Ridgewood Ceremony Honors Vets of ‘Forgotten War’

In the pages of textbooks and discussions of American history, the Korean War is often overlooked, said speakers at a Ridgewood Veterans Day ceremony focused on the service of those who fought in the conflict.

“It has become very common these days that Korea is the forgotten war,” said American Legion Commander Bob Paoli, honoring veterans who he said became “invisible” in the years after their return home. “It’s about time that Americans got to know these veterans before it’s too late.”

The gathering around the flagpole at Veterans Field, sponsored by American Legion Post 53 and attended by Benjamin Franklin Middle School students, village officials and members of the public, honored the 54,246 killed in the four-year war, and its 28 surviving local veterans.

Ron Zier, a sergeant first class in the war, recounted especially for students in attendance a history of the conflict that connected the global politics of the era with the personal experience of his 18 months of service.

“For me, the war began about a mile from here, sitting in my car in from of Mount Carmel reading the New York Times,” he recalled.

He told of the horrors of war that followed, but also of the hope of watching a vendor push a handcart of daffodils from the “desolation” of wartime Seoul, and the pride of the turnaround the country has made since the conflict ended almost 60 years ago.

Now, he said, “If you go to Korea and you look at Seoul, it’s hard to tell it from the Denver or Houston or Seattle, from the skyline.”

“I like to think, ladies and gentlemen, that the daffodils won that day.”

The experience that stuck with Robert Re, a Marine who served for three years, was greeting a group of returning prisoners of war – he described the “ghostlike” faces and “skeleton-like” bodies that remain in his memory.

"There were many experiences I will never forget," he said.

Rev. Kyu Tae Pak of Midland Park United Methodist Church, a native of Korea, underscored appreciation for their ordeal, as he relayed it to his children when his family visited a war memorial in Korea.

He remembered telling them: “These people gave their life to save and to protect Korean people, and they gave their life to protect world peace.”

While the ceremony Monday honored those often overlooked sacrifices, Paoli concluded with an emphasis on the support needed for families of those serving in the contemporary conflict in Afghanistan, which he called “the hardest battle yet.”

“This is not about war time or not war time,” he said. “We need to be there at all times.”