A black, granite Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Memorial on the National Mall in D.C. bears the names of those who died defending South Korea, but operators of an online database of Korean War casualties say the wall includes hundreds of mistakes.
“We found lots of last names incorrect, lots of Hispanic and compound names, Hawaiian names. And then, first names were mangled and inverted. First names not appearing, middle names nonexistent or middle names actually first names,” said Ted Barker, who, with his brother Hal Barker manage, the online database Korean War Project. The database is an endeavor by Hal Barker’s nonprofit Korean War Project Foundation.
The Barker brothers said that there are also more than 200 names that do not belong on the wall because they don’t meet the government’s own criteria for inclusion, and some 500 names are omitted, mostly those of flyers killed in crashes in the expanded theater of war operations including the Sea of Japan, Japan and Okinawa.
The list of names on the $22 million Wall of Remembrance were provided by the Department of Defense to the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation, which built the wall.
The National Park Service said it is honored to care for the Korean War Veterans Memorial and stands ready to help the Memorial Foundation and Department of Defense with any possible updates to the memorial.
“They need to take the slabs … have them refaced and start over … all these men and women who died for a war effort to save South Korea, it’s important that everybody gets remembered,” Ted Barker said.
The new addition to the Korean War Memorial opened last July and holds the names of the more than 36,000 U.S. service members.
