Don’t abandon vets

TODAY IS CANADA'S FIRST NATIONAL KOREAN WAR VETERANS ARMISTICE DAY, IN HONOUR OF ALL WHO SERVED AND ESPECIALLY THOSE BRAVE GENTLEMEN WHO FELL IN ACTION AND THOSE WHO WENT MISSING AND WERE NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN.

SERVICES WERE HELD ACROSS CANADA, INCLUDING ONE AT THE KOREAN WAR VETERANS NATIONAL WALL OF REMEMBRANCE IN BRAMPTON, ONTARIO, WHICH WAS SPONSORED BY KOREA'S MINISTRY OF PATRIOTS AND VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND ATTENDED BY 400 VETERANS.

THE TORONTO STAR REPORTED ON THAT SERVICE TODAY AND THE ARTICLE IS REPUBLISHED BELOW.

Annual day to mark end of conflict approved by Senate
Published On Tue Jul 27 2010

Former Canadian army sergeant Tak Irizawa places a poppy on the wall of remembrance during the ceremony marking the first official National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day at Brampton's Meadowvale Cemtery.

They were comrades in a long ago war who feel they’ve been forgotten for decades, pushed aside even as other war veterans were celebrated.

But Canadian veterans of the Korean War, who paid to build their own memorial in a Brampton cemetery, finally have the recognition they feel they deserve.

Hundreds of veterans from across North America and South Korea joined in sadness and celebration Tuesday to mark the first official National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day along the memorial wall at Meadowvale Cemetery.

“We were neglected for a long time,” said Terry Wickens, president of the Korea War Veterans Association of Canada.

“The Korean War was too close to World War II, then Vietnam came along and it was a television war. The only thing you saw about Korea was little bits in the paper or short snatches on the cinema newsreel.

“By the time the Korean War started, people were fed up with wars. They’d just had six years of it.”

Korean War veterans paid to create their own memorial in the cemetery in 1996, a long, low wall with bronze plaques for each of the 516 Canadians who died in the conflict from 1950-53.

It has been a bitter issue for many veterans, who believed their efforts halfway around the world were ignored.

But last month, the Senate unanimously adopted a private member’s motion by B.C. Senator Yonah Martin, the first Canadian of Korean descent in the Senate, to mark July 27 each year as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day, the day the war ended.

“I’m a daughter of two Korean War survivors and have lived with the understanding of what it meant to that peninsula,” Martin told the Star after watching aging veterans parade behind pipe bands in the cemetery. She said South Korea is now one of the world’s strongest economies.

“All of this is possible in present day, including my own life and my parents having met, because of the contributions of the United Nations forces, including Canada.”

She said she decided to propose the annual commemoration after learning Canadian veterans of the war “did not have the kind of support from our country and our government that they deserved.

“It saddens me deeply to think about that past . . . what they endured and what they overcame,” Martin said. “As a country, we definitely owed it to them long before this.”

That was good news to Joseph Sweeney, 75, of Toronto, a paratrooper with the Royal Canadian Regiment who enlisted in 1951 when he was just 16.

“After all these years, we were forgotten but we never forgot,” he said, adding he was made to feel ashamed when he returned from the war.

“The Legion didn’t want us, nobody did. They ridiculed us,” he explained. “I just felt like two cents. But it’s changed today.”

Veteran Bill Campbell, 78, said the wall of remembrance “is a sacred spot for Korean veterans.

“Their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. I have a couple of buddies on the wall here. They went over a few months before me and were killed on Hill 355.”

Among the dignitaries at the ceremony were Ontario Lieutenant Governor David Onley, Republic of Korea Consul General Hong Ji-in and federal Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn.

“We pay tribute to those people, who have done that for us, to deliver to us a better life, freedom,” Blackburn said.

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