Korean War veterans honored with proclamation from Board of County Commissioners
Air Force veteran Tom Stevens (left), Navy veteran Bob Gadd (middle) and Marine veteran Tom Cooper (right) accepted the proclamation from Chair Kelly.
The Johnson County Board of County Commissioners celebrated and commemorated veterans of the Korean War with a proclamation on July 27 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement.
That armistice, signed July 27, 1953, brought an end to fighting that claimed the lives of 415 Kansans, including 10 from Johnson County.
After Chairman Mike Kelly thanked the veterans in attendance, Tom Stevens of Overland Park took the dais to read “The Forgotten War” by fellow Korean War veteran Samuel Boyd Fielder, Jr. The Korean War often is known as “the forgotten war” because it was historically overshadowed by both World War II and the Vietnam War.
Stevens, a past president of not only the local chapter but also of the National Korean War Veterans Association, recalled his 27 combat missions to North Korea. As the tail gunner on a B-29 aircraft from October 1952 to April 1953, he and his crewmates flew 10-hour trips in the dead of night to avoid being shot down by the more agile MiG-15 fighter jets.
“When I tell someone that, they generally say, ‘How did you ever see the target at night?’ And that was an interesting thing. We were using radar at the time to determine when to release the bombs on the bomb run,” Stevens said. “Which was pretty high-tech stuff at the time in the early ’50s.”
Stevens (left), Gadd (middle) and Cooper (right) served in the Korean War, also known as the "forgotten war."
Navy veteran Bob Gadd and Marine veteran Tom Cooper joined Stevens, an Air Force vet, to mark the armistice anniversary with the county commissioners.
Gadd said he remembers being aboard ship when Chiang Kai-shek, the ruler of China, toured the ship with an admiral in tow. “The admiral said, ‘Let’s show him something new,’” Gadd said.
So, Gadd helped to outfit a seaplane with two jet-assisted takeoff devices (called JATO) to give the plane a rocketed burst of energy at the start of the flight.
Cooper said he remembered being grateful to his typing teacher from Olathe High School, since his ability to type kept him out of the waist-high snow of Korean winter combat and behind a typewriter near the combat line to manage service records. “She taught me to type 50 words a minute, and man, I was thankful,” Cooper said.
“The older I get, having seen all the war-torn countries and strife, seeing everything going on, it makes you really appreciate the fact that you honorably served in our armed forces,” he said.
Stevens pointed out that with each day, the number of living Korean War veterans diminishes. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 70 years. But the signing of the armistice was important because it stopped the shooting and the killing,” he said. “That’s the most significant part of the armistice and why it should be remembered.”