Tag: Korean War

Park Young-shik (R) receives an identification certificate for his late father, Park Tae-hong, from Lee Hak-ki, head of the defense ministry’s remains excavation and identification task force, during a ceremony in Yangju, east of Seoul, to mark the return of the national hero on Oct. 16, 2018. PFC. Park was killed in action there during the 1950-53 Korean War, and his remains were excavated from a hill in Pohang, 370 km southeast of Seoul in 2009. (Yonhap)

I am willing to bet that Lieutenant General Eyre is saying things that US generals are not allowed to express:

A senior officer in the United Nations Command is urging caution about a declaration to end the Korean War, warning it could be a North Korean ploy to pull the South Korea-U.S. alliance apart.

Canadian Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre is quoted as calling the prospective declaration a “slippery slope” in terms of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea.

In remarks at a Washington seminar, Eyre described the North Koreans as experts at “divide and conquer.”

Abut 28-thousand-500 U.S. troops are based in South Korea to deter or defeat a repeat of North Korea’s 1950 invasion or other provocations.

He said it needs to be questioned why North Korea is pushing so hard for an end-of-war declaration.

While noting that the recent climate of negotiations offered hope for a lasting peace, he suggested that a war-ending declaration would lead the public to question seriously the need for a continued U.S. troop presence on the peninsula.  [KBS World Radio]

I have said this repeatedly that after a peace treaty is signed the South Korea left will then mobilize to make life difficult for US troops in South Korea.  Every traffic accident, parking ticket, drunken fight, etc. will become a national headline to increase anti-US sentiment.  It will be the 2002-2004 timeframe all over again and this time the Korean left will hope that the US president decides to pull out USFK on his own accord.

Here is an unusual ceremony that was recently held at Osan Airbase.  It is good to see that the remains of these two New Zealanders were able to be returned to their home countries:

The remains of two New Zealand servicemembers who died in South Korea shortly after hostilities ended on the peninsula finally began their journey home Friday.

Army driver Herbert Hunn, 24, and navy telegraphist Peter Mollison, 19, were brought aboard a New Zealand Air Force jet after a repatriation ceremony at Osan Air Base’s passenger terminal. The pair were to be returned to family members Sunday at Royal New Zealand Air Base Auckland.

“These two men beside me were not killed in combat and in fact died after the armistice agreement,” New Zealand Ambassador to South Korea Philip Turner said during the ceremony. “They were part of New Zealand and the international community’s commitment to security here.”

Both Hunn, who died in a vehicle accident in 1955, and Mollison who succumbed to meningitis in 1957, had been interred at a United Nations cemetery in Busan.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty amazing how long it takes to identify these remains, but the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues to get these remains identified:

South Korea on Monday held a solemn ceremony marking the repatriation of the remains of 64 soldiers who were killed in North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War.

President Moon Jae-in presided over the repatriation ceremony at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, 40 kilometers south of Seoul, with the attendance of top military and government officials and religious leaders, including Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Vincent Brooks.

Escorted by a fleet of F-15K and FA-50 fighter jets, the remains arrived at Seoul Air Base on Sunday afternoon aboard a South Korea Air Force transport plane from Hawaii.

In Hawaii on Friday, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency handed them over to Seoul’s Vice Defense Minister Suh Choo-suk. POW stands for Prisoner of War, and MIA means Missing in Action.

The remains were found during a joint excavation project between the United States and North Korea in major Korean War battle zones in the communist state, such as Changjin, South Hamgyong Province. The project was conducted from 1996-2005  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

One family has had the remains of their father who died in the Korean War identified:

On Friday, brothers Charles and Larry McDaniel ascended the Punchbowl Cemetery’s monument displaying the names of roughly 24,000 servicemembers who remain missing from the Korean War and the Pacific theater of World War II.

They climbed up scaffolding to reach the spot where their father’s name, Charles McDaniel, Sr., is inscribed in stone and placed a bronze rosette next to his name, indicating he is missing no more.

