To survive, those who had been scholars, teachers, and landowners became servants, farmers, and refugees, often separated from their loving families. During their exile, many Catholics devoted themselves to learning new skills to survive.

Pottery was a common trademark for Catholic community, and growing tobacco was another. The mountain soil wasn't suitable for growing grain, and after years of unsuccessful farming, many turned to tobacco farming that required little water or labor. However, as the tobacco crops grew, prices slumped sharply. In 1845, supply of tobacco so far exceeded the demand that twenty French francs ($5 American dollar) could buy as much tobacco as two sturdy men could carry.

Finally, in 1886, a treaty with the French government guaranteed the status of French missionaries in Korea, and the freedom of religion was finally established. The persecution of nearly 90 years became the thing of the past. The stream of blood shed by the early Koreans as ransom for their faith and hope in God was finally staunched.

Because of the martyrs' sacrifices, today, there are three archdioceses--in Seoul, in Tae-gu, and Kwang-ju and fourteen other dioceses. 5.4 million are Catholics, out of 50 million South Koreans.

A vigorous laity still forms the nucleus of today's Church, and their ministry begins at home as they hold home and family to be the nucleus of the Christian community. The French Missionaries' contribution to the Korean Church was paramount.

Historians acknowledge that Catholicism introduced western civilization to Korea and also elevated common people's intellect. The early Catholics, many of whom were scholars, translated religious books written in Chinese script into Korean, which encouraged the common people to learn. Until then, education was forbidden for common or lowly people. The French missionaries not only taught the Gospels to the Korean flock but also the art of medicine, general hygiene, western cooking, and architectural techniques.

The Korean Church today thanks God for His gifts of faith, love, and redemption. It stands witness of what the second century author Tertullian said: 'The seed of the Church is the blood of the martyrs.'"

The End

As Holy Week was approaching, identification of the remains of Fr. Emil Kapaun — a Catholic chaplain in the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, during the Korean War, who died in an icy cold, lice-infested North Korean prisoner-of-war camp — seemed like a divine plan.

With thousands of others deemed "unaccounted for," Kapaun was believed to have been buried in an unmarked grave by the bank of Yalu River.

However, recently the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency matched Kapaun's dental records and DNA provided by his younger brother Eugene with remains buried in Hawaii, specifically the National Cemetery of the Pacific.

President Barack Obama had awarded Kapaun the Congressional Medal of Honor on April 11, 2013, for the gallantry and bravery he showed to his comrades during the Battle of Unsan (Nov. 1-2, 1950), days before the Chinese Volunteer Army entered into the war theater "uninvited."

Fr. Kapaun's nephew, Ray Kapaun, received the award for his uncle at the White House. The medal citation reads: "Chaplain Kapaun calmly walked through withering enemy fire in order to provide comfort and medical aid to his comrades and rescue [the] wounded from No-Man's Land."

No one would have heard of this fearless and compassionate priest who died in that hidden village, in the hermit kingdom of North Korea's POW camp, but like all those extraordinary men in history, the witnesses of the great soul told and retold how he made a difference in countless lives.

In Kapaun's case, his fellow prison inmates told of their fearless chaplain who laid his life before his injured combat buddies on the battlefield, and later, for his sick and dying inmate brothers in the dreadful prison camp.

On March 25, 1951, Kapaun celebrated his last Easter Sunday Mass in a war-damaged Christian church near the POW camp. The five months of starvation diet (cracked corn, millet and watery soup) had taken a toll on every prisoner in the camp.

But they were also punished for not having swallowed communist propaganda, and were forced to stand outside in minus 30-40 degrees, making them sick with pneumonia. Those who had not died yet were gravely ill. Unfortunately, Kapaun was no exception.

That Easter Sunday, he stood before a congregation made of about 60 gaunt and foul-smelling POWs from different religious faiths — some wore dirty, tattered American uniforms, some wore British uniforms, others simply wore whatever garments their captors have given them. Since they had arrived there, after a long and agonizing death march — a stretch of 85 miles on snow-covered mountain terrain — no bathing privileges were given. Some also had skin diseases that went untreated.

According to William Maher, author of A Shepherd in Combat Boots, Kapaun looked worse than most men in the congregation. He wore a black patch on one eye due to infection after a chip of wood had damaged it, and used a homemade cane when he walked because of the blood clot in his leg, which no one knew about. Still, he had made a small crucifix with scrap pieces of wood and carefully set it at the center of the altar table cleared of the debris.

That Easter Sunday, service was only possible because of the recent modification to the restrictions regarding religious activities in the POW camp. To prepare for this grand event, his last Easter Sunday, the chaplain led a few prisoners to church the previous day, despite his weakened physical condition, and together, they cleared heaps of broken and charred roof tiles, windowpanes, wood panels, and various debris to make room for his congregation.

There was no music prepared for this Easter Sunday service. The theme of his sermon was suffering and the Crucifixion. He didn't utter a word of the risen Christ or glory that followed. The congregation quietly listened, reflecting on the suffering they themselves had endured and what they had witnessed from their lost inmate-brothers, finally grasping the gravity of Jesus' suffering and crucifixion they had not understood before.

