Korean War Memorial. Get it right!

36, 634 names are etched into $22,000,000 worth of black marble slabs added as part of the Korean War Memorial. Two historians named Barker in Dallas estimate that there are over 1,000 spelling errors, 245 people who should not be there, and that there are another 500 or so who should be on there but are omitted.

The brothers estimate that the $22 million wall of remembrance — an addition to the 27-year-old Korean War Veterans Memorial — contains 1,015 spelling errors. It also incorrectly includes 245 names of service members who died in circumstances totally unrelated to the war, they say, including a man killed in a motorcycle accident in Hawaii and another who drank antifreeze thinking it was alcohol. And it includes one Marine who lived for 60 years after the war and had eight grandchildren.

Beyond that, there are about 500 names that should be listed but are not, according to the Barkers. They say that the official roster used for the wall was so slapdash that they cannot find much rhyme or reason to who was included and who was left out.

The money for the project was largely provided by the government of South Korea. Like other monuments on the mall, the slabs are maintained by the National Park Service. The error-riddled list of names was supplied by the Defense Department. And no one seems to have checked it.

The foundation declined to comment. The park service deflected blame to the Defense Department. The Defense Department declined to make decision-makers available for comment.

For nearly 50 years afterward, the official number of American dead from the conflict was 54,246, a number published in history books, quoted in speeches and etched in stone when the Korean War memorial was unveiled. But in 2000, the Pentagon acknowledged that the figure included all troops who had died anywhere, for any reason, during the war years, and that the true number of war deaths was 36,516.

NY Times via Yahoo

The two Barkers have been collating casualty lists from the war since 1990 starting with punch-card data from the ’50s. Due to space limitations, many of the names were entered incorrectly or multi-names were scrambled (the example cited is Frederick Bald Eagle Bear, whose card called him Eagle B F Bald.) They have been trying to get anyone, from the White House down, to pay attention and realize that the operating lists are error-filled.

Then there is the National Park Service (NPS) – they just went through a similar set of issues when the Vietnam Wall was put up. Who is included? Who is excluded? Who is responsible for the names’ accuracy? This time, the NPS was adamant: they would put up the list that the office of the Secretary of Defense issued them. And only that list. The brothers Barker offered to collaborate with DoD, who refused –  but then apparently started tapping the brothers’ website thousands of times a day.  Eventually in 2021 Defense turned over the list – and as cited above,  it is not accurate.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Government Incompetence, Korea