Sunny Park speech on Korean War UN Veterans Memorial Park Korea Foundation Launch Meeting

2025. 11.11 5 o'clock at 11 o'clock AM Grand Hyatt Hotel Grand Ball Room, Hannam-dong, Seoul

I am Sunny Park, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

I am honored to dare to explain this historic work in front of you, who are lacking in.

The Korean War United Nations Veterans Memorial Foundation has been born with the purpose of building the most solemn and grand Korean War related memorial park in the world.

To construct this park, including 1,700 pyeong (approximately 5,600 square meters) designated for monuments, we need a land area of about 5,000 pyeong (approximately 16,500 square meters) and a budget of roughly 60 billion won.

Securing the site for the park with the support of the Korean government is the most important and significant challenge. The construction fund will be raised through a nationwide campaign, with more than one million Korean citizens participating.

I believe the spirits of those War heroes will feel that their sacrifice has been worthy when over one million Koreans, young and old, voluntarily donate contributions and dedicate this Memorial Park.

I was born and raised here in Seoul, and the Korean War began when I was 8 years old.

I was still a young boy who went on an evacuation route with his family and joined the battlefield. I witnessed countless soldiers and civilians dying.

At that time, soldiers from the United States and United Nations member countries who looked different from us, Koreans, were killed while fighting bravely to save the freedom and lives of Koreans in a distant and distant battlefield.

Some of soldiers with blonde hair was carried to death on a rice paddy field, and a dark-skinned soldier was lying on the soybean field with his eyes open to the sky and dying.

One summer day, I was playing in the stream at the refuge site with two of my 9-year-old mischievous friends.

Suddenly a fighter jet emitted smoke with a roar from the peaceful blue sky and crashed into a nearby mountain where we were playing, the three of us children ran to the scene without saying who was first. The wreckage of the fighter jets was scattered with flames, and at the scene we were looking for the pilots who might have survived.

But it was not the appearance of the wounded American pilots that blocked our view, but the flesh of the pilot, torn to pieces and frozen on the branches of trees.

The pilot’s parts of body on a branch, and a bent pistol hung from the bowels of his body hanging from a branch, swaying like a pendulum on a wall clock.

We, the boys and I had seen many bodies during the war, but this was the first time we had seen such a tragic scene.

We were at a loss for words and held back tears as we looked at each other.

We realized that there was nothing we could do, so we turned around and went to the village, and found a photo on the grass full of clover flowers. Saw in the black and white family photo with a happy smile, it was easy to find a young man who was assumed to be the pilot of the fighter.

He was smiling widely. His wife, who was presumed to be his son, was also smiling widely as well. A beautiful family!

After that incident and the war ended, and we went back to normal life as peace was given to us.

The people of the Republic of Korea worked hard and were able to enjoy freedom. Several decades have passed, the Republic of Korea has achieved industrial development, and the lives of the people have become comfortable.

I immigrated to the United States in 1974 and became a U.S. citizen.

In 1990, the Gulf War began, the United States was struggling with recruitment, and the U.S. Congress began discussing the conscription of young Americans, my youngest son, who was 16 years old at the time, received a physical examination notice from the government to register for conscription.

I woke up. I couldn't sleep at night because I thought that if my beloved son, whom I had raised preciously, was sent to the desert to protect the country I never really care, called Iraq, he might not be able to return home alive.

The bodies of American soldiers who were oxidized in the Korean War, which had been forgotten for 40 years, began to appear in my memory. I felt that the family photo of the unknown pilot I met during the Korean War who died in the flesh of so many fragments overlapped with the face of my family.

I thought I had my own amount of gratitude to the spirits who died in the Korean War, but after receiving my son's physical examination notice for his conscription, I realized that the amount of my gratitude to the Korean War veterans was way too shabby.

Immediately, I had to call then Georgia Governor Zell Miller and secured a site for a Memorial front of the State Capitol buildings to erect a memorial monument engraved with the names of 740 Georgians who died in the Korean War, it was Veterans Day of 1991.

I couldn't save the deceased just by erecting a Memorial, but I wanted to do something to express the gratitude to those precious souls of Georgians who died for me and my fellow Koreans in Korea.

Subsequently, we sponsored the establishment of a Korean War Veterans Monument in Tennessee, and in 1995, we sponsored the establishment of a Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Just three years ago, in 2022, I worked as a director of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation to build a 'Wall of Remembrance' with the Korean government to cover construction costs and participated as a donor.

However, there is still much to be desired to express gratitude for the freedom, life and prosperity gained through their sacrifices.

I may be a greedy person, but I feel that the memorial facilities in Korea, which is the only beneficiary country that benefits the sacrifices of Korean War veterans are short compared to the Memorial in DC.

Of course, there is a plaque with the names of the victims of the Korean War engraved on the Korean War Memorial of Korea, which I am proud of.

However, we judge that the scale of its grandeur is not up to the level of UN veterans who are familiar with the scale of the Washington Memorial Park.

Americans who sacrificed 36,564 people to help the Republic of Korea erected more than 200 monuments dedicated to Korean War veterans, and the names of Korean War veterans are placed on numerous highways throughout the United States.

Compared to this, only about 20 monuments have been erected in South Korea, which is the only beneficiary country of the supreme sacrifices.

The fact that there is no memorial park for UN soldiers in Korea other than the cemetery in Busan is a pity for the preparatory committee members who want to build this memorial park.

The memorial plaque erected at the War Memorial of Korea, the largest memorial facility in South Korea, includes the names of UN soldiers who died in the United Nations, but it is also part of the more than 210,000 names of Korean War victims. The consensus is that the name plaque erected when South Korea's economic situation is not good (per capita national income is 7,000 dollars) is meager than the scale of the Wall of Remembrance carved in Washington, USA.

The UN Forces Cemetery in Busan is one of the few facilities in Korea that commemorates the victims of foreign soldiers, but its location is in a remote place like other cemeteries, so it is not easy for people who do not have a special reason to make a special trip.

Rather, the United States, the donor country, is installed on the National Mall, the central area of the capital, and in the front yard of the Lincoln Memorial, which is the busiest, so it is very comparable.

Korean War United Nations Veterans Memorial Foundation established in the United States to support memorial services in Korea is joined by former commanders of United Nations forces, General John Tilelli and General Larry Ellis.

In addition, the Foundation's board of directors includes Mr. Frank Blake, the great-grandson of General James Van Fleet, a Korean War hero who sparked the modernization of the Korean military, and Judge Miles Davis, the son of Marine General Davis, a medal of honor recipient and the hero of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir (Jang Jin Lake).

Coincidentally, today is Veterans Day of the United States, when the United States honors the heroes of the salvation of the country.

Above all, your presence while busy with work to participate in the historic project after putting off other important tasks reassures us that our plans will go smoothly.

Thank you very much for participating!

From now on, we are members of the team! The team to build the memorial and the history.

Thank you for your support.

May God bless the souls of the Korean War heroes, and the project!