SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) — Here is this year’s Veterans Day message from Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs Director Kelly Fitzpatrick and an invitation to a Nov. 10 Statewide Veterans Day Ceremony in Salem:
Each year, our nation sets aside Veterans Day to remember all the men and women who have defended our liberty through their honorable military service. American cities big and small celebrate with ceremonies across the nation to honor their service and their sacrifice.
We are proud to note that even in the wake of devastating and destabilizing world events like the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrations that honor our nation’s veterans were among the first to return to full strength. The value that we as Oregonians and Americans place on honoring and showing gratitude toward those who have served and sacrificed to protect our freedoms and way of life is immense.
This year, while the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs continues to honor all veterans of all eras, we are paying tribute to one particular era of our veteran community: Oregon’s Korean War veterans. Though this war it is referred to as the “Forgotten War,” we in Oregon have never — and will never — forget the extraordinary and heroic veterans who fought for freedom in the Korean War.
This theme has a personal significance for me. My father fought as a Marine during the Korean War, where he earned the Purple Heart. After I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army and asked for my first tour of duty to be in South Korea, my father shared the only thing he ever said to me about his combat experiences there. He half-joked that if I ever traveled near the DMZ, I would surely see his fingernails where he desperately attempted to dig a deeper foxhole as enemy artillery rained down on his Marine unit.
Of course, my own experience of being stationed in the Republic of Korea was vastly different, thanks to those courageous men and women who fought during the Korean War. In fact, I enjoyed my first tour in Daegu so much that several years later, I served a two-year tour in Korea. The Korean people are wonderfully gracious and kind. Whenever I was in uniform outside the military base, older Koreans who remembered the war would sometimes approach me and thank me as a representative of the American military.
In 1950, our nation was weary of war after years of global conflict. Yet, 1.5 million Americans — including 60,000 Oregonians — left their family and friends and their homes to help defend our nation’s friends and allies halfway around the world, in a place they had never been and on behalf of a people they had never met.
Together with men and women from 20 other nations, they joined shoulder to shoulder with the brave people of South Korea to defend their independence, to safeguard other Asian nations, and to protect the freedom that remains our greatest gift. All those who fought in the Korean War endured terrible hardships — deadly cold, unbearable conditions, an enemy of overwhelming numbers, and the threat of brutal imprisonment and torture.
But their courage never wavered — not when they were defending the perimeter at Busan, braving the tides at Inchon, confronting the world’s fastest fighter jets in Mig Alley, enduring hand-to-hand combat on Heartbreak Ridge and Pork Chop Hill, or even fighting their way back from the infamous Chosin Reservoir.
In September of this year, I had the privilege of speaking at an Honor Flight of Portland, Oregon, send-off event for 24 honored veterans — 19 of whom served in the Korean War. It was an honor to meet them, shake their hands, hear some of their stories, and wish them well as they prepared to fly across the country to visit the fabulous memorials built in our nation’s capital to honor and remember their service and sacrifice. They set a standard of valor and perseverance that may be equaled, but will never be surpassed in the…
Read More: Veterans Day 2022 message from director of Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs