PLATFORM : Honor Korea Vets

Since the signing of the very fragmented armistice in 1953, over 2,186 casualties have been suffered by both sides of the conflict, primarily along the DMZ, the heavily armed no-man’s-land between North and South Korea. Of those casualties, 295 were South Korean civilians, 1,017 were United Nations Command military personnel, including 224 Americans. In 1967, the Army finally began to acknowledge the (post-armistice) hostilities on the Korean DMZ by awarding American servicemen recognition for combat service.

To the families and friends of the men wounded and killed, they are casualties of the Korean War as real as those suffered from 1950 to ‘53, except their pain has been more private and unrecognized.

With the Korean War memorial ground-breaking this week in Washington, the costly period of the Korean armistice must also be included with those casualties of the earlier hostilities.