GROUND BROKEN FOR KOREAN VETS TRIBUTE
Thursday, July 27th, 2006 -- 2:04 PM
Ground was broken Thursday at the Highground Veterans Memorial Park for a tribute to soldiers who fought in the "Forgotten War".It was a hot and muggy morning - perhaps reminiscent of what most Korean War vets say the remember most about the Asian country: extreme weather conditions.
Those harsh conditions are the central theme of the tribute designed by La Crosse artist Michael Martino.
?The criteria the veterans wanted were the severe conditions they had to fight under, the severe heat, severe cold and the rain,? Martino explained.
His 30?-diameter design features the ?yin-yang? symbol, which appears on the Korean flag, a granite slab cut in the shape of the Korean Peninsula and three bronze figures representing Anguish, Heat and Cold.
Thursday's groundbreaking was attended not only by area residents and veterans, but also William Burns - a Korean War Vet from Georgia.
?I was there from December (1952) to May (1953) and it was cold,? Burns remembered. ?This is a long time coming.?
Mel Dux of Neillsville, a veteran and member of the committee who spearheaded the effort, said Korean War veterans wanted their stories told now, before it is too late.
?Future generations ? 80-percent of them now ? don?t even realize it happened. If we don?t do something pretty soon, the next generation of people won?t even realize it happened and all those people will have died in vein,? Dux said.
The Committee still needs to raise a little over $30,000 to reach their goal of $170,000 - but they are hopeful it will be complete sometime next year.
37,000 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the Korean War, which ended on July 27th, 1953.
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