January 25, 2010

The Publisher of Korea Vet News is one of just two members of the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Commemoration Committee who are not Korean Nationals. It is a singular honour to be part of a 120-member organization that was formed by order of the President of Korea and is headed by the Prime Minister of Korea, a former Prime Minister and 15 Cabinet Ministers. The author is a Korean War Veteran and his associate is not. Some Veterans have asked what led to his being appointed to the Committee. Some of them know he has worked hard for Veterans causes for many years, without public fanfare.

Working on 2010 Commemoration programs is hard, full time work

I left the Canadian Army after the Korean War, as much as any man can leave behind the comrades, foes, milieu that shaped his youth. It was not done easily and for more than 50 years I have fought the pull of those men and those times and the desire to chuck everything and be back with them. Yes, even back into the horror of the Korean War. One paid a high price for tossing in with them then, and ever since. The same holds for them. My career since had many turns and I did have good status many times. In the United States I was an executive with a Fortune 500 energy company, for instance. It was a natural gas and oil company, one of the biggest in North America. I advised the chairman of the board directly and spoke for him on policy sometimes. After a couple of years I was made a vice president of the corporation. I then had to fill out the quarterly reporting documents to the United States Securities Control Commission and other agencies to certify I was abiding by regulations against insider trading and so forth. A routine part of the job was signing checks for half a million dollars to pay for advertising expenditures.

In the latter part of my career, for about 20 years, I operated my own consulting company. Again, my clients were blue chippers, including two major European corporations and a couple in the US that I am very proud to have been associated with. The latter includes Rockwell International Corporation, which at one time owned North American Aviation, which built the F-86 sabrejets that had been used in Korea. While I was associated with Rockwell they developed the B-1 strategic bomber and the NASA Space Shuttle.

All in all, not a bad career for somebody who had joined the Canadian Army a few days after turning 16, to be among the first in Canada to sign up for the Korean War. It is strange, though.

I remember once in New York City I was giving a speech at the Wall Street Club and through the windows I could look down on the Statue of Liberty in the Harbor and I was amazed that my mind was still back in trenches in Korea and I somehow was making the delivery by a sixth sense.

It was amazing juxtaposition; from a cocky patrol leader in Korea to one who spoke with considerable authority to an amazingly high ranking group of executives in the financial capital of America, with the great symbol of freedom before me.

Perhaps 30 people came up and shook my hand after but I wanted to put my focus back on the early years and not on the triumph of the moment. On the flight back from New York all I talked about with the colleague beside me was the Korean War. It must have been tedious indeed for him, because that war had ended nearly 20 years earlier and had nothing at all to do with New York and the subject I had addressed – which happened to be the national economy. While I was with the energy company I flew often with the chairman or with other executives in the corporate Gulfstream turboprop plane and we sipped cocktails in flight on the leg home and ate snacks from the bar. Looking through the Plexiglas portholes my mind would always be on Korea and the mountains and the mists and clouds, as it is even now whenever I am on a civilian jetliner. Sometimes I had command of that company plane – we had a fleet of them, but it was largest – and I took groups to visit our facilities in various locations. Sometimes it was to Louisiana and then helicopter lifts to an offshore processing rig or drilling rig. Sometimes it was a call to our gas storage fields in Texas or to drilling locations in Wyoming or lignite coal fields in North Dakota. No matter the job and the perks and the salary I was often sad and not part of it, while excelling in it. On my own, after work, I would think back on Korea and on the world as it has been and what I had done when we were so very young. I do not think that I am alone in that. So 15 years ago I began to return to Korea and I immersed myself in volunteer work to assist and to be among fellow Veterans as they returned, group by group. One year, when Her Majesty Elizabeth II came to Korea for her birthday state visit, she asked me in the reception in the British Embassy garden if it was my first time back to Korea. When I answered, “No, Your Majesty, I have been back more than twenty times,” she acted astounded and backed off. “Twenty times!” she exclaimed.

I quickly added that I love the country and its people and she responded that, “Yes they do have a lot to offer, don’t they?”

