Ever since I started riding to work, I have had to detour around a construction site. They were building a Korean War Memorial. I first saw that they were going to do this at the no-to-pope rally. This afternoon the barriers were down and we got to see the memorial. Of course the Korean War, was never a war. It was a Police Action. I knew some veterans in Upwey who were very upset. You see they could not get any of the ex-serviceman stuff like pensions because it was not a war. They had been duped severely by a government more intent on saving money that looking after it’s soldiers.
Also, I now have been to Korea and the DMZ and the sites of some fierce fighting. I was also there during the failed first nuclear bomb test in North Korea. It gives one a different perspective on the whole thing.
2009:07:28: I went into the memorial last night and noted it only lists the countries on the allied side. When will someone build a memorial to those who died in a war, rather than a memorial just to commemorate those on one side who died? After-all, we should be pointing out that those who dies did so in the belief that theirs was a just cause, even if one disagrees with that opinion, and we should showing what a tragedy it is that we as humans are still fighting wars.
When I went past, there were two people there, who kind looked official, they had name tags. You can just see them in the photo, standing on the left behind the bench seat.
This morning, I saw them again. So I stopped and had a chat. Apparently the memorial has slightly wet concrete and they were there to stop people from walking on it, until the concrete had cured. Though they assured me that they had not been there all night. I said hello again to them this afternoon as I zoomed past.