Unexpectedly, someone sang the Lord's Prayer, and many joined him. When finished, a chorus of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," sung by the Americans, echoed through the damaged church.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory / Of the coming of the Lord ... Glory, glory, Hallelujah! / His truth is marching on."

The Mass ended with the baptism of a prisoner. The man had confided in Kapaun earlier that he had wanted to become a Catholic, and the chaplain chose this special occasion to grant his wish.

Afterward, men shared with one another what this Mass meant to them, and how special it was after having lived in the hellish prison for months. But the chaplain broke into tears, surprising them all. When one of them asked why, Kapaun responded that it hurt him for not having served them holy Communion.

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Two months later, on May 23, 1951, Kapaun died alone in what the Chinese captors called "the Hospital," an abandoned, dilapidated Buddhist temple on the top of a hill where the communists sheltered their hopelessly ill prisoners. No visitors were allowed.

It was two or three days after Kapaun's close friends carried him there on a stretcher that they received the chaplain's final blessings. He followed it with a promise: "When I will be up in heaven, I will say a prayer for your safe return home."

In Maher's description, as the tearful comrades were about to leave the Hospital, they saw their chaplain looking up at the Chinese guard who came to get him. One of them told the others, later, that he had heard the chaplain whispering: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing."

Seventy years later, having lost over half a million Americans to COVID-19, and with 30 million having been in combat with the virus, this Easter Sunday holds many questions for Americans. For more than a year since the coronavirus landed in the U.S., we have been ordered to "stay at home."

Many people could not visit their dying parents, spouses and relatives in hospitals or in nursing facilities. Some churches are still closed. Schoolchildren, too, were ordered to stay at home, and attended Zoom classrooms rather than real ones, thus isolating them from their classmates and teachers. Many people lost their jobs, forcing them to move in with others or further depend on government assistance.

In addition, Americans suffered moral injustice caused by the outgoing former president who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the newly elected President Joe Biden. Donald Trump incited frustrations and doubts about the future of America, "the republic for which we stand, one nation under God."

Today, given our circumstance and the coming Easter Sunday, America needs God's healing grace more than ever. We must understand what Jesus went through — his suffering, his unimaginable pain, his humiliation and his death on the cross.

Kapaun's last Easter Sunday in North Korea not only speaks to us about what he and his inmate brothers went through, but leads us to a deeper understanding of Jesus' suffering and death on the cross before his resurrection.

The End

Then South Korean president, Syngman Rhee, a Princeton graduate, who had hoped that MacArthur would drive the communists out of the peninsula and hand him all of Korea undivided and free of communists to rule, didn't want the war to end. As a protest to the United Nations leaders' intention to end the war, he ordered every organization to rally against the Peace Talks that began shortly after President Truman released General MacArthur from his position "Supreme Commander of the Far East" in April, 1951.

The ending of senseless killing. Former president Eisenhower's campaign motto was "I shall go to Korea (to end the war)."

    On April 29th, PBS broadcast "Korea, The Never Ending War" nationwide. The description read: "For most Americans, the Korean Conflict is The Forgotten War, sandwiched between World War II and Vietnam War. It did not end with a (U.S.) victory as did World War II, nor did it stir passions and divisions like Vietnam; yet it had a profound impact on the United States and the world."

Now, as a U.S. senior citizen, who lived through the war as a Korean child in Busan, a port city at the southeast end of the Korean peninsula, I remember that horrid Sunday when the news of the communists' invasion reached us, at our parish church during the 9 o'clock Mass. "Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ," our pastor said, in a shaky voice, "North Korean communists launched a surprise attack across the 38th Parallel at dawn this morning with Russian tanks and are advancing toward the South, but no other details are available at this moment. Let us pray…Heavenly Father please look over our soldiers fighting to defend our country…"

Mass was cut short that morning, and our family of nine-- our parents and seven children from 3 to 15--returned home on foot, a distance of about 4 miles, only to face a group of our neighbors demanding to hear the news from our Zenith Radio. Back in those days, there was no other family in our neighborhood who owned a radio except us.

"Come in, come in!" Our father invited them.

At age nine, I didn't fathom the meaning of war, yet I understood the gravity of the situation as I watched adults gathered around our radio in the front room of our traditional Korean home; they were sighing, shaking heads or touching their eyes while the radioman spit out words. "…95,000 men, with Russian tanks and Russian air support… Without weapons, our soldiers are dying fast…" A woman openly cried and talked, saying that her son was a student at Seoul University and she might never see him again. Before the radio men finished, our neighbors vanished, one-by-one.

Nearly seven decades later, as an American senior citizen, watching the footage of the evil war here in the Midwest where I lived over 52 years, I was compelled to tell the American viewers that the producer(s) left out some important facts about the war.

Why didn't anyone mention the secret meeting between Kim Il-sung (Kim Jong-un's grandfather) and Joseph Stalin on the evening of March 5th, 1949, during which Kim Il-sung's plan to "rescue" his "Southern Brothers" from the "barbaric" Americans was approved by Stalin with enthusiasm. According to the digital archives at Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., all the details of the Korean war were mapped out that evening--what Russia could gain from helping North Korea to take over the South; what sort of resistance could meet them by American soldiers stationed there; how much military aid Kim would need from Russia to achieve Kim's goal to reunify the two Koreas, and how to pay back the loan and in what fashion; if Russian airplanes are necessary for this operation, how many would be enough?; Yes, Russians experts may be sent to Korea and Korean specialists may be received in the USSR, for practical training, including in production technology.

