British sailors who are in port at Pusan stopped by the United Nations Cemetery in Pusan to pay their respects.
If you haven’t been to the UN cemetery in Pusan you really should go. The cemetery has graves from many of the countries involved in the Korean War and the experience is quite sobering especially when you realize the few thousand graves there are just a small minute fraction of the overall war dead from the Korean War. Another interesting fact about the cemetery is that it is the only UN operated cemetery in the world. It is a quiet, pleasant place, which is actually quite amazing considering it sits in the middle of one of Korea’s busiest cities.
This story is truly despicable. A group of people has vandalized the UN Cemetery in Busan:
A giant anti-U.S. President George W. Bush message apparently written in herbicide has appeared on the lawn of the UN Memorial Cemetery in Daeyeon-dong, Busan. The site is reportedly on the itinerary of visiting national leaders attending the APEC summit in November.
The office of the UN Memorial Cemetery said Thursday it notified Nambu Police Station on the morning of June 14 that someone had written “NO BUSH” in 10 m high letters on the lawn between the flags of nations participating in the Korean War and the graves.
The cemetery’s office said it appeared the perpetrators used liquid herbicide to write the message, which was 50 m wide, with each line some 30 cm thick. Given the scale, it must have taken several people with spraying tools to write it, the office said. The grass is being restored.
This reminds me of when the grave stones of GIs killed during the invasion of Normandy in France were spray painted by anti-American vandals with the words, “Remove this rubbage from French lands”.
If someone has got a problem with Bush that is fine. Go stand on the street corner and protest. You have every right to do so but you don’t have the right to harm others or vandalize property. Especially the hollowed ground of UN soldiers buried at the UN Cemetery. That is right it isn’t just the remains of US soldiers buried in Pusan. The cemetery in Pusan is the only cemetery administered by the UN in the whole world and includes remains of soldiers from all the countries that took casualties during the war. I have traveled to the cemetery before and it is really a beautiful and solemn place for being situated in the middle of Korea’s 2nd largest city of Busan.
I would hope that people no matter what their political persuasions may be would agree that such a place should be considered sacred. It is unfortunate that such an act of vandalism is kept in the back pages of the papers and is not causing an outcry here in Korea. The memories of these dead soldiers are cheapened by such an act of vandalism by a country these international soldiers gave their lives to save. The way the youth is today, I doubt these same protesters would be willing to die for Korea like these soldiers did during the Korean War.
Could you imagine the outcry if somebody put anti-Bush graffiti somewhere at Arlington National Cemetery? I think even the kookiest Democrats like Howard Dean would even condemn such an act. Why shouldn’t Korea do the same for this cemetery?
Big shout out to Katolic Shinja for pointing this story out.