I spoke briefly with General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Aide de Camp to the Queen, when he asked me to help him clarify for Prince Philip why so few of the Veterans were wearing Second World War medals. Our point of agreement was that the Korean War came along when many of us who had longed to serve in the one war had just come of age for the one in Korea and so we rushed and signed on. Philip seemed fascinated with our “Vingt Deux,” Canada’s French speaking Royal 22nd Regiment, and asked after them and I suspect that the name “Vandoo” had a very nice ring that he liked. I was involved in the volunteer work then with the Korean Veterans Association of Korea and I became very good friends with the officials in charge of revisits and international affairs. The same held true with the Custodians and staff at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan. I also did considerable work on the 50th anniversary of the Korean War programs and was honoured to work with the great General Paik Sun-yup, whom I recommended for Canada’s Meritorious Service Decoration, which was presented to him by Canada’s Governor General.

I worked, too, with my good friend, Chairman Chi Kap-Chong, founder of the UN Korean War Allies Association and we shake

hands and reminisce every time that we meet. I often kid with him if his wife is present that she may get a call from me for assistance sometime, for she is a physician.

Chairman Chi was presented with the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II at the State Visit garden party that I mentioned. It was in recognition of his magnificent work on behalf of the world’s Korean War Veterans, acknowledged by what he has done for British Veterans and others from the Commonwealth nations.

I also had reason to nominate Chairman Chi for Canada’s Meritorious Service Decoration, which was awarded by Canada’s Governor General.

Both General Paik and Chairman Chi declined to visit Canada and instead accepted the decorations from Canadian Ambassador Denis Comeau at a special ceremony in the Shilla Hotel.

I also had much liaison with officers at the Ministry of National Defence and with the Mayor of Kapyong County and others in civic posts.

Additionally, I was credentialed with the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission and knew everyone in the Secretariat that negotiates with the North Korean mission at Panmunjom.

I participated in ceremonies there both for the reception of the remains of allied servicemen from North Korea and also one time to deliver the bodies of two North Korean soldiers who had somehow fallen into the Imjin River and had been retrieved near the southern shores.

I also had attended a particularly joyous reception given by the General in charge of the Swiss neutral nations mission. The soiree for some reason or other was thought to be particularly vexing to the nearby North Koreans and half of the building it was held in was in their portion of Panmunjom.

The Defense Battalion guarding the southern part of Panmunjom had a special escape contingency in place, lest trouble erupt, but the only sounds like gunfire were the popping of champagne corks. The champagne in buckets on the tables was Cordon Rouge from France.

However, the Swiss General took me aside and motioned to a waiter and spoke to him in the sing song dialect of his country. The waiter soon returned with a mysterious Swiss champagne which was indeed better than that offered generally to other guests. “This is what we drink at home,” said the General.

To help support the three years that I spent in Korea during the 50th commemoration period I also did reporting and analysis work on the Korean automotive industry for one of the world’s leading global automotive concerns. Through this work I became acquainted with the senior executives of all five of the Korean automotive companies. I was able to get the chairman of Hyundai Motor Co., Chung Mong-koo, to pick up a $40,000 airline ticket charge to fly a Korean choir from Busan to Ottawa, in Canada in connection with the commemoration events. I never sought reward for this hard work and stayed in the background. Along the way Canada’s Chancellery of Honours approved somebody’s recommendation to award me a Meritorious Service Decoration for what had gone on in Korea. I did go to Ottawa to accept the award on behalf of all Korean War Veterans from Her Excellency, Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada. Madam Clarkson completed her term as the Queen's Representative in Canada and now is the Colonel in Chief of my former Regiment, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The father of John Ralston Saul, her husband, was a well liked colonel with the Regiment.

I should note that the widow of Bill Allan, who had served in Korea with The Royal Canadian Regiment, accepted a Meritorious Service Decoration posthumously awarded Bill. He had been the organizer and chairman of the group that developed the Korean Veterans Wall of Remembrance in Brampton, near Toronto, Ontario. I spoke with his wife and son. Also receiving a Meritorious Service Medal for this work was another Veteran of the Royals, George "Scotty" Manion. In this same period I also accepted a Minister's Commendation from Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Ray Pagtakhan, again on behalf of all Veterans.   I might point out that interspersed with this work through the years were six major surgeries which had me in the hospital for a total of one to two weeks each time and in painful recuperation for one or two months following each operation. Still, I continued to perform, when I could.

My dear wife nearly lost me in Korea when I developed post operative infection and the attending surgeon had to scour the whole peninsula for enough of the special high powered antibiotic that brought me through – as well as my faith and my wife’s faith.

