A message from 1999 President of Korea Veterans Tasmania.

Twenty-six years is a long time to keep plugging await at any one thing in life but when it has been done for future generations to record a part of their educational historical heritage, I find those years now as being of no significance. What has been particularly heartening in very recent times has been the support of our Federal politicians who are at last, it would seem, beginning to understand the significance of our Korean campaigns.

The Honourable Jim Bacon, however, has been a most sympathetic listener to my pleas, referring me to his Minister for Education, Paula Wreidt, who offered to sponsor Korea Veterans Tasmania on the Internet. The offer was very quickly accepted and the wheels began to turn rapidly. Mr Larry Scott, a Director (Professional Development Services Branch) with the Department of Education shared the Minister’s enthusiasm about the project and invited Mr Barrie Muir (Principal Curriculum Officer with the Department of Education, now retired) to discuss the development of a web site with me.

I felt from that first of many discussions which we have shared that I had struck a chord with an unusual academic of great feeling and one quick to disseminate facts from irrelevancy. He saw obvious merit in recording "first-hand history" and preserving memories of the Korean War as told by those who went there and returned.

We are heartened by the contribution from Korea Veterans, Tasmania’s Veterans of Navy, Army, RAAF and our Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps and the Australian Red Cross.

This is their story, not one garnered from Archives. This site has provided them with an opportunity to share their memories of the time spent in Korea with other Korea veterans and, just as importantly, with the general public. They provide the facts of all phases of the war in Korea and we, the Veterans, can now feel that we have removed that tag from our shoulders – "the forgotten soldiers of a forgotten war".

I am proud to be the President of Korea Veterans Tasmania at this historical moment and I am certain that the establishment of this web site will go a long way towards uniting the Returned Servicemen and Women around Australia  in goodwill and a strong common purpose. We are all Korea Veterans who volunteered our services at a time when they were needed.

Gerard Keep 6/528

December 1999