Remembering Gapyeong's $2 miracle
The 21st Korea-America Friendship Night ceremony was convened on Dec. 5 at Walker Hall in Grand Walkerhill Seoul, and was sponsored by the Korea-America Association (KAA), chaired by Dr. Choi Joong-kyung. The highlight of the annual dinner event was the 21st Korea-America Friendship Awards. The awardees were chosen as the late Major General (MG) Joseph Pringle Cleland of the U.S. Army and his wife, Florence Emily Cadotte Cleland.
MG Cleland (1902-75) was assigned to Korean War duty as commander of the 40th Infantry Division over Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, from June 1952 and led his division in several battles there until April 1953. He also contributed to the enhancement of Korea’s high school education for a long period thereafter. During his tenure, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Kenneth Kaiser was killed in action at the age of 19. Florence Cleland (married in Manila in June 1931) fully supported her husband’s endeavors, even for 30 more years after their separation until her demise in 2004, making the school a fountain of learning in Korea.
Commander Cleland was the very person who initiated what we call a "$2 miracle” on the Korean War battlefield. Wartime school classrooms were constructed with $2 donations from each of the 15,000 division fighters. This raised about $30,000, an idea of the late commander.
With his nickname “Jumping Joe,” the school’s first non-tent structure was designed by Captain Harold Ace, an architecture-major engineering officer belonging to the 40th division. The school’s edifice structure was finally constructed by working with Gapyeong villagers on Oct. 18, 1952. The school has been expanded and enlarged remarkably into a top-class high school, by virtue of the continued fundraising and generous scholarship support of former frontline comrades-in-arms, including the Clelands.
The coed high school is now situated in the center of Gapyeong County. It keeps some facilities called the Cleland Dormitory, the Florence Hall and the Kaiser Gymnasium, further to the Historical Museum and the eagle-top Hope Tower in which the 40th division's insignia and two portraits of MG Cleland and SFC Kaiser are inscribed.
Thanks to their over-seven-decades-long continued devotion to the war-torn field school from its inception, Gapyeong (originally called Kaiser) High School today has become a miraculous educational model as a renowned cradle of teaching in Korea, which has produced 15,968 graduates up until Jan. 6, this year when the 68th graduation ceremony was held with 191 school leavers.
In adherence of the 71-year ties between Gapyeong High School and the 40th Division, now stationed in Los Alamitos, California, perhaps a world first of its kind, communications have continued to be exchanged between the school faculty and the division veterans. During the wartime period in particular, the school was visited by high-profile U.N. and U.S. military officials including Generals Matthew Bunker Ridgway and James Van Fleet.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the historic ROK-U.S. alliance, and the ceremonial day on Dec. 5 was the diamond birthday of the KAA. Such double anniversaries truly made the 21st award event even more significant and rewarding. Here's wishing a peaceful rest for the Clelands! And here's wishing for the prosperity of Gapyeong High School, built on the invaluable “$2 miracle” for decades to come. Finally, Korea and the United States, we go together and stronger! "Kachi kapshida!"
The writer (wkexim@naver.com) is a freelance columnist living in Seoul.