It is at the Lincoln Memorial end of the mall, closer to the Lincoln than the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but on the opposite side. I found it every bit as touching as the Vietnam Memorial but quite different. More than 50,000 Americans died in each of those wars.
The Korean Memorial has three elements: a flag toward which a patrol of 19 slightly bigger-than-life-size soldiers is advancing, a pool of remembrance behind the flag, and a polished black granite wall, somewhat like that of the Vietnam Memorial but etched with a montage of 2,500 ghostly pictures of Korean War personnel and equipment rather than the names of the dead. The names are available at a National Park Service kiosk.
The 19 figures grab you. They are gun-metal gray, which gives them a certain ghostliness. They constitute a scouting patrol arranged in a long, narrow triangle with the lead scout closest to the flag. All of the men are weary and tense, their eyes turned in all directions looking for an unseen enemy. All but one are helmeted with their ponchos blowing in the wind, their weapons at the ready.
They are fighting, as an inscription says, "to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." They are at once bewildered yet determined, responding to President Truman's decision that North Korea's surprise 1950 invasion of South Korea was a threat to world security that America, the strongest nation of all, just five years after World War II had to help repel.
It was a United Nations effort officially but American officers commanded it and 95 percent of the non-Korean participants were American.
Visitors are requested to stay outside the triangle enclosing the statues but have no trouble empathizing with the tense scene and the booted, foot-weary men. A light growth of juniper bushes surrounds the area while linden trees are at the reflecting pool. The advancing men are separated by polished granite strips intended to symbolize rice paddies and bring a sense of order to the scene.
Twelve of the figures are Caucasian, three are African American, two are Hispanic, one is Asian American and one is American Indian. By service, there are 14 Army, three Marine, one Navy and one Air Force. Two are medics. There are no women, but women's support contribution is reflected on the marble wall.
The patrol carries M-1 rifles, carbines, a machine gun and a Browning automatic rifle.
FOR now the Korean Memorial is served by the somewhat remote information kiosk that serves the Vietnam Memorial but park rangers are on site to answer questions. A separate kiosk is planned for the site.
Park Service literature says the reflective quality of the marble wall doubles the number of statues to 38, a significant number because the fighting lasted 38 months and the battle line was the 38th Parallel. Viewed from afar it is said to reflect Korea's mountain ranges..
I confess these niceties escaped me when my wife and I paid a short visit, but there is no escaping the overall power of the presentation. It is a great memorial to a cause that still is not finally settled and that still threatens world peace.