Errors sully Korean War memorial
Missing names, misspellings rife on wall of honor
An arc of gleaming black granite slabs etched with 36,634 names was unveiled on the National Mall over the summer, built to honor American service members who died fighting in the Korean War.
People like Frederick Bald Eagle Bear, an Army corporal who was killed as he rallied his infantry squad to fend off an enemy attack.
And Walder McCord, a bomber pilot who crashed during a night mission. And John Koelsch, a helicopter pilot who was shot down trying to rescue another pilot, died in captivity, and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
But Koelsch’s name is spelled wrong, McCord’s name is not on the wall at all, and the name of Frederick Bald Eagle Bear, a member of the Lakota tribe, is so mangled that the polished granite lists him as Eagle B F Bald.
There are hundreds more mistakes like those.
“It’s just a damn mess — full of old bookkeeping errors and typos,” said Hal Barker, 75, a historian who, together with his brother, Edward Barker Jr., 77, maintains a vast online repository of information about the conflict, a trove known as the Korean War Project.
The brothers estimate that the $22 million wall of remembrance — an addition to the 27year-old Korean War Veterans Memorial — contains 1,015 spelling errors. It also incorrectly includes 245 names of service members who died in circumstances totally unrelated to the war, they say, including a man killed in a motorcycle accident in Hawaii and another who drank antifreeze thinking it was alcohol. And it includes one Marine who lived for 60 years after the war and had eight grandchildren.
Beyond that, there are about 500 names that should be listed but are not, according to the Barkers. They say that the official roster used for the wall was so slapdash that they cannot find much rhyme or reason to who was included and who was left out.
For example, records show that when McCord’s bomber crashed, nine crew members aboard were killed, but the names of only three are included on the wall. In another case, a Navy plane collided with an Air Force plane off Japan, killing both pilots; the Navy pilot is on the wall, but the Air Force pilot is not.
How did it all go so wrong? The reasons include the shared missteps of several federal agencies and a veterans’ group that failed to devote the time, money, and scrutiny needed to prepare an accurate list, probably ensuring that even more time, money, and scrutiny will be required to fix it.
The granite slabs were erected by the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation to recognize a largely forgotten conflict that left more than 1 million people dead and a country divided. The money for the project was largely provided by the government of South Korea. Like other monuments on the mall, the slabs are maintained by the National Park Service. The error-riddled list of names was supplied by the Defense Department. And no one seems to have checked it.
The foundation declined to comment. The Park Service deflected blame to the Defense Department.
The Defense Department declined to make decision-makers available for comment. In response to questions from The New York Times, it acknowledged that there were errors on the wall, saying in a statement that compiling an accurate list was “challenging.”
“We encourage all family members or concerned citizens to notify the Department of any names that were omitted, misspelled, or included in error,” the statement said, adding that the department would work with the Park Service to make any necessary corrections or additions, although they did not offer any details of how the granite could be fixed.
The brothers said they could think of no options but tearing out the slabs and starting over.
The mistakes might have attracted little notice if not for them.
Truth be told, the brothers never liked the idea of a wall of names. It not only draws dividing lines among the dead, they said, it ignores those who lived — men like their father who came home but were forever scarred by their experiences.
“A wall should have never been done,” Ted Barker said. “But now that it has been done, we need to get it right.”