I agree with the producer; that No Gun-Ri incident, in which American security patrolmen along the 38th Parallel massacred 200-300 North Korean refugee hiding under a bridge, could have been avoided, only if the Americans had supernatural vision to identify the enemy snipers disguised as refugees and kill them. Destroying an estimated 200-300 refugees hiding under a bridge was horrifying, yet from a Korean's viewpoint, it was necessary when the snipers each carried body bombs (or satchel bombs) and threw at American servicemen, without a notice.

         Compared to what South Korea's president Syngman Rhee, had done to his people, 200-300 lives lost at the wake of the war by the defenders of Peace wasn't that grave. Did Syngman Rhee innocently believe that that the invasion was another "border attack" on the 38th Parallel as he had told his citizens through the radio on June 25th 1950? Border Attacks had been occurring since the invisible wall 38th parallel was established between the two Koreas in August 1945, shortly after Russians entered North Korea on August 8th, with an excuse to disarm any Japanese soldiers remaining in the country, knowing that that the second U.S. atomic bombs had struck Nagasaki.

         According Stanley Weintraup, the author of "MacArthur's War," in the early morning of June 25, 1950, the telephone at MacArthur's bedside at Tai-chi Hotel (above the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo) buzzed loudly, awakening him. When the general picked up the phone, his aid's voice rang in his ear, informing him that the North Korean communists have struck across the 38th Parallel at four in the morning and that the South Korean President Rhee wished to speak to him. The next thing the general heard was the old president's angry voice, saying, "Had your country been a bit more concerned about us, we'd not have come to this! We've warned you many times! Now you must save Korea!"

         MacArthur had no authority to save Korea, according to Weintraup, but he promised Rhee he would immediately send ten fighter planes and airlift howitzers and bazookas to halt the Communist tanks. Rhee immediately ordered his forsaken people through KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) Radio not to panic, not to be agitated, and not to abandon their homes because Americans were on their way with fighter planes, howitzers, and rocket launchers. But on the third day, June 28, when the Russian tanks rumbled loudly on the streets of Seoul, Rhee escaped the capital in an unmarked vehicle, with 12 members of his Cabinet, ordering the military demolition squad to blow up the Han River Bridge when they crossed it.

         American war-correspondent Frank Gidney witnessed the explosion. He and two other correspondents had been forced to retreat from Seoul, in a jeep, as it became apparent the North Koreans would occupy the city. When they reached the Han River, the traffic was heavy on the road with refugees running south to the big steel Han River Bridge. "There were no signs of a military rout," he wrote. "Guided by MPs, automobiles kept strictly in line. The only disorder was thousands of poor refugees on foot, women toting bundles on their heads, and men carrying household goods in wooden frames fastened to their backs. We reached the Han River Bridge around 2:15 a.m. The pace of our jeep slowed and then stopped. Without warning, the sky was lighted by a huge sheet of sickly orange flame… Our jeep was picked up and smashed back fifteen feet by the blast. All of the soldiers in the truck ahead of us had been killed. Bodies of dead and dying were strewn over the bridge, civilians as well as soldiers…two spans of the bridge had dropped to the river 30 feet below. With the cries of the wounded and the dying (in) the background, hundreds of refugees were running pell-mell off the bridge and disappearing into the night beyond."
          

         According to the South Korean government record, more than one thousand men and women and children perished in the fast moving stream. Where was President Syngman Rhee at that moment? On the road to safety in Busan, in an unmarked car, with his cabinet members. Once there, he and his American wife hid in the port city of Chin-hae, the U.S. Naval Base in Korea at the time. Rhee was never impeached for betraying or leaving his countrymen in danger by telling them to remain in their homes when the communists advancing, nor did he apologize for his selfish behavior of fleeing to safety, letting the whole nation suffer in a dire quagmire.

Rhee's atrocities against his people didn't end there. It was a time only Communists and potential communists existed in South Korea. Hatred against communists consumed him. He trusted any man who vowed to destroy communists gained his trust and condemned anyone accused as possible communists, true of false. One of those who gained Rhee's trust was a military officer named Kim Chang-Ryong, who swore to destroy any communist in the country once and for all and persecuted thousands of his fellow military officers by accusing them as possible communists. He rose to be the director to CIC (Korea's CIA) but after three years, he was assassinated by a gun man waiting for him in a car on the road Kim routinely traveled.

         In 1960, Rhee was forced to step down from his presidential seat when students nationwide demonstrated against the corrupt government, during which over two hundred students were shot to death by the policemen. South Koreans still commemorate April, 19th each year and comforts the brave souls departed while shouting peace and justice, remembering the event as The April Student Revolution.

