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Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I want to talk briefly about a very sacred place on our Nation's Mall, The National Mall, that I had an opportunity to visit yesterday. It is the Korean War Veterans Memorial that millions and millions of Americans have visited. Something happened last Wednesday that I wanted to talk about a little bit, a really important rededication of this very moving war memorial.
Now, I like to get out on The Mall most days, go for a run in the morning when I am in DC, and I love our memorials, like everybody in America does, particularly the memorials that are dedications to the service of our military members, our veterans. The Presiding Officer is a veteran, a war hero. I have a ton of respect for her and her service. But whether it is the World War II or the Vietnam Memorial, one of the most moving memorials that I like to visit is the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Why? Well, I think there is so much we can all learn from the Korean war.
In the Marine Corps, they really drill into you what happened during the Korean war. Unfortunately, not enough Americans know about the Korean war. But one of the big lessons is, you need to be ready. You need to be ready.
In 1945, the U.S. military was the most fearsome military in the world, probably in the history of the world, and in 1950, just 5 years later, we had a very difficult time stopping a third world army in the opening months of the Korean war. Now, we rebounded, as Americans always do, but that is a lesson. That is a lesson for our country. In my view, the uniformed civilian leadership of our military did not serve their country well, letting the state of our forces become very unready. That is one of the lessons of that very difficult, brutal war.
There is another lesson, and it is the nobility of service from our veterans that really is epitomized by service in the Korean war. The memorial has many beautifully engraved sayings, but one, when you think about it, is so moving and, in my view, depicts the nobility of American military service, particularly as it relates to that war.
It says:
Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.
Think about that--young men and women in America sent to fight halfway around the world to defend freedom. That is exactly what they were doing. And they didn't even know whom they were defending. A lot of them didn't even know where they were.
To me, those words capture the essence of nobility, and so does the Korean War Memorial. You see part of it here. The centerpiece is nine large statues--soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. They are grunts, infantry grunts on patrol. You can see there is a cold, wet wind whipping their ponchos. Their faces are full of fear, when you look at the statues, but also pride and determination. And all of this, in my view, captures the nobility of our service and our sacrifice as a nation in this war.
Now, historians have referred to the Korean war as the ``forgotten war.'' I am kind of a Korean war history buff. I really, really dislike that term. I think we should just get rid of it. It is kind of a pejorative term in some ways. I have always thought it downplays the sacrifice and nobility and meaning of this very brutal conflict.
I have often thought and said that, instead of the forgotten war, we should call it the noble war because it was a noble undertaking. It was a noble undertaking. Anyone who knows the history of this war or visits the memorial or knows a Korean war veteran or their family members knows that this was a noble undertaking by our great Nation, saving a country--literally saving a country--and we sacrificed a lot for it.
That is the other thing that I think is very powerful on this memorial. Take a look at it--another depiction. You have heard it many times, but it is right there: ``Freedom is not free.'' ``Freedom is not free.'' Indeed, the freedoms that we enjoy in America, that so many countries around the world enjoy right now because of our military members over the course of history, decades--I always like to say, probably the greatest force in liberating mankind from oppression and tyranny in the world is the U.S. military. Think about it. Hundreds of millions of people. World War I; World War II; the Civil War, of course; but the Korean war, certainly. Over 37,000 Americans were killed in action, over 8,000 are still listed as missing in action, and over 103,000 Americans were wounded.
And, of course, the killed and wounded Korean veterans and military and civilians from that war are literally in the millions--in the millions. But what also resonates are the very, very tangible results of the war in terms of freedom.
Many of us have seen the famous satellite images at night taken over the Korean Peninsula--the whole peninsula. And if you look at the 38th parallel and what is north, it is literally dark and looks cold and looks lifeless. And if you look at everything south in that satellite picture, it is alive, bursting with life, and light.
In my view, there are very few better illustrations of the disparity between freedom and authoritarianism than the image of that Korean Peninsula at night with those two countries--one is bright and alive, and one is dark and literally dead. American citizens, American soldiers, American military kept an entire country free.
So what happened last week? I didn't think this war memorial, to be honest, could be improved--one of my favorites: powerful, as I have talked about; great words--but it was improved.
Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend the dedication-- really, the rededication--of the Wall of Remembrance that was added to the Korean War Memorial last week. The wall now has engraved on it the 36,573 Americans that were killed in action--every one of them--like the Vietnam wall.
This is an example of what you will see at the new memorial. I encourage everybody, every American, if you are in DC, go take a look; go pay your respects. It is so moving. It is dramatically improved, this memorial, which I didn't think could be improved upon.
Importantly, intermixed in the names of the Americans are also the 7,200 KATUSA soldiers. These were the Korean Army personnel who served with American forces, right alongside them. So they are just here. They are not divided by American and Korean. Those are just the ones who served with the Americans. Again, the Korean military--their killed-in- action numbers are way higher than even these.
And here is the other thing that is so moving about this memorial. The names are actually laid out by service--Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. And they are actually listed according to rank. So if you look at the Vietnam Memorial, it is mixed in. It doesn't matter what service. And it is the date in which somebody was actually killed, chronologically.
This is by military service and their rank. Why does that matter? What does it mean? Well, I will tell you what it means. It depicts the sacrifice of war, regardless of what the war is. Wars throughout history, up until now, always fall upon the young men and women of our great Nation--the 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds. They are the ones who do the fighting, and they are the ones who do the dying.
So, for example, this is actually a picture of the section after section after section after section, which is just U.S. Army Private First Class--U.S. Army PFCs. And it is just thousands, one group. Huge sacrifice. Huge sacrifice.
So I encourage everybody to go out, take a look at this newly improved Korean War Memorial that was dedicated last week. It was such a moving ceremony. It was made all the more moving by the beautiful voice of Miss America, Emma Broyles, who sang ``God Bless America'' in front of the thousands of veterans who were there--thousands-- Americans, Koreans.
By the way, Emma is a constituent of mine. She is the first Alaskan to win Miss America, first Korean American to ever win Miss America. So she did a great job.
And the final thing I just want to mention--and I think the whole Senate--I am working on a Senate resolution, and I would love to get some of my colleagues here on the floor right now to join this resolution with me. It is a simple resolution saying thank you to the Korean government and the Korean people, because guess who paid for this memorial. It wasn't the American taxpayer. It was the Korean Government and the people of Korea. Over 22 million. We had tremendous support from our Korean war American veterans associations. They did a great job. But the vast, vast bulk of the funding for this new, incredibly moving Korean War Memorial was from the people of Korea and the Government of Korea. And they sent their defense minister, they sent their veterans affairs minister, they sent a huge delegation of members of their legislature all for this ceremony. So I want to thank all of them.
And I want to thank our veterans, our Korean War veterans, who served in the noble war--not the forgotten war, the noble war, a proud moment of history between our two great nations--a history that has bonded us--the Republic of Korea and the United States of America--for decades.
And now our Gold Star families and Korean War veterans can visit the names of their friends and families and loved ones who did this, as the memorial says:
Answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.
That is why this should be called the noble war.
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