During an earlier ceremony at the cemetery observing the annual National POW/MIA Recognition Day, Charles McDaniel, Jr., told an audience of 300 how the remains of his father were suddenly and dramatically found.

When North Korea turned over 55 boxes possibly holding the remains of Americans who died in the Korean War in July, McDaniel greeted the news with caution.

He was three and a half when he last saw his father, who was declared missing in action on Nov. 2, 1950, during the Korean War.

The elder McDaniel, who was a medic, was one of more than 5,000 American servicemembers whose remains are believed to be in North Korea.

“So I figured, 55 sets of remains: 1 percent chance or less” his father’s remains would be among them, McDaniel said. “You kind of push it back, like you have to with grief.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but their father was one of the remains recently returned by North Korea.

The Kim regime continues to advocate for the Trump administration to end the Korean War:

North Korea repeatedly called for the U.S. to declare an end to the Korean War, as a means to protect its regime from hostilities. However, the U.S. has required North Korea to take tangible and verifiable denuclearization measures first.

So far, North Korea has shut down its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and dismantled parts of its Tongchang-ri missile testing site, but these measures have yet to be verified.

The North has now pledged to shutdown the Tongchang-ri facility completely in a verifiable manner.

There had been expectations for the North to pledge to submit a list of its nuclear weapons in exchange for the U.S. declaring an end to the Korean War.

However, the North made clear that it would not take any further measures until the U.S. declares the end of the war.  [Korea Times]

This rhetoric of ending the Korean War has been going on for months because the Kim regime wants the peace treaty because it then challenges the legitimacy of the military presence in South Korea.  If there is peace why is USFK needed?

President Moon is saying all the right things that USFK will remain after any peace treaty is signed.  Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.

Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.

Possibly the future of USFK after a peace treaty could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju.  President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence and cause the US to withdraw troops on its own accord.

The Moon administration’s Defense Minister nominee is advocating for an end to the Korean War:

Defense Minister nominee Jeong Kyeong-doo said in his confirmation hearing, Monday, that the military has bolstered defense readiness ahead of the upcoming inter-Korean summit.

He also said that formally ending the Korean War should be pushed forward according to the Panmunjeom Declaration.

Jeong, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a treaty to end the war will be “a political proclamation” to pave the way for denuclearization, but this does not mean disbandment of the United Nations Command or the breakup of the South-U.S. defense alliance.

When asked about the North’s aim of seeking the end of the war for this summit, Jeong said “it was aimed at building trust between the two Koreas and North Korea and the U.S. in order to achieve the perfect denuclearization.”  [Korea Times]

General Jeong is remaining on script with the rest of the Moon administration about the future of the US-ROK alliance after any end of the Korean War.  The North Koreans, Chinese, Russians, and South Korean leftists all want US troops off of the peninsula.  Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.

Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.

Possibly the future of USFK after a peace treaty could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju.  President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence and cause the US to withdraw troops on its own accord.

Hanna Kim, a Korean-American, lays flowers at a monument built in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sept. 15, 2018, to commemorate the successful Incheon landing operation led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then commander of the U.S.-led U.N. forces during the Korean War. She and other young Korean-Americans launched the “Remember 727” project in which the numbers indicate the month and day when the war ended. This photo was provided by Kim (Yonhap)

A flight of South Korean F-4 fighters puts on an air show above Wolmi Island off Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sept. 14, 2018, to rehearse for an event the next day to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation in the 1950-53 Korean War. The 1950 operation, commanded by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, turned the tide of the war against the invading North Korea. (Yonhap)

Today is the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation that was the key pivotal battle that changed the course of the Korean War.  With the Moon administration committed to playing nice with North Korea, it will be interesting to see if President Moon attends any of the memorial events?

You can read more about the battle at the below link:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2005/09/the-inchon-landing-operation-chromite/