         Over all, "The Never Ending War" is a masterpiece that followed the footage of the Korean War veterans' sacrifices in Korea during the three year long war in the early 1950's, which also showed how much progress South Korea has made during the past seven decades, from the poorest of poor nation in the world to one of the strongest economy today. The comparison between the North Korea and South Korea today, is like light and darkness--North Koreans acting like puppets handled by the puppeteer--crying and dancing on demand, but the South Koreans acting and speaking as their spirit moved them. God knows South Koreans have been fighting all the wars the Americans are fighting—in Vietnam, in Iraq, the Gulf War, in Afghanistan--yet they demanded a U.S. apology about No Gun-ri Massacre.

         Personally, I'm not overly anxious about seeing the two Koreas reunited, not that I won't live long enough to see the map of Korea without the 38th Parallel, but Kim Dynasty was build upon deception, dogmatism, and fanaticism by a former guerilla fighter during Japan's control of Korea in the earlier century.

     End

Pusan, 1953
   

        A few minutes passed ten on Thursday morning on July 27, 1953, our father came to our "study-room" and said solemnly to us six children aged between 11 to 17, "Finally, we are free, Children. You don't have to demonstrate against Americans anymore. The truce was finally signed."We cheered. Since the peace talk began between the US and Chinese leaders in October 1951 and until our president Syngman Rhee finally agreed to go along with the Peace-negotiators a few days earlier, school kids of all ages nationwide had been forced to demonstrate at many different places, shouting "Move out Americans! We want reunification!" Often, the grownups―religious leaders, teachers associations, laborer Unions and even women's organizations— joined us, each holding their signs.

As a seventh grader, I didn't fully understand why we had been asking the Americans to move out of our country when the war was still going on, but our president had been adamant about not letting the UN leaders and those of Chinese to end the war. "Dear citizens, if the war ends now, our country Korea will never become one nation again," he said several times daily through the radio. "Do not forget, we have been one nation for 5,000 years; we sustained our Korean culture and value in spite of Mongolian invasions in the 13th century, and during 40 years of Japanese occupation, too, that ended only a few years ago.  We can't be divided forever! American and Chinese leaders are not concerned about it, because Korea isn't their country...!"

Life Magazine's June 22, 1953, issue reads, "After about 35 months of bloodshed and 23 months of haggling, the combatants of Korea at last achieved every essential of a truce, except the agreement of one supremely stubborn old man. South Korea's 78-year-old President Syngman Rhee cried that truce between the UN and the Communists means death to his country and threatened to fight on alone to expel the Chinese Reds, and take the entire Korea. "If you have to leave us, we're sorry to see you go," he said. Meanwhile, the United Nations gravely faced the fact that, if Rhee's threats were carried out, he might very well wreck the truce beyond repair."  

Now, as an American senior citizen for more than a half century, I can't remember how many times we school kids had been mobilized to different parts of our town to protest, but I do remember it was always late spring or summer, and each time, we walked for a long hour, forming a long line, escorted by a teacher or two. Once, we marched to a fenced-in U.S. military base known as Somyon and found a large crowd waiting for the action to begin. When we snaked through the older kids in school uniforms and positioned ourselves before two solemn faced American soldiers in an "Attention posture", their feet firmly planted, and each holding a rifle, I was afraid that they might shoot us at any given moment. Time moved awfully slow when we were dripping with sweat under the hot summer sun, and the tension between Koreans shouting anti American slogans and the Americans staring at us was intolerable. And why did the Korean man wearing a white armband on a platform talk forever through a speaker? I wished we could at least sit down but there were no space for such a luxury.
After the rally ended, everyone rushed to drink-vendors to buy water, though everyone knew that the "water" sold at vending booths was "melted ice" from the Han River that had been stored somewhere for months. (It was long before Americans built water-purifying systems in our country.) But when you were extremely thirsty as we were, drinking any kind of water seemed better than the thought of dying from scorching heat. We demonstrated in the pouring rain, too. And what else did Rhee do?
One night in June, while the peace talk still went on and the soldiers of both sides were still fighting, our family was awakened by a loud banging on the door, followed by a Korean man announcing, "Please open the door! I have a special order from our president!" Our father went out to meet the intruder, telling our mom and us kids not to make any noise. In the dark, we heard men's voices, followed by footsteps moving toward the storage room in the back. More voices and moving footsteps later, we heard our father saying, "Goodbye, sir. We'll do our best to make our guests comfortable," and the door closing.

Father returned to us. "Don't tell anyone about what I'm about to say, okay?" Father said.

We held our breath.

"Our president has done something he shouldn't have. A policeman just delivered us two North Korean prisoners of war, saying that I should hide them. I said, 'What is this all about?' The police said the same thing; He's delivering our president's order and that I should hide them. So I put them in our storage room for now. Only God knows how the Korean policemen got them out of American MPs' hands at the POW camp. If the Americans find them here, in our house, tonight, we're in serious trouble."

Early the next morning, the radioman announced that our president had indeed ordered ROK guards to release the prisoners-of-war who didn't want to repatriate to North Korea, not only a few hundreds, but 27,000 men, and that they were everywhere in Pusan. "If they cause harms," the radiomen said, "please notify the police."
Our father clacked his tongue and said, "What is our president trying to do?"

