Vets turn toward Busan on Nov. 11

By Vincent Courtenay

On Nov. 11 I will be a guest of Korea's Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs participating in the 11th annual Turn Toward Busan ceremony at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan. I am most appreciative of the Korean Government's sponsorship of my wife and I while we are in Korea, along with many others being invited to participate in this event.

This year, instead of bringing veterans from 21 nations to Korea, the Ministry offered their places to bereaved family members who lost loved ones during the war. In that, the annual service comes full circle.

When I participated in the first government-sponsored Turn Toward Busan ceremony in 2018, there were only six veterans present as an honor guard for the bereaved family members. It was a solemn ceremony and the bereaved relatives of those buried in Busan appreciated greatly the assistance and the condolences of the veterans who had served alongside their loved ones.

After that the service was held for any by war veterans only, until the bereaved family members were again invited this year.

For me, it will be the 20th year in which I have visited the graves of 12 comrades who fell in the war. Most times it has been as a private person traveling independently.

My reaction is somewhat different than those of civilian relatives of those who fell. I was with many of those soldiers when they were killed in action. I served under fire with all 12 of them.

The UN Cemetery is maintained in fastidious condition. The plants, trees, grass are all well manicured. The roads, the structures, the grave markers are clean and impressive. The headstones are placed in equally spaced columns, giving an impression of order and of solemn dignity.

But veterans who served with those buried there know there was no order or dignity when they fell. The bloody shell torn hills were a shambles of chaos and confusion.

The soldiers who fell were later carted to a medical inspection post. Sometimes these fallen heroes were in pieces, having been hit by mortar bombs or by a shell. Their remains were bundled together in a blanket and trucked to a clearance center.

A medical officer gave a superficial appraisal of the cause of death. Instead of identifying whether bullets or shrapnel had killed the soldier, the medical officer simply wrote "missiles" and the area where they had hit.

All of the fallen soldiers buried in the UN Cemetery were trucked there, or sent there by rail. Their remains were not in caskets, but wrapped like mummies in tent canvas.

There was no embalming, no casket, no laying in state for these soldiers. They were buried as they fell in the same blood soaked, torn, burned clothing they died in.

They were buried in those canvas shrouds in the fresh dug earth. A small bronze bottle containing their documents was buried 46 centimeters under the soil.

In newspapers in their home countries they are often called "glorious." But there was nothing glorious about their passing. They fell in unimaginable turmoil, full exposed on the earthen hills, often never seeing the enemy who put death upon their scant numbers.

Those killed in action went from battlefield to the cold ground at Busan as quickly as possible. There was no remembrance service for them. They simply lived one moment and were gone the next.

A chaplain said a prayer for each of them when they were buried in Busan. The mother or the wife or nearest relative received a telegram saying their government was sorry that the soldier had died.

There should be great sadness in how these soldiers, many of them teenaged youths, died defending Korea. There was nothing wonderful in the battles they fought; they were harsh, unbelievably horrible testimony to man's capacity for rage and for cruelty.

I salute every one of the fallen soldiers I served with when I visit their graves. If I have flowers I place one on each of their headstones. Many of the twelve are buried within a few steps of each other, because all fell in battle on the same wicked, small, now meaningless hill. It sits forlornly on the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone.

What is glorious is how a great modern nation has arisen on the soil where they fell; the soil where hundreds of thousands who did not die suffered and quaked in fear as they served.

In the war years there was no sign of that great nation for any of us.

There were only bleak, treeless hills, the physical agony hiking over the land with heavy loads, the mental agony knowing that each step taken might be a final one. It was horrible to carry our wounded and dead comrades from the front and have their blood on our hands and under our fingernails.

The service in Busan is but one that are held in many nations around the world on November 11. One is held in Canada on November 10, synchronized to the minute with that at Busan. Others are held in Washington, DC; in many places in the United Kingdom; in South Africa; even in distant Colombia and in Ethiopia in Africa.

On that day many veterans the world over who knew the horrors of the Korean War turn to face Busan. They silently salute and pray for their comrades who died defending the Republic of Korea.

After 20 years, each visit to the graves of comrades at the UN Cemetery in Busan becomes no easier. For me, the place drips with sorrow. I am incredulous when I touch the cold bronze plaques on the grave markers of fallen friends. I wipe them off carefully if they have any soil or debris upon them.

Vincent Courtenay founded the Turn Toward Busan worldwide veterans tribute for the United Nations Fallen in 2017.