‘A whole brand-new country’: Korean War vets revisit the nation they helped defend

SEOUL, South Korea — During the Korean War, Burnell Jarvis fought from the deck of a U.S. Navy cruiser and never once stepped ashore. More than seven decades later, the 96-year-old veteran finally set foot in the country he helped defend.

“I was never on shore; I was on the ship offshore,” he told Stars and Stripes in Seoul on Saturday.

Jarvis was among 13 Korean War veterans invited to South Korea through the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affair’s Revisit Korea program. He arrived in the capital on July 24 and spent the following day attending an orientation for a six-day visit.

Jarvis said he served as a seaman first class aboard the USS Toledo during the war. The heavy cruiser’s guns could strike targets as far as 25 miles away, he said.

He recalled one episode in which rifle fire from shore forced the Toledo to cut loose its anchor and return fire.

“We came back about a week and a half later,” he said. “Before all this happened, there were nice, green trees and greenery. When we came back, there wasn’t a stick standing there.”

From left, Korean War veterans David Dandrea, Brian Morley and Andrew Barber attend a U.N. Forces Participation Day event in Seoul, South Korea, July 27, 2026. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)

The veterans were among 73 visitors from the 22 countries that provided military assistance to U.N. Command during the war. The group, which included three American veterans, traveled to South Korea to mark Korean War Armistice Day on Monday.

Their itinerary included Panmunjom near the Military Demarcation Line, the National Museum of Korea and the War Memorial of Korea.

For Army veteran David Dandrea, 93, the trip offered his first look at South Korea since the war.

“It’s a whole brand-new country,” he told Stars and Stripes during Saturday’s orientation. “It is very impressive.”

Dandrea said he was drafted at 18 and served 16 months with the 715th Transportation Company in Chuncheon, about 65 miles east of Seoul. His duties included transporting prisoners of war and military supplies across the peninsula.

“The best soldier in the world was a young soldier,” he said. “Because you don’t think or ask questions. You just go and you do it.”

Louis Boria, 99, who served in the war as a sergeant with the 7th Marine Regiment, said he took part in the Incheon landing and the recapture of Seoul. His son was born Sept. 16, 1950 — the day after the amphibious assault at Incheon began.

Australian army Maj. Gen. Scott Winter, deputy commander of United Nations Command, delivers remarks during a U.N. Forces Participation Day event in Seoul, South Korea, July 27, 2026. (Alejandro Carrasquel/Stars and Stripes)

Boria recalled teaching young Marines how to fire rifles and throw grenades after some were rushed into combat without completing boot camp.

Dan Wiley, national commander of the American Legion, said the veterans’ visit preserved both their experiences and the lessons of the war.

“We have to honor and remember our history, because if we don’t, then history has a chance of repeating itself,” he told Stars and Stripes in an interview Monday.

Many veterans also take pride in seeing what South Korea became after the devastation they witnessed, Wiley said.

At a Monday ceremony for U.N. Forces Participation Day, U.N. Command deputy commander Maj. Gen. Scott Winter said younger generations share responsibility for protecting the peace secured by those veterans.

“The greatest tribute we can pay those who served is not simply to remember their sacrifice, but to prove ourselves worthy stewards of the peace that they secured,” he said.