One family has had the remains of their father who died in the Korean War identified:
Brothers Charles (left) and Larry McDaniel stand beside a memorial wall holding the name of their father at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Sept. 21, 2018.
On Friday, brothers Charles and Larry McDaniel ascended the Punchbowl Cemetery’s monument displaying the names of roughly 24,000 servicemembers who remain missing from the Korean War and the Pacific theater of World War II.
They climbed up scaffolding to reach the spot where their father’s name, Charles McDaniel, Sr., is inscribed in stone and placed a bronze rosette next to his name, indicating he is missing no more.
During an earlier ceremony at the cemetery observing the annual National POW/MIA Recognition Day, Charles McDaniel, Jr., told an audience of 300 how the remains of his father were suddenly and dramatically found.
When North Korea turned over 55 boxes possibly holding the remains of Americans who died in the Korean War in July, McDaniel greeted the news with caution.
He was three and a half when he last saw his father, who was declared missing in action on Nov. 2, 1950, during the Korean War.
The elder McDaniel, who was a medic, was one of more than 5,000 American servicemembers whose remains are believed to be in North Korea.
“So I figured, 55 sets of remains: 1 percent chance or less” his father’s remains would be among them, McDaniel said. “You kind of push it back, like you have to with grief.” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link, but their father was one of the remains recently returned by North Korea.
Charles McDaniel, Jr., holds the dog tag worn by his namesake father during the Korean War. His father’s remains and dog tag were returned by North Korea in July.
The Kim regime continues to advocate for the Trump administration to end the Korean War:
North Korea repeatedly called for the U.S. to declare an end to the Korean War, as a means to protect its regime from hostilities. However, the U.S. has required North Korea to take tangible and verifiable denuclearization measures first.
So far, North Korea has shut down its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site and dismantled parts of its Tongchang-ri missile testing site, but these measures have yet to be verified.
The North has now pledged to shutdown the Tongchang-ri facility completely in a verifiable manner.
There had been expectations for the North to pledge to submit a list of its nuclear weapons in exchange for the U.S. declaring an end to the Korean War.
However, the North made clear that it would not take any further measures until the U.S. declares the end of the war. [Korea Times]
This rhetoric of ending the Korean War has been going on for months because the Kim regime wants the peace treaty because it then challenges the legitimacy of the military presence in South Korea. If there is peace why is USFK needed?
President Moon is saying all the right things that USFK will remain after any peace treaty is signed. Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.
Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down. If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces. That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.
Possibly the future of USFK after a peace treaty could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju. President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence and cause the US to withdraw troops on its own accord.
The Moon administration’s Defense Minister nominee is advocating for an end to the Korean War:
Defense Minister nominee Jeong Kyeong-doo, chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, takes the oath before participating in his confirmation hearing at the National Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap
Defense Minister nominee Jeong Kyeong-doo said in his confirmation hearing, Monday, that the military has bolstered defense readiness ahead of the upcoming inter-Korean summit.
He also said that formally ending the Korean War should be pushed forward according to the Panmunjeom Declaration.
Jeong, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a treaty to end the war will be “a political proclamation” to pave the way for denuclearization, but this does not mean disbandment of the United Nations Command or the breakup of the South-U.S. defense alliance.
When asked about the North’s aim of seeking the end of the war for this summit, Jeong said “it was aimed at building trust between the two Koreas and North Korea and the U.S. in order to achieve the perfect denuclearization.” [Korea Times]
General Jeong is remaining on script with the rest of the Moon administration about the future of the US-ROK alliance after any end of the Korean War. The North Koreans, Chinese, Russians, and South Korean leftists all want US troops off of the peninsula. Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.
Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down. If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces. That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.
Possibly the future of USFK after a peace treaty could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju. President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence and cause the US to withdraw troops on its own accord.
Hanna Kim, a Korean-American, lays flowers at a monument built in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sept. 15, 2018, to commemorate the successful Incheon landing operation led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then commander of the U.S.-led U.N. forces during the Korean War. She and other young Korean-Americans launched the “Remember 727” project in which the numbers indicate the month and day when the war ended. This photo was provided by Kim (Yonhap)
A flight of South Korean F-4 fighters puts on an air show above Wolmi Island off Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sept. 14, 2018, to rehearse for an event the next day to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation in the 1950-53 Korean War. The 1950 operation, commanded by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, turned the tide of the war against the invading North Korea. (Yonhap)
Today is the 68th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation that was the key pivotal battle that changed the course of the Korean War. With the Moon administration committed to playing nice with North Korea, it will be interesting to see if President Moon attends any of the memorial events?
Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez of the Marine Corps is shown scaling a seawall after landing on Red Beach. Minutes after this photo was taken, Lopez was killed when smothering a live grenade with his body. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
You can read more about the battle at the below link:
To the hard left, the real tragedy of Korea is that Kim Il-sung was never allowed to extend his chain of gulags all the way to Cheju-do. https://t.co/q7bhhOOMfd
Considering that this soldiers remains were recovered in 1995, in makes me wonder how long it will take DPAA to identify the 52 remains recently returned by North Korea. Regardless welcome home PFC Joe Elmore:
In this undated photo released by the Department of Defense, Army Pfc. Joe S. Elmore is pictured in a Korean War-era photo. Elmore’s remains had been missing since a battle on the Korean peninsula in 1950 but were recently returned and identified in June. He will be buried with full military honors in Kentucky in August. (Department of Defense via AP)
The remains of a Kentucky soldier who disappeared after a 1950 Korean War battle with high casualties will be returned home for a burial with full military honors.
Army Pfc. Joe S. Elmore’s remains were originally thought to be of a British soldier when they were discovered in North Korea in 1995, but they could not be identified. The remains were later buried in South Korea.
Nearly 20 years later, the remains were disinterred and transported to The Defense Department’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which seeks to identify missing and unidentified American soldiers. The agency used DNA and anthropological analysis to match the remains to Elmore.
Elmore was 20 when he was killed during a battle on Dec. 2, 1950, in Hamgyeong Province, North Korea. He will be given a military funeral in Albany, Kentucky, on Aug. 18.
The POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a release that Elmore was among about 2,500 U.S. soldiers that were attacked in late November by overwhelming Chinese forces near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. [SF Gate]
Jenny Jin of the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency speaks in an interview with Yonhap in Washington on Aug. 8, 2018. The forensic scientist of Korean descent is in charge of identifying the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War repatriated by North Korea. (Yonhap)
North Korea reiterated its demand Thursday for the United States to agree to declare an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, saying that it would help bring in peace and create mutual trust.
Declaring an end to the Korean War is “the demand of our time” and will be the “first process” toward a peace and security guarantee, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, said in a commentary.
The newspaper added that it is “abnormal” to see distrust and animosity going on between the North and the U.S. even now, saying that it is time to take action toward declaring an end to the war. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime wants to end the Korean War and get a peace treaty signed because then that would justify demands to withdraw USFK from the peninsula. With the end of the US-ROK alliance the ROK and North Korea can move forward with their confederation idea which will essentially lead to unification on the Kim regime’s terms.
However, the Trump administration has made it clear that no peace treaty will be offered until real denuclearization happens. Over the coming year I guess we will see who blinks first.
