U.S. Dedicates Korean War Memorial : Ceremony: Presidents Clinton and Kim Young Sam salute those who fought in ‘forgotten’ conflict.

President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young Sam dedicated a memorial to Americans who fought in the Korean War as thousands of veterans of the conflict watched on the Washington Mall.

“When the guns fell silent, no one knew what our forces had done for the future of freedom,” Clinton said, alluding to the fact that the Korean War, which began in 1950 and ended in 1953, has been referred to as this country’s “forgotten war,” even though it claimed 54,000 American lives.

But President Kim, speaking through an interpreter, said that history had provided the answer to that question: “The Korean War heralded the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism,” he said.

For many, the words of the two presidents were less compelling than the extraordinary memorial itself. “There are no words to describe it” said Ray Dicaprio, a 67-year-old Army veteran from Pittsburgh, as he gazed for the first time on the 19 seven-foot steel soldiers seemingly marching up a hill alongside a 146-foot long wall of black granite.

Erwin Williams, an Army veteran from Spartanburg, S.C., said: “I wanted to see the fellows I knew, but I didn’t want to remember a lot of things.”

Nonetheless, he was glad that he made the trip to Washington. “You have to be here to appreciate this,” Williams said. “It looks so real and it’s very personal.”

“These guys look just like us,” Joe McAnany of San Clemente said of the steel figures. Speaking partly to younger visitors and partly to themselves, he and other veterans described the equipment shown on the 19 figures.

Perhaps it was the oppressive heat and humidity that subdued the group. Or perhaps it was the nature of the 60-something crowd. After all, these veterans were being honored for something that, at the time, they had thought was just expected of them. As Clinton said: “You did answer the call to defend a country you never knew and a people you never met.”

Ed Stevens, who brought two busloads of veterans from Pittsburgh, said that he was only 18 when he was sent to Korea. He did not question it then. And, when he and most of the 1.7 million Korean War veterans returned from service, they simply melded back into society.

“We got jobs, fell in love and then had kids to feed,” he said. “By the time we got done raising our kids, it was years later.”

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Not only had American society forgotten about the Korean War, so had many veterans.

Stevens said it was only after his kids were gone, and when he and other veterans noticed Vietnam veterans working for a memorial and recognition, that many Korean War veterans started to organize.

But, history had also had time to show the veterans their accomplishments.

“You put the free world on the road to victory in enduring the Cold War,” the President said.