The Graybeards - KWVA - Korean War Veterans Association

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Vice President Cheney Speaks
2006 Korean War Veterans Armistice Day Ceremony
Korean War Veterans Memorial
Washington, D.C.
10:40 A.M. EDT
The Vice Pesident: Thank you. Thank
you very much. Well, good morning to you
all, and welcome to the Nation’s Capital.
Secretary Kempthorne, Admiral Kuhn,
Director Reinert, Colonel Dechert, Colonel
Wiedhahn, members of the armed forces,
veterans, distinguished guests, ladies and
gentlemen: It’s a privilege for me to stand
here today with all of you.
I want to extend a special welcome to
Ambassador Lee and to General Park —
friends of the United States, and representatives
of a great and free nation, the Republic
of Korea. Gentlemen, we’re proud to have
you with us.
I’d also like to acknowledge the members
of the Korean War Veterans Foundation. You
worked hard to help create this memorial to
the troops who never again saw the Golden
Gate Bridge from the West, as well as the
soldiers from other nations who served in the
Korean War. America is grateful for the
vision and the perseverance of the Korean
War Veterans Foundation.
On this anniversary, gathered at this place
of remembrance and reflection, our thoughts
turn to a generation of Americans who lived
and breathed the ideals of courage and honor,
service and sacrifice. Our Korean War veterans
heard the call of duty, stepped in to halt
the advance of totalitarian ideology, and
fought relentlessly and nobly in a brutal war.
With us this morning are some of the very
men and women who served under Harry
Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and went
into battle under the command of Douglas
MacArthur, Matthew Ridgway, and
Raymond Davis. It is an honor to be in your
company. To all the veterans of the Korean
War, I bring the gratitude of your fellow citizens,
and good wishes from the President of
the United States, George W. Bush.
These Americans served in a war that has
seldom received the attention it really
deserves. Nearly a half-century came and
went before a proper monument to the
Korean War was constructed here on the
Mall. But the Korean War Veterans’
Memorial has done a great deal to reacquaint
the nation with the history of that war.
In the space of just 37 months, the United States of
America lost a total of more than 36,000 of our soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and Marines. More than 90,000 others
returned home wounded.
Americans already familiar with the heroism
of World War II and Vietnam are now learning
the story of Korea — of what was
gained, and what was lost, and of the decisions
made so long ago that have a continuing
significance to this day.
I am told that a visitor to this memorial
once asked a Korean War veteran if he liked
its depiction of 19 ground troops, fitted out
for battle, moving toward the American flag.
He did. But, he said, “If you want to know
what Korea was like,” come back and “look
at them when it’s 10 degrees, snowing and
sleeting.”
When the war began in the summer of
1950, our military had been through years of
demobilization and was scarcely prepared
for what lay ahead. The South Korean units
were even worse off. The first units on our
side in the battle area went in without tanks
and were severely outgunned. General
Ridgway said it was as if a few troops of Boy
Scouts with hand weapons had tried to stop a
German Panzer column. Another soldier
remembers Korea as “a war of fists and rifle
butts.” Yet our troops fought valiantly. In
early battles, American and South Korean
combat forces were often outnumbered —
sometimes by as much as 20 to one. It was,
said President Truman, one of the most heroic
rearguard actions on record.
Over time, the forces of freedom gained
the firepower to match their bravery. And in
three years of fighting, our armed forces
helped to write some of the most notable
chapters in military history — including
MacArthur’s brilliantly conceived landing at
Inchon, the intense struggle at Pork Chop
Hill, and the successful withdrawal from the
deathtrap at Chosin Reservoir — an event
that has been termed “the most violent small
unit fighting in the history of warfare.”
Throughout the conflict, American and
South Korean forces found themselves in
some of the most difficult conditions any
army could face. Their weapons rusted in the
monsoons of summer, and froze solid during
the coldest Korean winter in a hundred years.
Many of our men who fell into enemy hands
were treated with cold-blooded cruelty. By
the time the fighting ceased and the armistice
was signed, 131 Americans had earned the
Medal of Honor — and of those, 94 died
while earning it.
In the space of just 37 months, the United
States of America lost a total of more than
36,000 of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
Marines. More than 90,000 others returned
home wounded. And even today — 53 years
after the guns went silent — some 8,000 of
our men remain unaccounted for. These
brave Americans were last seen doing their
duty. We know their names. We honor their
service. And this nation will persist in the
effort to gain a full accounting for every last
one of them.
The cause America stood for in Korea —
joined by forces from many countries — was
noble and just. It was the cause of human
freedom. It was a battle to determine, as
General Ridgway put it, “Whether the rule of
men who shoot their prisoners, enslave their
citizens, and deride the dignity of man shall
displace the rule of those to whom the individual
and his individual rights are sacred.”
In the course of the struggle, our good
ally, South Korea, sustained horrendous losses,
both military and civilian, at the hands of
the communist forces. Yet so much of the
suffering that came to South Koreans in that
period of war has been the daily experience
of their brothers and sisters in the North for
the more than 50 years since. North Korea is
a scene of merciless repression, chronic
scarcity and mass starvation, with political
prisoners kept in camps the size of major
cities. President Bush has observed that
satellite photos of the Korean Peninsula at
night show the North in almost complete
darkness. South Korea, on the other hand, is
bathed in light — a vibrant, enterprising
society, a prosperous democracy sharing ties
September – October 2006
The Graybeards