Veterans, Members and Friends.
General B. B. Bell, the first UN/US Commander in Korea to join the KWVA, delivered the Keynote Speech
to The Gathering at Gaithersburg, Maryland, July 27, 2007. It is a pleasure to share his remarks with all
of our members and the veteran community.
National President, KWVA/US
Chairman of the Board
By General B. B. Bell
Who is from Indiana, anybody? South Korea is the size of Indiana: 11th largest economy in the world;
50 million citizens, and one of the great first-world countries of the 21st century; and maybe the greatest
first-world country of the 21st century. Now I’m not from Indiana—I’m from Tennessee—but I don’t know if
the good citizens of Indiana can make the same claims that the good citizens of the Republic of Korea can
make so well. It makes you wonder from where it all comes and what has made the wonderful people of the
Republic of Korea do what they have done over the last 54 years.
Mr. Ambassador, thanks for joining us tonight. This guy walks in the great halls of the world. I’ve known
him now for 1-½ years now. He meets with Condoleezza Rice, President of the United States, President of
the Republic of Korea and everybody in between. He comes here tonight from the sincerity of his heart to
thank you for what you have done for his nation and that’s the man that is Ambassador Lee. God bless you
and thank you, Sir.
If I might, and I don’t mean to embarrass you or to highlight you anymore than we already have, Jeff
[Brodeur], but I want you to know that when I learned of your son, Vincent [Mannion], and I don’t know if
you are all aware, but Vincent was grievously injured in Iraq. He is struggling, like many of your friends
and many of you did. Not only is Jeff struggling with that; I want you to know that we are all your team.
We are all on his team and we always will be. No matter what happens in the future, you can count on your
friends here, friends around the world, and you can absolutely count on the United States Army. We are thinking
about you and we are thinking about Vincent and we’ll do whatever we can to make this better for you and
we thank you for your sacrifice. Let’s please give Jeff a hand.
I had a tour in Korea as a young captain, back in the late 70s—I know you look at the late 70s and think
you had been out of Korea for some time by then—but I was a captain then up there with the 2nd Infantry
Division, up along the DMZ. And I learned a little bit about the ground. When I came back this time, I met
a gentleman whom I didn’t even know existed when I was in Korea earlier. But I learned quickly that this
gentleman was to the Korean people as was General George Washington in many respects to us. That is a great
general, General Paik, Sun Yup. Some of you may have heard of him. He is quite alive and well today, like
many of you. He was a young colonel, then brigadier general and ultimately the chief of staff of the Korean
army during the Korean War. He asked me right after I got there, if I would join him, just the two of us,
on a terrain walk along the Imjin River. Some of you have been on the Imjin River, I’m sure, or over it
a couple of times, going different directions.
So I said “of course” to this real national hero, General Paik Sun Yup, “of course, sir, I will go with
you to the Imjin River,” so we did that. He just held me by the hand and walked me across one of those first
battlefields of the first four days of the north Korean assault into South Korea where his division, the
First ROK Infantry Division, was committed to defend and delay. He said, “They came right through there.”
And I said, “General Paik, what do you mean by ‘they’?” And he said, “It was the T-34 tanks. We couldn’t
stop them. We tried. We fought them as hard as we could. But we couldn’t stop them.” He said, “The only
thing that saved us, ultimately, was the American military.” And he thanked me for that and I felt ashamed
because I wasn’t there with General Paik, Sun Yup in 1950. In fact, I was three years old in 1950. But I
could feel the spirit and the sense of pride and honor in this man for what the men of the United States
military did for that nation in 1950 until 1953. When you have that kind of experience and then you come
to an outfit like the Korean War Veterans Association here tonight and look in the eyes of these men who
are here tonight, and their ladies, you can see back to 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955 for some of you—you
can see right clear into those days. I can see it in your eyes and I’m honored to be here. And I’m privileged
to be in your midst.
South Korea is the size of Indiana, one of our 50 states. South Korea is one of the great countries of
the world. This is your legacy. This is your contribution to the world today and the Korean citizens are
so appreciative today. Most of them weren’t alive in 1950 either. Some of you gentlemen here tonight were,
but most of the population of the Republic of Korea was not alive or were very young. But they will never
forget what the American military did in those days. And even the young kids, when I go talk to high schools
today, Korean youngsters at 17, 16, 15 years old—they know that this great wealth that they have achieved
and obtained, that this modern first-world nation that they have, their great universities, their great
hospitals, their great public transportation, their housing, these great cities that have come up from the
ashes of war—these have come about from their hard work, indeed, and their determination, but the foundation,
they feel, has an American flag imbedded in it. And you put it there.