She had sat at my side through 40 days and nights, even when I had not the strength to rise up from the bed and it was an effort just to turn and relieve pressure on my back or to keep from slipping away. When you are very, very sick the thought of a very dark sleep is most compelling.

When I made those great moves with my wife’s urging, very small indeed, yet painful and requiring all of the strength I could muster, I remembered a Veteran from the Royal Canadian Artillery who had come to Korea on a revisit, whom she had dubbed “tough guy.” I said in my mind and sometimes aloud, “Tough guy,” and made that hard movement with him as my role model, for he lived in much pain, too.

The United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission that I had been credentialed with presented me with a certificate making me a lifetime Honorary Member and the United Nations Command Officers Closed Mess presented me with a pewter mug in commemoration of my membership and the good fellowship we enjoyed. I treasure both mementos and they are ever present in my personal office.

We had to return to Canada then but I went back to Korea often and continued working with Veterans. I also continued my connection with the Korean Veterans Association in Seoul.

And a couple of years ago the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs asked me to assist on some projects and now that has grown to an almost full time assignment as an advisor to the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Commemoration Committee.

They came to me, as had the Korean Veterans Association before them. I made no approach to them. I did not even know a single officer working within the Ministry.

They asked for my assistance not because I am a Veteran, but based on my known qualifications in communications and history and extensive background as a speech writer. I have written thousands of articles, produced many documentaries and capabilities videos and written numerous brochures and white paper reports for corporations and associations.

Of special interest to many has been my background in speech writing. I have written speeches for CEO’s of major divisions of Rockwell International Corporation, Budd Thyssen Krupp, Hutchinson SA of France, Allied Signal Corporation and its Bendix and Fram Divisions, the Chevrolet Division of General Motors, American Natural Resources Co., ANR Pipeline Co., Detroit Edison and others.

In the government area I have written speeches for the president of the National Center for Voluntary Action in Washington (which I developed the operational plan for in the late 1960’s), and for Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada, as well as Canada’s Minister of Heritage, Sheila Copps and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Ray Pagtakhan. In Korea I have written speeches for presidents of the Korean Veterans Association and I have prepared a commemoration statement to be read in the name of the President of Korea.

The reasons the Ministry asked me to work with them had very little to do with my being a Korean War Veteran, although it was nice to find a Veteran with these unique qualifications.

Quite recently I was asked by Veterans Affairs Canada to fill out a certificate to designate which of my family members will be awarded the Memorial Cross.

It is a medal given to survivors of Canadian servicemen killed on active duty. It is also awarded to the widows and designated family members of Veterans with a high level of war service disabilities.

It is a medal nobody wants their loved ones to receive. Indeed, filling out the certificate is a solemn thing, which I did quite alone in my office. One must understand that here is a government agency making arrangements in advance for the time that none of us like to acknowledge and which most of us push back as best we can.

Still, filling out the certificate was not all that odious a task, although it greatly impressed me and the thoughts stirred stayed foremost in my mind for many days. There was a measure of gratitude in receiving the request.

At least one knows that his country will not forget that when he was a young man he gladly served it in a distant place most of the World had never heard of before, much like the servicemen of this day do who go to Afghanistan.

We were so very proud to serve then, and proud to be part of the larger Commonwealth brigade and of the Commonwealth Division. We were very proud to serve in our own distinguished Regiments alongside the brave soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and the United States Army and US Marine Corps.

At one time in Korea my company had been seconded to Lieutenant Colonel Rose's 1st Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) to assist in counterattacking a position called the Hook. I visit the graves of several comrades who died on that position each time I go to the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan.

The award of the Memorial Cross will also tell the Veteran's widow and his children that his Nation honoured him and maybe in that they will know some solace. They surely know that he lived with that war and that nation, Korea, in his mind, all the rest of his life.

The Commemoration Committee knows and it is stated in its policy, that because of the age of the Korean War Veterans, 2010 is probably the last milestone year in which the Korean Government and the Korean People will be able to pay them thanks and tribute.

And that is why my colleagues work so hard each long day in Korea, and why I never hesitate to help them, to the best of my ability.

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Above article provided courtesy of the Korean War Veteran, koreavetnews@aol.com