US Congress urges Pentagon to fix errors on Korean War memorial wall

Six bipartisan lawmakers, including chair of the House Committee on Armed Services Mike Rogers, on March 2 sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“We find these errors deeply concerning and write to seek accountability on how the Remembrance Wall’s glaring flaws went unnoticed until post-construction,” the letter to Austin read.

The Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington was unveiled to the public on July 27 last year, marking the anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought a cessation to the three-year Korean War.

The Defense Department in January conceded there were inaccuracies on the Wall of Remembrance that features names of more than 36,000 American service members and more than 7,000 Korean augmentees who died in the theater during the 1950-53 Korean War. It pledged to correct the mistakes in coordination with the Interior Department, explaining that the US military had reviewed every name on the Korean War Casualty List before engraving the wall.

The Pentagon apology came after Edward Barker and Hal Barker, who spent decades researching the Korean War and who operate an online repository of information about the war, first pointed out that the wall contained more than 1,000 spelling errors. The names of 245 late service members who were unrelated to the war were included, and around 500 names that should have been featured on the wall were not inscribed.

To rectify the mistakes, Democrats and Republicans publicly called for the Defense Department to set up a briefing with the related congressional committees no later than March 23.

“Errors of this magnitude should not have made it past the initial blueprints, much less carved into stone, and certainly not erected and unveiled to the public,” Friday's letter read.

“We must take the necessary steps to correct the issue, find the communication and research flaws that caused the errors, and ensure such errors are never repeated.”

The Defense Department was also asked to describe all the errors or inaccuracies made and lay out plans to provide a revised list of names for the corrected inscription.

South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs -- which funded about 98 percent of the construction budget -- said it will “do its best to promptly correct the errors” in response to a request for comment on Monday. But the ministry reiterated that no error had been found in the list of Korean augmentees for inclusion on the memorial wall provided by the South Korean military.

In a separate statement, the nonprofit Association of the United States Army said correcting errors and omissions would likely require partial demolition and reconstruction of the wall. It also urged the Pentagon to respond to Congress’ request and to share updates by the end of March.