ONLY ON ABC-7: El Paso Korean War veterans reflect on service, share hopes for future
Between World War II and the Vietnam War, Americans were battling on the front lines for what is often called “the forgotten war,” the Korean War.
Every Saturday members of the El Paso Korean War Veterans Association meet to reflect on their time serving our country, to keep their memories alive.
They said with the current political climate on the Korean peninsula, they’re cautiously optimistic, expressing specific concerns about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“The Korean war is still not over,” said combat veteran Bill Whitely. “There has never been an armistice.”
Photos of snow-covered soldiers hang on the walls of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post, showing that freezing temperatures were just one of the hardships the veterans faced serving in Korea.
“The winter of 1950, 1951 was the coldest ever recorded in Korea,” Whitely said. “Fifty degrees below zero with the wind chill factor of 150 below. We slept on the ground underneath 2.5 ton trucks in sleeping bags.”
Other El Paso Korean War veterans survived circumstances far worse.
“I was a former prisoner of war on the U.S.S. Pueblo,” Ramon Rolase shared.
He said was caught spying with other servicemen in the late 1960s.
“The worst part of it was being tortured,” said Rosales. “They broke both my knees and my back. They did neurological damage in my head.”
Rosales said he was held for 11 months, but the trauma he endured still lives with him.
“It’s something that you never forget,” said Rosales. “Sometimes when you’re eating you remember something and you start to cry. You remember things like that when you were hungry and didn’t have anything to eat.”
Veterans told ABC-7 they know the time they spent fighting in Korea was not done in vain. The association has 62 active members. It is believed 99 El Pasoans died fighting in the Korean War, and that there may be up to 300 still living in the community, many of whom attended Bowie High School.
“We took a country that we never heard of and fought for people we didn’t know,” said combat veteran Roy Aldridge. “Eventually turned them into a G 20 nation. I would do again in a heartbeat.”
