Relatives of Veterans Left Off Korean War Memorial Travel to DC For Protest

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Relatives of Korean War veterans traveled to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, for a protest at the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance.

Those relatives say their loved ones were forgotten twice: once, because the Korean War is sometimes called the “Forgotten War” due to the lack of public attention given to it, and a second time, when the veterans’ names were left off the memorial wall that opened last year.

A New York Times report revealed that numerous names of veterans who fought and died in the war are missing from the wall, while many other names are misspelled.

The Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior acknowledged the error earlier this month, and are encouraging relatives of those veterans to get in touch with them.

Terri Mumley, of Tennessee, said her grandfather’s plane was shot down during the war on Jan. 18, 1953 — 70 years ago on Wednesday.

Her grandfather’s name is not on the wall.

Instead, his death is classified as a “Cold War” loss, because the plane went down about 30 miles outside the line for Korean War losses, Mumley said.

According to Mumley, the Department of Defense classified his flight as “outside” the line of what they considered Korean War losses that would go on the remembrance wall sometime in the 1980s. She and her family have been fighting for years, to get what they believe was a clerical error corrected.

“It’s heartbreaking that, as much money and time would be spent to make this wall, to honor heroes, and that it’s wrong,” Mumley said. “And that they just put it together and hoped that nobody would say anything, is almost the way you feel. Nobody would come forward and say anything about it.”

Mumley said she plans to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday to connect with lawmakers and deliver a letter about the issue.