News-Info-Alerts

Re: Honoring Fallen Soldiers

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: September 20, 2003

"Korean War memorial honors fallen soldiers

By Rebekah Davis, rdavisnews@pclnet.net

The Alabama Korean War Memorial to its proper spot Friday at the Alabama Welcome Center on Interstate 65 in Ardmore. The memorial, which honors the 752 Alabama soldiers who lost their lives in the war, will be dedicated Nov. 8. (News-Courier/Rebekah Davis)
 

Every night that Billy Morgan Phillips was away from home, serving his country in Korea, his mother lit a candle in her Jefferson Street window.

Even when she received word that Billy, her only child, had died of starvation as a prisoner of war, Billy's mother continued lighting her candle. Every night until her death, Mrs. Phillips' candle let the whole town know that she was still waiting for her Billy to come home.

Billy Morgan Phillips was the first of seven Limestone County men to die in Korea, and one of 752 soldiers across Alabama to lose their lives in the war.

Friday, Ed McMunn and J.T. Collins, two local men who made it home from Korea, joined Hoyt Smith and Imogean McDonald in watching Clark Memorial workers erect the Alabama Korean War Memorial at the Interstate 65 welcome center in Ardmore.

The four were part of a committee comprised of local veterans and auxiliary groups who planned the memorial, located just north of the Vietnam War Memorial and U.S. rocket, and helped lay both the physical and financial foundations for the etched granite stones.

Laying the concrete foundation was a labor of love for McMunn.
"These soldiers came back without any celebration," Smith said. "After all these years, this is the first recognition the people who served in Korea are getting."

McMunn pointed to the map of Korea on the memorial's center stone. Motioning to the 38th parallel etched on the map, he said, "This is where we stopped. They wouldn't let us go any farther."

The center stone bears the inscription: "Dedicated to the memory of those who paid the supreme price ... that they gave their lives for our country." It circled by four stones that bear the names of those who died in the war, in alphabetical order by Alabama county.

An sunken area of the sidewalk leading to the memorial will soon be filled with brick pavers engraved with names of those who served in Korea. Local veterans' groups are selling the pavers for $50 each to help pay for the memorial.

The Alabama Vietnam War Memorial was built a few years ago at the welcome center. Veterans' groups' next dream is to build a World War II memorial just north of the Korean War Memorial.

Local veterans groups plan a dedication of the Korean War Memorial at 2 p.m. Nov. 8.

© 2003, The News-Courier, a division of CNHI, Inc. "