I saw our "guests" with my very own eyes later. They were washing their faces in the well area at the same time as we were, and they tried to smile at us. Up close, they were not much older than my oldest brother who was 15 years old at the time, and they didn't look scary at all; in fact, they looked too thin and sickly to harm us. As soon as they washed themselves, they moved back to the storage room.

My father stayed with them in the storage room for a long hour that day. When he came out in the afternoon, he and Mom talked, and Mom immediately got busy packing our Father's clothing, food, and money in two old satchels for them.

That night, I heard my father talking to them in the dark, near our bedroom, and thought he was releasing the North Koreans. I hoped that American Military police wouldn't find them as they'd run for their lives. Then came another thought: what about their families waiting for them in the North? Wouldn't the communist regime punish the families of the prisoners who settled in the South?

In spite of our demonstrations and of our president's defiance against the peace-negotiators, the truce was signed by the U.S. military leaders and those of Chinese, and the war was officially ended. Father explained that the U.S. government offered the Rhee administration a significant amount of American dollars to repair the bomb-damages and promised further financial aid, and Rhee accepted it at the last moment.

A few weeks after the truce was signed at place known as "Panmunjom" along the 38th Parallel, the prisoners from both sides were exchanged at the "Bridge of No Return."  In early September, we heard through the radio that the U.S. troops were leaving our town of Pusan on such-such day and that all citizens should show their appreciation to the departing "American friends" by showing up on the Main street. When our family got there, a large crowd of school children and adults had gathered on both sides of the Main streets, like three years earlier when the first American troops had arrived. But this time, instead of fear-stricken faces, there was a sense of festivity; A band was playing the American anthem over and over, and several airplanes were cruising overhead, each dragging a long white foamy tail. Then, suddenly a long line of American military trucks approached us, and people shouted, "Thank you, Americans! Have a safe trip home!" Or "We'll never forget you, GI Joe! You're our heroes."

I had mixed feelings about seeing American troops leave our country for good. A part of me was sad because I had shouted unkind words at them, though our president had ordered us to, but another part of me was glad because the Americans were now returning to their beloved America, and soon would be reunited with their family members.

    The following spring, our family moved to Seoul, because in Father's opinion, "Seoul is where all the good things will happen." He was right. American engineers, scientists, missionaries, professors of all kinds, and world class entertainers and concert musicians poured into our country. The bomb damaged buildings and bridges were repaired, and new buildings were built. Shortly, our parents bought our first refrigerator marked "Sears" in the market selling American stuff left behind by the American troops. It was about that time I owned my first cello that had been played by an American army orchestra. In 1959, I entered Seoul National University-School of Music. After graduation, thanks to our parents, I left for Paris to further study cello.

    As I reflect on the day the war ended 66 years ago, my heart swells with gratitude toward all American veterans once more, for saving my motherland South Korea from the Communist North.

[Retired cellist of the KC Symphony (1966-1996), Therese Park wrote four published novels based on Korean history.]

    On April 29th, PBS broadcast "Korea, The Never Ending War" nationwide. The description read: "For most Americans, the Korean Conflict is The Forgotten War, sandwiched between World War II and Vietnam War. It did not end with a (U.S.) victory as did World War II, nor did it stir passions and divisions like Vietnam; yet it had a profound impact on the United States and the world."

Now, as a U.S. senior citizen, who lived through the war as a Korean child in Busan, a port city at the southeast end of the Korean peninsula, I remember that horrid Sunday when the news of the communists' invasion reached us, at our parish church during the 9 o'clock Mass. "Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ," our pastor said, in a shaky voice, "North Korean communists launched a surprise attack across the 38th Parallel at dawn this morning with Russian tanks and are advancing toward the South, but no other details are available at this moment. Let us pray…Heavenly Father please look over our soldiers fighting to defend our country…"

Mass was cut short that morning, and our family of nine-- our parents and seven children from 3 to 15--returned home on foot, a distance of about 4 miles, only to face a group of our neighbors demanding to hear the news from our Zenith Radio. Back in those days, there was no other family in our neighborhood who owned a radio except us.

"Come in, come in!" Our father invited them.

At age nine, I didn't fathom the meaning of war, yet I understood the gravity of the situation as I watched adults gathered around our radio in the front room of our traditional Korean home; they were sighing, shaking heads or touching their eyes while the radioman spit out words. "…95,000 men, with Russian tanks and Russian air support… Without weapons, our soldiers are dying fast…" A woman openly cried and talked, saying that her son was a student at Seoul University and she might never see him again. Before the radio men finished, our neighbors vanished, one-by-one.

Nearly seven decades later, as an American senior citizen, watching the footage of the evil war here in the Midwest where I lived over 52 years, I was compelled to tell the American viewers that the producer(s) left out some important facts about the war.

Why didn't anyone mention the secret meeting between Kim Il-sung (Kim Jong-un's grandfather) and Joseph Stalin on the evening of March 5th, 1949, during which Kim Il-sung's plan to "rescue" his "Southern Brothers" from the "barbaric" Americans was approved by Stalin with enthusiasm. According to the digital archives at Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., all the details of the Korean war were mapped out that evening--what Russia could gain from helping North Korea to take over the South; what sort of resistance could meet them by American soldiers stationed there; how much military aid Kim would need from Russia to achieve Kim's goal to reunify the two Koreas, and how to pay back the loan and in what fashion; if Russian airplanes are necessary for this operation, how many would be enough?; Yes, Russians experts may be sent to Korea and Korean specialists may be received in the USSR, for practical training, including in production technology.

