[COVER STORY] 'It feels like coming home': Korean War veterans revisit US Army base after 70 years

PYEONGTAEK, Gyeonggi Province — More than seven decades after the 1950-53 Korean War, a group of Korean veterans returned to a U.S. Army base where they once served — this time as honored guests of a new generation of American soldiers. “It feels like coming home,” said Kang Ku-kon, who was 15 when he volunteered and began helping care for wounded American soldiers at an Eighth Army field hospital. “I served here 70 years ago. The moment I walked in, even the smell was the same.” Kang was among a group of Korean War veterans welcomed to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Nov. 5. As their bus arrived at the Van Fleet Hall, a U.S. Army band began playing. For many of the visitors, now in their 90s, the trip offered a chance to see a place tied to their wartime service and meet the soldiers stationed there today. The visit grew out of a request from the veterans themselves. Vice Minister of Patriots and Veterans Affairs Kang Yun-jin said several veterans, including Ryu Jae-sik, head of the Korean War Veterans Association’s Seoul branch, raised the idea at a mem