National Officers and Directors - Korean War Veterans Association

Korean War Veterans Educational Grant Corporation
1040 Woodman Drive, Worthington, Ohio 43085-2965 E-mail ccole2@columbus.rr.com Tel. (614) 846-0326
By Charles F. Cole
KWVA National Liaison
One of the requirements of the application
process for Korean War Veterans
Educational Grant Corporation scholarships
is an essay “on how you would tell America
about the Korean War veteran”. Not surprisingly,
those applicants who are fortunate
enough to have grandparents who are still
alive and willing to talk about their military
experiences often focus on them. Ben Jager
of Edgewood, Kentucky, a 2003 scholarship
recipient, had this to say in his essay, which
is reprinted below in its entirety:
ESSAY
“My grandpa is a Korean War veteran. I
have always known this, but until recently I
have never really thought of him as being a
war veteran. He has always just been
“Grandpa” to me. Since the war in Iraq
began, though, I have thought about what
being a veteran really means. If you asked
me to close my eyes and visualize a war veteran,
I would picture an old man wearing
some kind of hat or waving a flag. He would
be smiling, but underneath that smile would
be memories of the war in which he served.
I now know that you can be a veteran and be
nineteen or twenty years old. That is not
much older than I am right now.
“The Korean War has always been
known as the `Forgotten War’, and that
probably is a good label for it. When I was
in grade school we learned a lot about the
Civil War, and World War I and II, but not
much about the Korean War. I probably
thought about it more than the other kids
because I knew my Grandpa had served in it,
but I still didn’t think about it much either.
My Grandpa has a lot of books about the
Korean War, and every year it was a challenge
for someone in the family to find a
new book that he didn’t already have. We
visited the new Korean War Memorial in
Washington DC a few years ago, and we
took pictures of the sculptures of the soldiers
for my Grandpa. We even bought him a picture
of the memorial and gave it to him for
Father’s Day-something he definitely didn’t
already have! This past year there was a
notice in our local paper about the Korean
War Service Medal that was to be given by
Korea to Korean War veterans, and we sent
in my Grandpa’s name and service records
so he could get the medal. At the ceremony
there were lots of old men, some wearing
hats and waving flags, some sons and
daughters receiving medals for their fathers
who were already dead. While I thought all
of these things were nice, I still never really
thought much about the war or the young
men, now old and gray, who fought in it.
Until now, that is. The recent war in Iraq and
all of the intense coverage of it has put a new
face on the word `veteran’ for me. During
the Korean War, my Grandpa was a young
man like the soldiers we have seen on TV
fighting and dying in Iraq. While those soldiers
had to endure brutally hot temperatures,
my Grandpa has talked, briefly, about
the bitter cold he endured in Korea. While
we see those soldiers eating their meals in a
pouch, my Grandpa talked about the endless
supply of rice he had to eat. He doesn’t eat
rice to this day.
“What I want America to know about the
Korean War veteran is this: It doesn’t matter
which war you were in-war is war, and war
is hell. The Korean War veterans, like veterans
of any other war, have sacrificed part of
Death Notice of a Member of KWVA
their lives so that we can have the freedoms
we enjoy everyday as Americans; May God
bless America, and may God bless our veterans!”
A 2003 honors graduate of Covington
(Kentucky) Catholic High School, Ben is
now using his KWVEGC scholarship to
help cover expenses of his freshman year at
Eastern Kentucky University, where he is
majoring in Occupational Therapy. His
grandfather, Leo Groeschen of Bellevue,
KY, holds a Korean Service Medal with two
bronze stars.
KWVEGC will again award college
grants in 2004, and eligible individuals are
encouraged to apply. Completed applications
will be accepted until April 30, 2004.
Additional information and application
materials are available on the Internet using
Google and KWVEGC scholarships, or may
be obtained from: Korean War Veterans
Educational Grant Corporation, 1040
Woodman Drive, Worthington, OH 43085-
2965.
Contact Charles F. Cole, President,
WWVEGC, 1040 Woodman Drive,
Worthington, OH 43085-2965 (email
address: ccole2@columbus.rr.com).
The following notice is submitted for publication:
Name of deceased __________________________________________________
Date of death ______________________________________________________
Department/Chapter__________________________________________________
Home of record ____________________________________________________
Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force Coast Guard
Other ____________________________________________________________
Primary Unit of service during Korean War
Submitted by ______________________________________________________
Relationship to deceased ______________________________________________
Send to: Membership, P.O. Box 10806, Arlington, VA 22210
GRAYBEARDS DEADLINES
Articles to be published in the Graybeards must be sent to the editor no later then the second
week of the first month of that issue.
May-Jun 2004 ..........................May14 Sept-Oct 2004 ........Sept 10
Jul-Aug 2004 ............................Jul 16 Nov-Dec 2004..........Dec 10
March/April, 2004 Page 25