In the Military

Korean War veterans
eligible for medal

The Defense Department is working out details to allow Korean War veterans to receive and wear a medal offered by the South Korean government in 1951.

It is believed that more than 1 million soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines served in the Korean War and are eligible.

Lt. Col. William Oaks, Pentagon spokesman, said no information currently is available on what veterans will need to prove they are entitled to the medal, or the process.

The medal is a gold ribbon with blue borders and red and white stripes. Attached to the ribbon is a bronze medallion embossed with an image of the Korean peninsula on a circular grid, above crossed artillery shells framed by laurel branches.

Korean War veterans have been authorized to wear the U.S-issued Korean Service Medal and the United Nations Medal. However -- unlike Vietnam and Desert Storm veterans who received the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Service Medal from Vietnam and the Kuwait Liberation Medal from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia -- Korean War veterans never got the Republic of Korea War Service Medal from South Korea.

In August the Defense Department finally corrected the oversight, and veterans of the "forgotten war" now will be getting further recognition for their service.

Naval Academy brass
to speak, attend game

Naval Academy officials will be in the islands Nov. 20 to speak to prospective candidates, their families and educators, and to attend the University of Hawaii-Navy football game.

Vice Adm. John Ryan, Annapolis superintendent, Rear Adm. Gary Roughhead, commandant of midshipmen, and Jack Lengyel, director of athletics, will speak at the session, which will be held at 9 a.m. at Sharkey Theater at Pearl Harbor Sub Base.

War rages over where
to berth battleship

As the 45,000-ton battleship New Jersey slides into a temporary home in Philadelphia this week, a battle over her permanent berth continues to rage.

Since being decommissioned in 1991, the Navy's most decorated ship -- a survivor of three wars -- has been berthed in Bremerton, Wash.

Now two cities in New Jersey eager for the tourist dollars it could bring are wooing Navy officials.

The backers of Camden, an industrial city across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, maintain the battleship should remain near its birthplace, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where it was built in 1943. Supporters of Bayonne, a city near the Statute of Liberty, say the ship should be where most New Jersey residents can have access to it. A berthing there also would attract more tourists from the New York City metropolitan area, they say.

A Navy announcement is expected in January.

The New Jersey is one of four Iowa-class battleships. The other three are the USS Missouri, berthed at Pearl Harbor; the USS Iowa, now at Newport, R.I., but destined to be a museum in San Francisco; and the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va.

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By Gregg K. Kakesako, Star-Bulletin