This weekend is the 69th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation that turned the tide of the Korean War. It will be interesting to see who in the current Moon administration will take the time to attend any memorials to the U.S. troops that died executing the operation.
You can read more about the Incheon Landing Operation at the below link:
Some ruling party politicians in Busan are demanding an investigation into a tower that honors UN nations that fought for South Korea in the Korean War, because they think — hold your breath — it resembles Japan's rising sun flag https://t.co/LDqvJKnqCi pic.twitter.com/Q1kcGmPNnt
— Sam Kim 김혜성 (@samkimasia) August 12, 2019
This is good news for the families of Korean War veterans that were missing in action. Some of them may be notified this week that their family member has been identified:
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Defense Department officials have identified 25 more missing servicemembers from the cases of remains turned over by North Korean officials last year, a major advance for dozens of families who have waited decades for closure in the deaths of their loved ones.
The identifications were first announced by Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday afternoon and later confirmed by officials at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency during their annual briefing to families of the Korean War, held in Washington D.C.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the news “A promise kept from the agreement between (North Korean) Chairman Kim (Jong Un) and President Donald Trump … to return all of our fallen heroes.”
DPAA officials said specific identifications will be made public in coming weeks, after family members have received formal notification from the individual services. Most of the service members identified are from the Army.Defense Department officials have identified 25 more missing servicemembers from the cases of remains turned over by North Korean officials last year, a major advance for dozens of families who have waited decades for closure in the deaths of their loved ones.
The identifications were first announced by Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday afternoon and later confirmed by officials at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency during their annual briefing to families of the Korean War, held in Washington D.C.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the news “A promise kept from the agreement between (North Korean) Chairman Kim (Jong Un) and President Donald Trump … to return all of our fallen heroes.”
Military Times
You can read more at the link.
The only way I could see ever holding any joint Korean War ceremony with North Korea is if the Kim regime acknowledges they started the war. Currently they continue to claim the ROK invaded North Korea to start the war despite all the evidence to the contrary. Sadly many South Korean leftists believe this claim:
The Defense Ministry is considering co-hosting a ceremony with North Korea next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War.
The inclusion of the North in such a ceremony is expected to lead to strong protests by families of soldiers killed during the 1950-53 war, which Pyongyang still insists was triggered by a South Korean invasion. It celebrates Armistice Day on July 27 as “Victory Day.”
In fact North Korean forces invaded the South, and miscalculations on both sides put the border back more or less where it was before after three years of bloodshed. The two Koreas remain technically at war.
A copy of a Defense Ministry report leaked to the Chosun Ilbo details various plans to mark the 70th anniversary. The ministry said the report was put together by a contracted agency and is simply a set of proposals, which it will “selectively consider.”
Chosun Ilbo
#KoreanHistoryToday: President Syngman Rhee unilaterally releases 27,312 prisoners of war who disavowed communism in 1953. This caused a major disruption in the ongoing armistice talks between the UN forces and the DPRK/PRC pic.twitter.com/EuJT1901fo
— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) June 18, 2019
I hope no one really thought a deal on this issue was going to be reached because I never did:
In a new sign of troubled relations with North Korea, the Pentagon said Wednesday it has suspended its efforts to arrange negotiations on recovering additional remains of U.S. servicemembers killed in the North during the Korean War.
Stars & Stripes
In a statement Wednesday, the Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency said it has had no communication with North Korean authorities since the Hanoi summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February. That meeting focused on the North’s nuclear weapons and followed a June 2018 summit at which Kim committed to permitting a resumption the recovery of U.S. remains, which had been suspended by the U.S. in 2005.
“As a result, our effort to communicate with the Korean People’s Army regarding the possible resumption of joint recovery operation for 2019 has been suspended,” the agency said. “We have reached the point where we can no longer effectively plan, coordinate, and conduct field operations in the DPRK during this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, 2019.”
You can read more at the link, but the only way a deal was getting done was if the US paid North Korea an exorbitant amount of money to recover the remains as has been done in the past.
The North Koreans know exactly where the bulk of the remains are because the US military buried a large number of casualties in marked cemeteries before evacuating North Korea after the Chinese intervened in the war.
To be able to repatriate these remains to their family members the North Koreans have been demanding inflated prices which just shows how low the Kim regime is willing to go to make money. The work to recover the remains ended in 2005 and so far does not look like it will begin again any time soon.
Every time I watch any Western documentary about Korea – in this case, Netflix's "Street Food" – regardless of the subject matter, people always end up talking about "the tragedy of the Korean War," and it annoys me to no end. Just how many Koreans actually think about the war?!
— John Lee (The Korean Foreigner) (@koreanforeigner) April 28, 2019
