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From Stars & Stripes on line:
Korean War vet reunited with woman he helped nearly 60
years ago
by
Jon Rabiroff
Since leaving South Korea
On Monday, the 81-year-old
was reunited with the woman he knew only as the “burned girl” — Kim Yeon-soon,
now 72 — at a Seoul
With two dozen members of the
Korean media looking on, the two came together in a warm embrace. Kim, whose
scars from the accident were easily seen Monday around her chin, seemed to take
every opportunity during the half-hour proceeding to hug or hold onto
Cadwallader and members of his family.
The two exchanged gifts:
Cadwallader gave Kim a watch to remind her of their time together decades
earlier, and she gave him and his wife, Nancy, hanboks, traditional Korean
garb.
“I’m feeling very excited,
very proud [and] very happy for Miss Kim,” Cadwallader told a news conference.
“It’s just a marvelous, marvelous experience, and I’m so appreciative of what
the Korean government has done to bring us back together again.”
Through a translator, Kim
said, “I could never have imagined that I would have the opportunity to see him
again. I’m very excited and very happy.”
It was just months after the
end of the Korean War when Kim said a young relative accidentally knocked over
an oil lamp, setting her on fire and leaving her in agony.
Kim said her mother carried
her on her back about five miles to the nearest U.S.
military installation, a remote base on the edge of the Yellow Sea, west of Suwon
There, Cadwallader — an
airman second class and radio mechanic — looked on in awe as the base medic tended
to the young girl, peeling off a tar-like substance someone in the girl’s
village had applied to the burn that had adhered to her flesh.
“The process was slow and
agonizingly painful,” he told Susan Kee, who is working on a book about the
personal stories of U.S. Korean War veterans. “She endured extreme pain in
silence and without any tears.”
On Monday, Cadwallader said,
“I can’t tell you what a brave young lady this woman was 60 years ago, in terms
of recovering from her burns. They were very, very severe.
“She and her mother were two
examples of the most courageous people I’ve ever known, so this is a monumental
day for me.”
Cadwallader
has said previously he did all he could to help the girl and make her
comfortable then, and when she returned to the base for follow-up treatment in
the weeks that followed. But, it was clear she needed more extensive treatment
on the infected area, and to minimize scarring and facial disfigurement.
That opportunity came with
the arrival of three helicopters from a Mobile Army
Surgical Hospital
Cadwallader said he was able
to talk the major in charge into flying the girl to a burn unit in Pusan
As he prepared to leave South Korea
Nevertheless, the Scottsdale , Ariz. South Korea
His daughter, Dawn Girard,
said her father often told her stories as she was growing up about the
courageous littled burned girl.
“She’s had an impact on my
life that she’s not even aware of,” Girard said. “She’s taught me a lot.”
Cadwallader and Kim were
scheduled to be the guests of government officials at a number of ceremonies in
the days ahead. The retired airman was also expected to visit Kim’s hometown
and hit a number of tourist attractions during his five-day visit.
Ministry officials have said
they hope to stage similar reunions in the future between allied servicemembers
who helped the South during the Korean War and locals they want to see again.
Kim — who went on to marry,
have three children and work in a variety of jobs, including farming and clam
digging — has said she often thought about Cadwallader and the other Americans
who helped her.
“If it were not for the U.S.
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