This Speakout was submitted by Robert Hill, commander of Brookings DAV Chapter 22

The Korean War has been called the Forgotten War because of the nature that it was fought. It occurred five years after World War II and the military structure was different in 1950 than in 1941.

Also, WWII ended with a victory;  the Korean War ended with an armistice and, as of this date, there has been no official end of the Korean War.

Soldiers were sent to war as individuals and not complete units, so when they returned, they were often asked where have you been for the past year? Even worse was when "Where in the heck is Korea?" was often asked.

The fighting in Korea ended almost 71 years ago with an armistice on July 27, 1953. Brookings County has seven listed as killed in action with one of those classified as missing in action during the period of June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953. We plan to remember those seven individuals — Sgt. Frederick Collins, Cpl. Frank Coughlin, Cpl. Kenneth DeGroot, Pfc. Orvall Larson, Pfc. Floyd Schultz, Pfc. Alvin Steffensen and Pfc. Marvin Van Ningen — on July 27. The Brookings Disabled American Veterans Chapter and Unit No. 22 are honoring these seven individuals and would like to invite anyone who might remember them to submit it to the Brookings DAV Chapter so we can include it during this event.

The state of South Dakota honored one of those soldiers, Cpl. Kenneth DeGroot, last year with the naming of a Big Sioux River bridge near his hometown of Volga. We want to continue remembering our service members who served in that conflict.

The second annual Korean War/Defense Veterans Appreciation Day Event is being held July 27 at the Brookings County Outdoor Adventure Center. A military display from the 1950s will be available from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a presentation will be held at noon. The guest speaker is the National DAV National Interim POW/MIA Committee and he will be discussing what is being done to locate the remains of soldiers like Pfc. Floyd Schultz from White and others.

I often get asked the question of why I continue to honor the Korean War and its people by holding events such as this and displaying artifacts from that period.

I purchased the first item for my Korean War Collection at age 16.

The rifle is a Lee-Enfield No.4 Mark 1 used by the British Commonwealth soldiers.

Two people in my family have influenced my “hobby” of collecting Korean War artifacts. The first one is my Uncle Ellis Midgett, USMC May 1952 to April 1955. He was an Armored Amphibian Crewman and served in Korea from June 1953 to July 1954. The second is my wife’s father Chang, Jun Ik. He told me that he served on Jeju-do Island during the Korean War and trained South Korean soldiers to fight on the mainland.

Although I served in South Korea in 1978-79, 1989, and 1996-97, I never was very interested in studying the Korean War. I served at Camp Edwards (East), Yeongtae-ri, 1978-79, Camp Libby, Pohang, 1989, and Camp Casey, Dongducheon, 1996-97 during my service years.

My youngest son, Msgt. Ben Hill, also served in South Korea at Kunsan K-8 Air Base, Gunsan in 2004-05.

I was the commander of our local Disabled American Veterans chapter in Brookings and our South Dakota State DAV was sponsoring Honor Flights for WW II veterans to see the newly opened WW II Memorial in Washington, D.C. I went on a trip on the South Dakota Honor on April 23-24, 2010, and escorted a WW II-era veteran who served in Korea in 1945-46. He was a member of the local VFW Post 2118, and I knew him personally.

When I got back from that event, I had a member of my Disabled American Veterans chapter in Brookings come up to me and ask, “Why are they sending the WW II veterans to Washington, D.C., to see their monument, but are forgetting about us Korean veterans?”

I made a promise to him at that moment that as long as I am alive, Brookings will never forget about the Korean War and the servicemen and women who served there.

We have been honoring Korean War and Service veterans with our displays since the first one was set up on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2010, in Brookings.

In January 2012, I volunteered to serve as a KW60 ambassador for South Dakota through the Department of Defense 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Commemoration Committee. An event held in Brookings brought an Ambassador for Peace Medal Ceremony conducted by Ltc. Lim, Yoonkap, the Korean Army liaison officer to the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, acting on behalf of the South Korean Consulate.

Also attending the ceremony was Dr. Kim, Byong Moon, from St. Paul, Minnesota, who passed out commemorative socks to the Korean War Veterans in attendance.

Dr. Kim and his wife invited us to bring our display to his annual Korean War picnic, held in St. Paul, and we have been attending it ever since. Besides Minnesota, our Korean War Display has been shown in Iowa, Missouri and throughout South Dakota.

I also want to thank my wife of 45 years, Kil Suk Hill for her support in letting me honor the service members who have served in South Korea from 1945 to the present. All veterans are important, no matter where they served, but I always tend to shake the Korean veterans’ hands a little harder when meeting them.