CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — Sandra Leatherwood doesn’t speak Korean, except for a song she knows by heart.

Her mild Texas drawl fades away as she sings what she learned in Busan more than 50 years ago in the aftermath of the Korean War.

"It’s a blessing they taught us to sing at the orphanage," said Leatherwood, 56.

She isn’t sure what it means, though it mentions the formal Korean words for mother and father.

Leatherwood, born Dec. 4, 1951, during the war to a U.S. servicemember and a South Korean woman named Kim Jung-ja, was adopted in 1957 by American parents.

She became a nurse and earned a college degree. She married, settled in the Dallas area and has three daughters.

Through it all, Leatherwood says she wondered about her birth mother. She even sent a letter to Kim’s last known address in 1990, but Kim no longer lived there.

Then Leatherwood, a longtime Department of Veterans Affairs employee, met Linda Foster a few years ago at a Korean War Veterans Association meeting in Dallas.

Foster, who is of Korean descent, is married to former Army Lt. Col. Patrick Foster.

Their daughter, 19-year-old Tania Foster, founded the Dallas is Love charity a few years ago to support servicemembers in South Korea and other areas.

Foster encouraged Leatherwood, who by that time had survived two bouts with breast cancer, to continue her search.

In August 2007, Leatherwood got sick again and temporarily lost her voice. Then in February, Leatherwood learned that the cancer had spread to her bones.

Last month, she returned to South Korea with little more than a friend by her side, an old photograph, an address and the hope that her birth mother is still alive.

"I said, ‘This is your time. We need to do this,’ " Foster recalled during a recent visit to Camp Red Cloud, where she gave soldiers gift certificates and gifts on behalf of Dallas is Love.

Leatherwood returned to Busan to look for her old address. But 50 years of development rendered the area unrecognizable. Concrete buildings have since replaced the old wooden houses.

However, Leatherwood hopes the media attention they’ve generated will help.

Prior to arriving, Foster and Leatherwood contacted a reporter for a Korean-American newspaper in Dallas, which told Leatherwood’s story.

Another friend sent the story to a reporter in South Korea. Then they began shooting video footage and got South Korean television network KBS interested.

Last month, KBS broadcast her story, and several women have called in saying that they may be the mother.

When Leatherwood flew back to the United States on Sept. 30, DNA testing was still ongoing.

Leatherwood was told the Korean lab is following every procedure very carefully. There have been past high-profile "family reunions" in South Korea where the DNA ultimately didn’t match.

Leatherwood has often thought about what it would be like to meet her birth mother. But if she never does, Leatherwood says she has had a great time experiencing South Korea, from its traditional customs to its Seoul jazz clubs.

"Right now, she has more energy than I do," Foster said. "She’s just smiling all the time. Even if at the end nothing else comes of this, she has this memory."