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SALT LAKE CITY — Veterans of the "Forgotten War" were remembered Saturday with medals honoring their military service in Korea nearly seven decades ago.
Gene Christiansen, 85, of South Jordan, choked up with emotion as he talked about what the recognition meant to him, calling it "very pleasing."
"When I look back and see what it was like then and see what a beautiful, wonderful country it is now, I'm so proud to have served," said Christiansen, who was a draftsman in the Marines.
The South Korean government presented Ambassador for Peace Medals to 67 Utahns who served in the Korean War during a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.
South Jordan resident John Cole, a Marine during World War II and the Korean War, worked with the Korean consulate in San Francisco and the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs to put on the event. He received the medal in Korea several years ago and wanted other veterans to be honored as well. He organized the first medals ceremony in the state in 2014.
Cole, 89, who has three Purple Hearts, said people have asked him why he does it.
"My basic answer was because nobody else did, and it needed to be done," he said, wearing a full dress Marine uniform adorned with medals.
Gen. Kenneth Gammon, of the Utah Air National Guard, said Korean War veterans did not receive a victory parade, unless they count a belated one in New York City in 1991, nearly 40 years after the war. Congress, he said, didn't recognize what was called the Korean conflict as a war until 1998.
More than 36,000 Americans were killed in the war, including 141 Utahns, that lasted from 1950 to 1953. About 14,000 Korean War veterans live in Utah, Gammon said.
Korean Consul General Shin Chae-Hyun expressed heartfelt appreciation for the veterans during the ceremony, noting how Americans fought to defend the freedom and democracy of the fledgling republic known as the Land of the Morning Calm.
He called veterans a living testimony to a great human victory over authoritarian rule and oppression of basic human rights. Without their service, he said, the country wouldn't be a vibrant democracy with one of world's strongest economies.
"Thanks to them we could survive and we could rise from ashes to today's Korea," Shin said.
James Willis, 85, of Kanab, was among those who received the medal. He served as an Army cook.
"I didn't expect this kind of pomp and ceremony. It's surprising to me," he said. "There's a lot of us who are getting quite a bit older, and it's been something that's been due for a long time."