I agree with the producer; that No Gun-Ri incident, in which American security patrolmen along the 38th Parallel massacred 200-300 North Korean refugee hiding under a bridge, could have been avoided, only if the Americans had supernatural vision to identify the enemy snipers disguised as refugees and kill them. Destroying an estimated 200-300 refugees hiding under a bridge was horrifying, yet from a Korean's viewpoint, it was necessary when the snipers each carried body bombs (or satchel bombs) and threw at American servicemen, without a notice.

         Compared to what South Korea's president Syngman Rhee, had done to his people, 200-300 lives lost at the wake of the war by the defenders of Peace wasn't that grave. Did Syngman Rhee innocently believe that that the invasion was another "border attack" on the 38th Parallel as he had told his citizens through the radio on June 25th 1950? Border Attacks had been occurring since the invisible wall 38th parallel was established between the two Koreas in August 1945, shortly after Russians entered North Korea on August 8th, with an excuse to disarm any Japanese soldiers remaining in the country, knowing that that the second U.S. atomic bombs had struck Nagasaki.

         According Stanley Weintraup, the author of "MacArthur's War," in the early morning of June 25, 1950, the telephone at MacArthur's bedside at Tai-chi Hotel (above the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo) buzzed loudly, awakening him. When the general picked up the phone, his aid's voice rang in his ear, informing him that the North Korean communists have struck across the 38th Parallel at four in the morning and that the South Korean President Rhee wished to speak to him. The next thing the general heard was the old president's angry voice, saying, "Had your country been a bit more concerned about us, we'd not have come to this! We've warned you many times! Now you must save Korea!"

         MacArthur had no authority to save Korea, according to Weintraup, but he promised Rhee he would immediately send ten fighter planes and airlift howitzers and bazookas to halt the Communist tanks. Rhee immediately ordered his forsaken people through KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) Radio not to panic, not to be agitated, and not to abandon their homes because Americans were on their way with fighter planes, howitzers, and rocket launchers. But on the third day, June 28, when the Russian tanks rumbled loudly on the streets of Seoul, Rhee escaped the capital in an unmarked vehicle, with 12 members of his Cabinet, ordering the military demolition squad to blow up the Han River Bridge when they crossed it.

         American war-correspondent Frank Gidney witnessed the explosion. He and two other correspondents had been forced to retreat from Seoul, in a jeep, as it became apparent the North Koreans would occupy the city. When they reached the Han River, the traffic was heavy on the road with refugees running south to the big steel Han River Bridge. "There were no signs of a military rout," he wrote. "Guided by MPs, automobiles kept strictly in line. The only disorder was thousands of poor refugees on foot, women toting bundles on their heads, and men carrying household goods in wooden frames fastened to their backs. We reached the Han River Bridge around 2:15 a.m. The pace of our jeep slowed and then stopped. Without warning, the sky was lighted by a huge sheet of sickly orange flame… Our jeep was picked up and smashed back fifteen feet by the blast. All of the soldiers in the truck ahead of us had been killed. Bodies of dead and dying were strewn over the bridge, civilians as well as soldiers…two spans of the bridge had dropped to the river 30 feet below. With the cries of the wounded and the dying (in) the background, hundreds of refugees were running pell-mell off the bridge and disappearing into the night beyond."
          

         According to the South Korean government record, more than one thousand men and women and children perished in the fast moving stream. Where was President Syngman Rhee at that moment? On the road to safety in Busan, in an unmarked car, with his cabinet members. Once there, he and his American wife hid in the port city of Chin-hae, the U.S. Naval Base in Korea at the time. Rhee was never impeached for betraying or leaving his countrymen in danger by telling them to remain in their homes when the communists advancing, nor did he apologize for his selfish behavior of fleeing to safety, letting the whole nation suffer in a dire quagmire.

Rhee's atrocities against his people didn't end there. It was a time only Communists and potential communists existed in South Korea. Hatred against communists consumed him. He trusted any man who vowed to destroy communists gained his trust and condemned anyone accused as possible communists, true of false. One of those who gained Rhee's trust was a military officer named Kim Chang-Ryong, who swore to destroy any communist in the country once and for all and persecuted thousands of his fellow military officers by accusing them as possible communists. He rose to be the director to CIC (Korea's CIA) but after three years, he was assassinated by a gun man waiting for him in a car on the road Kim routinely traveled.

         In 1960, Rhee was forced to step down from his presidential seat when students nationwide demonstrated against the corrupt government, during which over two hundred students were shot to death by the policemen. South Koreans still commemorate April, 19th each year and comforts the brave souls departed while shouting peace and justice, remembering the event as The April Student Revolution.

         Over all, "The Never Ending War" is a masterpiece that followed the footage of the Korean War veterans' sacrifices in Korea during the three year long war in the early 1950's, which also showed how much progress South Korea has made during the past seven decades, from the poorest of poor nation in the world to one of the strongest economy today. The comparison between the North Korea and South Korea today, is like light and darkness--North Koreans acting like puppets handled by the puppeteer--crying and dancing on demand, but the South Koreans acting and speaking as their spirit moved them. God knows South Koreans have been fighting all the wars the Americans are fighting—in Vietnam, in Iraq, the Gulf War, in Afghanistan--yet they demanded a U.S. apology about No Gun-ri Massacre.

         Personally, I'm not overly anxious about seeing the two Koreas reunited, not that I won't live long enough to see the map of Korea without the 38th Parallel, but Kim Dynasty was build upon deception, dogmatism, and fanaticism by a former guerilla fighter during Japan's control of Korea in the earlier century.

     End

Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots.”

As I waited with about 120 people on Friday morning, Veterans’ Day, for the ceremony to begin at the Korean War Veterans Memorial at 119th and Lowell in Overland Park, I couldn’t believe that five years has passed since the dedication of this solemn monument. That day, Sept. 30, 2006, there had been no space on this ground as 1,000 people attended the ceremony, which began with two national anthems: the South Korean anthem sung by the Kansas City Korean Choir and the American anthem performed by the Greater Kansas City American Legion Band. Such dignitaries as former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard B. Meyers, South Korean Consul Wook Kim from Chicago and U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore gave speeches.

The crowd on Friday was much smaller, but gathered for an equally important cause: to remember those who never returned from war to their beloved home state of Kansas. At 10 a.m., Tom Stevens, the sixth president of the 11-year-old Korean War Veterans Association Chapter #181, welcomed everyone bundled in winter coats and shivering against the cold breeze.

The keynote speaker, retired Maj. Gen. Fred D. Robinson Jr., was complimentary toward the veterans’ sacrifices in Korea six decades earlier. “I have admiration for all Korean veterans who fought in what was first known as the Korean ‘conflict’ then changed to a ‘war’ weeks later… Your strength and resilience set the new standards for today’s U.S. military. South Korea is an amazing country today.”

I, Korean, wanted to shout, “I’m their witness, General, during the war as well as last few years, while they “marched” together to bring the Memorial here, in Overland Park, to honor their fallen comrades. I was only 9 years old when the North Koreans stole everything from us — books, playground and classrooms, including our dreams, but the U.S. soldiers gave us reasons to hope for a better day. Besides fighting, they also fed beggars with their military rations and gave us kids the sweet taste of life — Hershey’s bars, Juicy Fruit, and M&Ms.”

It was late June 2004 when I was introduced at a Korean-American Ladies Foundation fund-raising luncheon to the veterans’ goal to build a memorial for 415 fallen Kansans. That day, Jack Krumme, the president at the time, announced that the association had $20,000 in the memorial fund. He said that in the next few years, we would be looking at the beautiful memorial with red granite walls bearing the names of those who fought in the war as well as those who supported the cause. It turned out we didn’t have to wait a few years.

Tom Stevens of the foundation explained in a recent conversation, “The Memorial is the result of the teamwork of the community as a whole. More than a hundred organizations and countless individuals sent contributions after the City Council of Overland Park approved our proposal to construct the memorial in June 2003.”

Stevens played multiple roles in making the veterans’ dream a reality. Besides serving as the first vice-president and the treasurer of the association, he was also the secretary of the 11-member memorial committee.

The ground-breaking ceremony was on Aug. 23, 2003. A few month later, at the Association's monthly meeting at Tomahawk Community Center, they had an unexpected visitor--the representative of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. "He was a pleasant-looking fellow," Stevens remembered. "He said apologetically that the Kauffman Foundation couldn’t grant the $5,000 we asked for because they give priorities to schools, libraries and performing arts communities. He then said, ‘The only thing we can do is to give you $45,000 more than you asked for: the $50,000 Leadership Award!’ We were speechless!”
A year later, in November 2004, another surprise came, this time from Washington. In response to proposals from U.S. Senators Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts and U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, the Bush administration awarded the association $374,280 toward the construction of the memorial. This giant gift boosted the veterans’ team spirit beyond words.

“The grant was administered by HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing Urban Development) in Washington,” Stevens said. “I read the necessary documents and talked to many people on the phone to find out how to draw down the funds, and then faxed the required papers to the appropriate people. More phone calls later, I’d learn that the documents I sent were lost in the pile of papers on the other end. It was a very slow, complicated procedure for an inexperienced person like me.”

Byron Loudon, a former Overland Park councilman and attorney, helped obtain 501(c)(3) status without charging a fee, and in May 2006, construction began. Four months later, on a beautiful autumn day, the memorial was dedicated on the solemn ground.

At the Korean War Veterans Memorial across the state line in Kansas City, vandals damaged concrete and a plaque.

“It’s most unfortunate,” Stevens said. “But it is less likely to happen here at our memorial. Shortly after the monument was erected, the Overland Park Police Department moved in next door, and their surveillance cameras are watching it day and night. The people at the city of Overland Park have been loyal to us, putting up signs for visitors, even providing a parking space for them, and meticulously maintaining the site as well. The loving attention we’ve been receiving from all areas of people and organizations is unbelievable.”

