Koreatown Trees Sprout Ribbons for U.S. Troops

About 100 Korean Americans showed their support for U.S. troops by fastening yellow ribbons Friday to hundreds of trees along the streets of Koreatown.

“We want to show our appreciation to our soldiers,” said Charles J. Kim, executive director of the Korean American Coalition during a ceremony at the Koreatown Plaza on Western Avenue.

Amid placards that read “Come Home Safely” and “God Bless America, President Bush and Our Troops,” a group of students and teachers from the nearby Wilshire Elementary School sang “God Bless America.”

Some demonstrators seized the occasion to denounce antiwar protesters in the United States. They also criticized anti-American protests in South Korea. Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Seoul to express anger at the war in Iraq and at the deaths of two Korean schoolgirls who were run over by U.S. military tanks during exercises.

“Antiwar protesters are emotional and shortsighted,” said Lawrence Kim, a poet and essayist, whose only son, Frank, 19, is a corporal in the 1st Marine Division now in Iraq. Freedom is “costly,” he said.

The elder Kim said he was “very proud” of his son and others fighting in Iraq “to bring order and freedom not only to the Iraqi people but the rest of the world.”

And, as much as he wants to see his son come home soon, he also believes that he and his comrades first need to complete the job for which they went.

“Some people may say, ‘Come home quickly,’ but I say, ‘Come home after you get the job done,’ ” he said.

Bong-Keun Kim, a retired Army colonel who served during the Korean War, said he is disturbed by anti-American protests in South Korea.

“South Korea and the United States have been allies for more than half a century,” he said. “We owe America a lot. I want the American people to know that we condemn those people who demonstrate against America.”

Antiwar protesters in America take freedom for granted, said Capt. Paul Kim of the Los Angeles Police Department, who attended the Koreatown ceremony. “They don’t know what it’s like to live without freedom.”

How ironic, he observed, that people who have freedom to protest in the United States oppose the mission to bring freedom to the Iraqi people.

“You have to lose it [freedom] to gain it,” he said. “America is a great country. We have to have a common bonding agent in patriotism. We [Korean Americans] want to be fully participating citizens in this country.”

When the war is over and the troops return home, Koreatown will throw a “big party” for them, said Kee-Whan Ha, president of the Korean Federation of Los Angeles.