November 24, 2024

Thank you for taking a look at our petition. I'll be brief.

It has been a long two years since the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance was dedicated with thousands of errors and omissions. The media interest went away and nothing has changed at the Wall. 

We have fielded many requests about how to help, but we exhausted our sources in the old Congress. It is heartbreaking to know that so many heroic men and women are forgotten. Truly forgotten.

My brother Ted and I at the Korean War Project have spent much of our lives getting up each morning to Honor the Lost. Our father, then Major Edward L. Barker, survived the war but at enormous cost mentally and physically.

A young Navy pilot,  LtJG John Kelvin Koelsch, posthumously received the Medal of Honor for a heroic rescue attempt of a downed pilot in North Korea. He and his crewman managed to get the badly burned Marine pilot into his helicopter, but the aircraft was shot down and Koelsch was taken prisoner along with his crew member.

On the Wall, engraved in stone, is the misspelled name John K. Koelsh. This is how we remember an American hero, his name spelled wrong. Medal of Honor. How can this happen?

But we have hope. Maybe a desperate hope, but it is simply not acceptable to leave a National Memorial to the Lost from the Korean War full of errors and omission forever. 

Please contact your Senator and Representative to support a fix for the Wall of Remembrance.

Hal Barker
Korean War Project
Founder - Korean War Veterans Memorial