KOREANS,
SHARE Nogun-ri MEMORIES
News-Gazette,
CLEVELAND (AP) – Four South Koreans and three U.S. Army veterans sat down together in a church Wednesday, sharing painful memories and praying to heal the wounds from Nogun-ri, site of an alleged mass civilian killing by American troops a half-century ago.
The featured
speakers at the "recognition and remembrance" included Chung Eun-Yong, 77, a
man who lost two children at the South Korean hamlet where witnesses say
Robert C. Gray,
a former 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment sergeant speaking on behalf of
the veterans, offered no immediate apology.
South Koreans must understand the "mentality" of young American soldiers
in those first chaotic days of the Korean War, when veterans say American
soldiers were attacked by North Korean troops dressed in white peasant garb and
mixed with refugees, he said.
"We want them
to understand what we had gone through in the first days of the war," Gray, 74,
said during a news conference with the Koreans after the church service. "You couldn’t tell the difference between a
friend and a foe because of the way they were dressed. The mentality was to stay alive," he said.
The service at
The Associated
Press reported in September that
Some ex-GIs
said they were fired on from the refugee throng, which the Korean survivors
dispute."
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