Students pay tribute to Korean War fallen at repatriation ceremony in Yokosuka
By Jennifer H. Svan, Tokyo
bureau chief
Jennifer H. Svan / Stars and Stripes
Students from Yokosuka Middle School stand with their hands on their hearts Saturday
during a repatriation ceremony at Yokota Air Base. More than 100 students, parents and
teachers attended to honor fallen American soldiers from the Korean War. |
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Yokosuka Middle School students honored
U.S. soldiers who fought and died more than 50 years ago at a repatriation ceremony here
Saturday.
But their thoughts and prayers focused on a more imminent conflict.
Eighth-grader Celestine Bidaure wondered when she’ll see her
father, who is at sea on the USS Kitty Hawk for Operation Enduring Freedom.
“It scares me because I’m afraid he won’t come back
home,” she said.
Classmate Carla Fulgencio, her father also deployed, shared similar
fears. “I don’t even know where they are. I don’t even know when
they’re coming back.”
Sabrina Chavous said the repatriation ceremony connected the past to
the present.
“It’s honoring the people who died for us to give us the
freedom we have today,” said the Yokosuka eighth-grader.
The students watched in silence as, one by one, eight caskets were
marched into a hangar, each aluminum box carrying the bones of what’s believed to be
a soldier missing in action from the Korean War. Five sets of remains were recovered near
the Chosin Reservoir, and three were uncovered about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, by a
joint U.S.-North Korea recovery team.
Yokosuka eighth-grade U.S. history teacher Kay Taylor said she
brought about 100 students and 25 parents to the repatriation ceremony to make history
seem more real.
Taylor wants her students to “understand up close and personal
that freedom is not free,” she said.
“They have men in front of them who died for our country, and
America is going to the expense to bring them home,” she said.
Korean War veteran George Allen, 72, a resident of Yokosuka Naval
Base who traveled with the students, knows the price of freedom.
Allen fought in the Chosin Reservoir campaign. He remembers the
bitter cold that felt like 38 degrees below zero, and that “we were
outnumbered.”
The repatriation ceremony made him sad, he said.
When asked if he lost friends in Korea, he replied “a whole mess
of them.”
Even if Americans are brought home in caskets from Afghanistan, the
war against the Taliban is worth it, the students said.
“We’re fighting for our freedom,” said eighth-grader
Brittanie Singer. “If we don’t, other countries will think they can pick on
us.”
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