The inscription on the granite wall at the Memorial reads “FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!” Don’t we all have to pay a high price for such a precious gift as freedom?

Historians acknowledge that the United Nations Forces’ landing at Inchon Harbor on September 15, 1950, was one of the most successful operations in modern military history. Twenty-five thousand tons of supplies, 6600 vehicles, 260 vessels, and 74,000 men were mobilized to capture the enemy-occupied harbor.
Then a nine-year-old growing up in a war-torn country, I thought General MacArthur was God’s angel who turned a losing battle into a winning one overnight, with a simple stroke of a magic baton. But recently I met an Overland Park (Kansas) resident, and my perception of the Inchon Landing and the most admired general of all American generals changed. Although it was MacArthur who engineered and executed the massive plan with precision, men like Corporal Clyde Koch stepped into enemy territory, sweated, bled, and even died in order to retake the harbor.
Veteran Koch claims that he was only a small cog in a big war-machine. But for “a small cog,” he showed much pride as he began to talk about that September day fifty-four years ago.
Then 20, Koch watched a barrage of fire on the distant shore from a landing-ship-tank (LST). “This is for real,” he said to himself. He was nervous, but not that much, he says. He had been a Marine for three years. After six months training on Guam Island he served in the US garrison troops in Tsing-Tao, a large beer-producing port city in the northern province of Shantung, China. [After World War II ended the US troops were in China, mainly to support the Chinese government and to disarm the Japanese troops who had occupied China since 1937. During the following years, while Chian Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang and Mao Ze-Dong’s Communists fought bloody murder, the US troops remained in China, this time, to discourage communism from spreading. With Mao’s Communists taking over throughout Mainland China in 1949, all US troops returned to the United States.]
Koch’s unit, Charlie Battery, (1st Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division) had been aboard a landing-ship-tank (LST) since they had left Pusan on September 7th, and everyone was anxious for landing. The sea had been so choppy that motion sickness was a common ailment among the Marines. As morning wore on, enemy resistance seemed weakening, and finally, in mid-afternoon, orders came to abandon the LST and board a smaller landing craft loaded with 105mm howitzers.
As the boat carried them to the shore during the high tide, Koch was surprised to discover that the communists were nowhere to be found.
"The Navy pilots have done a wonderful job of clearing the shore with their bombardment,” Koch says. “It was an easy landing for us.”
The beach was littered with dead bodies, driftwood, and abandoned military equipment. In one area, behind a blood smeared chain-link fence, about 60 young North Korean prisoners, barely 16 or 17 years of age, sat in a group, stark naked, except loin cloths, hands bound behind them. It bothered Koch that one’s victory meant another’s defeat. But he had no time to be sentimental about it: his artillery unit was ready to move again.
While air-fighters dropped bombs and napalm onto the town of Inchon, and the Infantry marched toward the capital, Charlie Battery crossed the Han River on pontoon boats to secure the area for the advancing troops. They blasted enemy equipment and its defenders along the shoreline. By the evening of the third day, they were at the edge of Kimpo airfield on the outskirts of Seoul, and within hours, the 6,000-foot runway was captured. The UN suffered fewer than 300 casualties, but the enemy lost ten times more.
On September 25th, Seoul was officially liberated from the enemy, although it took another three days for the UN troops to drive the fanatical North Koreans out of the area. On September 28th, General MacArthur escorted South Korea’s 74-year-old president, Syng-man Rhee, back to his presidential seat at the partially damaged National Assembly Hall.
Surrounded by smartly dressed U.S. soldiers imported from the Occupation Force in Japan for the occasion, General MacArthur solemnly declared the city liberated in God’s name, before leading the teary audience into the Lord’s prayer.
The old Korean president couldn't hide his overwhelming emotion as he expressed his “undying gratitude” to MacArthur and the American military for restoring the capital’s lost dignity. Afterwards, from the front lawn of the presidential mansion, the general and the president watched South Korea’s military band parading triumphantly through the ruined streets.
Koch wasn’t at the ceremony but he heard about it. He was with his fellow marines on Inchon Beach, waiting for orders to embark on a new sea-journey to Wonsan, one of the major harbors in North Korea. A month later, he and his unit would march to the Chosin Reservoir, where the Chinese Volunteer Corp ambushed them mercilessly. On December 2nd that year, Koch was wounded severely when an enemy bullet entered into his abdomen and lodged in his hip, which he would carry with him for years afterwards. After a lengthy treatment and recuperation, first in Yakasuka Japan and then in Hawaii, he was discharged from the Marine Corps on August 18th 1951.
Today, Inchon is a vibrant harbor boasting a giant bronze statue of General MacArthur overlooking the beaches and its modern international airport where tourists pour in every year from all over the world to get a glimpse of a historical harbor. Four years ago, Veteran Koch was one of them.
“It was great going back,” he says with a smile.
Although the Korean War was known as the Forgotten War and the American soldiers didn’t return with glory and shining images as victors at the war’s end, to Inchon and to those who lived through a long period of fear and destruction, it was unforgettable.