Through those years following the war, the Republic of Korea has lived up to the virtue of our Mutual
Defense Treaty and it says that each nation will come to the aid of the other, should that nation be attacked.
It says “in the Pacific Region.” But the Republic of Korea has not let those words stop it from coming to
our aid: Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, and just completing deployment last week-350 South Koreans
to southern Lebanon, at our request to help keep the peace between Israel and Hamas. Most people in the
world don’t know that just like you who went to a place you did not know to help a people you didn’t know
then, your ally, the ROK, is doing that for our nation today—all over the world.
They don’t have to do these things. They could mind their own business in Northeast Asia and just accrue
wealth, but they continue to commit on mission, when we ask. And you know what, I’ve spent 15 years of my
life overseas in military duty in war and in peace, and I know of no other nation that I could make that
claim about to that extent. The South Korean people are doing that because of those American flags that
you planted in their ground all those years ago.
You and I are not going to be around forever, and we know this. We’ve lost a lot of our friends—you have.
And I think the question for us tonight—by the way, I’m a member of your organization. When I got the application
in the mail like everything else that came across my desk right after I took command, a letter saying “Korean
War Veterans Association” would you join our outfit? I passed it to my out box and then I just stopped for
a second and I reached into my out box, I pulled it out and I said, “I wonder if I could join the Korean
War Veterans Association?” I’m not a Korean War Veteran. I’m a veteran of Korea, but not the war. So I got
my aide and I asked whether they’d let me join. My aide said he didn’t think so, he thought you had to be
in the war. I said “go find out.” And about a day later, he came back and said, “Sir, you can join. You
can absolutely join. Anybody can join who is a veteran of service in Korea.” So I joined your outfit and
I’m honored to be in it.
At any rate, we aren’t going to be around forever and the question is, I guess for Americans, who is
going to carry the flag in the future—for us? Will this Alliance that is so powerful and strong today, that
is so important to both nations, just finally wither away and be tossed on the ash heap of time like most
alliances throughout history have? Or will this alliance be different? Is it possible that what you started
in 1950—or whenever you served—is it possible that there is something more here than just a war alliance?
Is it possible that the bonds between the United States of American and the Republic of Korea are deeper
than just beating the enemy? When you look at our nation today and the 100,000 Korean students who study
in our country and love our country and return to Korea and the thousands of Americans who go to Korea,
not only to serve, but to conduct business and to meet the people of Korea. When you look at the interaction
between the two cultures, the American culture and the Korean culture, you find more in common than you
find different: democracy, belief in liberty and freedom, tolerance, equality, bravery, commitment. These
are the virtues of a society. We may look different, but our hearts are the same. Those hearts have grown
together over these 57 years since war broke out.
So as you end your meeting this year, on this anniversary of Armistice, as you ponder what is in the
future, I would ask and propose that we think of a way to perpetuate this outfit. When I learned a year
and a half ago that I did not have to be a war veteran to be a member of the Korean War Veterans Association,
when I learned that, I would hope that thousands, and even millions of other Americans, could also learn
that same message and grab your legacy and carry it into the future. I think this is our charge today: to
not just go quietly into our graves, but go kicking and screaming on behalf of the alliance and on behalf
of the bond between our two nations: the bond that brings the east and the west together in common purpose;
the bond that says when you need me, I will be there. That is what this organization is about. It’s not
about the war, 57 years ago, only. It’s about the future.
Let’s search for ways to energize the greatness that you brought to these two great nations and find
common purpose in the future. That is my hope and my dream. My service in Korea for the last year and one
half with my wife Katie has been a blessing. My service over the next year or so until I probably retire,
I gotta retire one of these days I’ve been in this business a long time, will be just as marvelous as the
last 1-½. But if I simply retire from the US military and go trout fishing and leave it at that, then I
will have wasted my life. I want something to happen after that time. I think that what I want to happen
is the bond between our two nations to grow and prosper in the future. And I believe that outfits like the
Korean War Veterans Association and the other great veterans groups represented here tonight are the path
ahead for us.
Thank you for your service to America. And for those who are Korean veterans and citizens, thank you
for your service to the Republic of Korea. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for bearing the loss
of loved ones, whether killed or injured in combat, those who have already passed from this earth. Thank
you for those in the modern era who have suffered an injury. I honored SSG Yoon the other day who was killed
in Afghanistan, a Korean war veteran from Afghanistan. We put up a memorial on Yongsan Garrison in his memory.
Koreans are still dying on behalf of America, unbeknownst to most people.
It has been my honor to be here tonight. I didn’t want to read you a speech, I just wanted to tell you
what was in my heart. And I wanted you to thank you for allowing me to be a member of your outfit. God bless
you and thank you very much.
