July 28 (UPI) — The White House said Monday the United States will “steadfastly” safeguard its interests on the Korean Peninsula with “safety, stability, prosperity and peace” as the endgame.
That message was delivered the day in which the nation honors the truce that ended America’s involvement in the Korean War more than seven decades ago. It was a day that also served as a catalyst of the current divergent north and south Korean national ideologies.
“We pay tribute to every American hero who ventured to unfamiliar lands to face some of the most gruesome combat in the history of our country,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement.
The armistice agreement signing ended the bloody three-year conflict in northeast Asia in which 36,574 U.S. military service members, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, died out of nearly 2 million who fought in the bid to repel the advancement of communism in the region.
“We spent 15 minutes or so honoring all those men and women who fought and died in Korea,” Master of Ceremonies Bob Fugit said Monday in Wichita as locals gathered at Veterans Memorial Park for events to commemorate what some say is America’s “Forgotten War.”
72 years ago today, an armistice agreement was signed, ending combat in the Korean War. After 38 months of fighting, the truce established a Demilitarized Zone that is still enforced today. More than 36,000 Americans lost their lives while serving in the war. We remember them. pic.twitter.com/fKVgyCNDTA— National Mall NPS (@NationalMallNPS) July 27, 2025
“That’s been a war that everybody wants to forget, even more than Vietnam,” Fugit told KAKE in Kansas.
Though most might want to forget, there still have been some efforts to remember.
In July 2022, the nation’s capital saw the Korean War Veterans Memorial unveil its new addition along with a total renovation to coincide with that year’s Armistice Day festivities in Washington.
A DOD web portal for the Korean conflict lists volumes of stories in a live-running historic archive of events related to the conflict.
“Today, we pause to remember the courage and sacrifice of the heroes who served during the Korean War,” the department posted Sunday morning on X, adding that the “legacy of their resilience lives on.”
In June 1950, then-President Harry S. Truman said that those responsible for “unprovoked aggression” against South Korea during the so-called “forgotten” war “must realize how seriously the government of the United States views such threats to the peace of the world.”
In a UPI article on July 27, 1953, the day it was penned seven months after war hero general and eventual GOP icon Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed the presidency, it read in part: “The armistice documents ending the bitter, stalemated efforts of the Communists to seize all Korea by force were signed at 10:01 a.m. today in the truce village of Panmunjom.”
On Monday, the 33rd president’s oldest grandson said he believes Korea is collectively labeled by historians as the “Forgotten War” primarily because of public sentiment at the time.
“I think that has to do with fact that, although Americans were firmly behind my grandfather when he moved quickly to aid a beleaguered South Korea,” Clifton Truman Daniel told UPI via email, “they quickly tired of a conflict that was perceived as being not our fight.”
Daniel, the son of acclaimed author Margaret Truman Daniel, is honorary chair at the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, a partner of the 33rd president’s library and museum in Independence, Mo.
It was “a war on top of a war, if you will,” Daniel, 68, said of the post-World War II era. “And it came with objectives that were new, in terms of warfare,” he said, adding that it was “hard to define” at that point.
Outside efforts have lingered on with hopes to one day reunite the two Koreas even as the north rejects any such idea.
Meanwhile, officials pointed to Trump’s visit in June 2019 as the first sitting U.S. president to walk next to communist North Korea’s demilitarized zone.
On Monday, the president said that in observing the day “we renew our resolve that forces of freedom will always prevail over tyranny and oppression.”
In its statement, the White House reiterated that South Korean and U.S forces remained “united” in an “ironclad” military alliance as the region circles around aggression by North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong-Un, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We honor the patriots who fought and died in Korea so that freedom might endure both on our land and beyond our shores,” the president continued, vowing to “rebuild” the U.S. military, support veterans “and stand strong against forces of tyranny.”
In North Korea, its “Victory Day” is celebrated with great fanfare, and it is not uncommon to see large-scale military parade processions in the north’s capital city Pyongyang, much like Trump’s in June that rolled through the streets of Washington, D.C.
But Trump said that, above all, “we proudly remember every American hero who shed their blood to defend our home, our heritage and our glorious way of life.”
“Their valiant legacy will never be forgotten,” he said.