By Yi Whan-woo
The U.S. House of Representatives will soon deliberate a bill calling for the expansion of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.
According to the U.S. Congress website, Thursday, the bill proposes construction of a “Wall of Remembrance” inside the memorial to honor those who served with U.N. forces, including KATUSAs, during the 1950-53 Korean War.
KATUSA stands for the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army ― a military unit initiated during the war and which is still active.
The website showed that the bill, titled “H.R. 1475- Korea War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance Act of 2015,” will be soon eligible for consideration.
The bill was introduced in March 2015 ― the memorial opened in 1995.
“The proposed act authorizes the Wall of Remembrance as part of the previously authorized Korean War Veterans Memorial, to include: (1) a list by name of members of the U.S. Armed Forces who were killed in action; (2) the number of members who were wounded, listed as missing in action, or prisoners of war; and (3) the number of members of the Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army, the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, and the other nations of the United Nations (U.N.) Command who were killed, wounded, missing, or prisoners,” the bill reads.
Three U.S. Congressmen and also Korean War veterans ― Sam Johnson (R-Texas), Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) ― first submitted the bill jointly under a condition that the expansion project would not use any federal funds.
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the project would not affect the federal government budget until 2021.
The CBO estimates that implementing the legislation would be an insignificant cost to the federal government over the 2017-2021 period, mostly because maintenance costs would not be incurred until the memorial has been completed.