RESIDENTS and veterans alike gathered at Club Taree RSL memorial on Monday, July 27, to commemorate 62 years since the Korean War’s 1953 cease fire agreement.
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The service featured presentations by deputy mayor David West and Korean War veteran Stephen Joyce, as well as a prayer for peace and freedom by Reverend Keith Dean Jones, performing his last ceremony with the RSL before relocating to Bundaberg in Queensland.
Often referred to as the Forgotten War, more than 17,000 Australians served as part of 21 countries in a United Nations force supporting South Korea after North Korea invaded on June 25, 1950.
More than 300 Australians died in the conflict and 1200 were wounded, with 43 still listed as missing in action.
Since the war, North Korea has been a notoriously private country plagued by internal problems and ruled by the cult-like Kims family.
A famine in the country in the 1990s claimed up to four million lives.
Cr West paid tribute to the veterans present at the ceremony, saying that they had saved millions of lives by preventing South Korea from having the same fate.
To see more images from the ceremony, see here.
