Korean War veterans receive peace medals in Claremore
The Honorable Hyung Gil Kim, Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Houston, shakes hands with Korean Veteran Rocco Schiraldi during the Korean Veteran Recognition Ceremony at the Claremore Veterans Center in Claremore on Thursday June 22, 2017. JESSIE WARDARSKI/ Tulsa World
CLAREMORE — Born in the early 1960s, South Korea’s Hyung Gil Kim smiled shyly and seemed to blush as one of the American veterans shook his hand and declared that it was “nice to meet you, young man.”
“I had not been called that in many years,” Kim said Thursday.
But these veterans were grown men before he was even born, and most are now well into their 80s. The war they fought might seem like ancient history to someone born a decade after the fighting ended.
In South Korea, however, his generation takes the war very personally, Kim said.
“I was born and educated in a free, democratic nation,” he told the group of veterans. “So I am here and I can be here all because of the service and sacrifice that you made over 60 years ago. You are my heroes.”
In charge of South Korea’s consulate in Houston, Kim came to Oklahoma to present 49 Korean War veterans with peace medals at the Claremore Veterans Center, where the veterans and their families packed an auditorium to standing-room only.
South Koreans need only look across the 38th Parallel to see how their lives would be different if the war had been lost, Kim said.
“The contrast could not be more startling,” he said. “North Korea suffers under tyranny and poverty, while the South prospers in freedom.”
This photo was taken in 2017 when I was awarded the South Korean “Ambassador for Peace Medal” for service during the Korean War. The medal was presented by South Korean Counsel General Kim Hyung Gil in a ceremony at the Claremore Veterans Center.
With many of the veterans using wheelchairs, canes or walkers, Kim did all the walking — crisscrossing the room to present each veteran individually with the “Ambassador of Peace” medal. Originally created by the South Korean government as a special memento for veterans who returned to the country as part of a “Revisit Program,” the medal is now available to all Korean War veterans.
More than one veteran teared up as they received it Thursday.
“It’s simply a symbol of appreciation from the people of South Korea,” said Clarence Oliver, who served as a master sergeant in the Oklahoma National Guard during the Korean War and who went on to become a superintendent of Broken Arrow Public Schools.
“They’re not going to forget a war that, frankly, so many people in the United States have basically forgotten.”
Overshadowed by larger wars that came before and after it, the Korean War killed more than 36,914 Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. More than 2.5 million Koreans died.
Thursday’s event was originally planned as a simple luncheon until organizers realized that the consul-general himself was coming to hand out the medals in person, said Don Hughes, a veteran who helped plan the ceremony.
“It means a lot that he would come all this way,” Hughes said. “But these guys deserve it.”