Korean War Children's Memorial

GIFTS-Members of the 83d Ordnance Battalion distribute clothes to some of the 105 orphans. (top photo left to right) PFC Rivers A. Eskind, Cpl. Norman J. Benson Jr. and Buddy D. Youngblood, help some of the youngsters find their size.

Seoul Infant Home Receives Yank Gifts

By M/Sgt. Dave Thomas

WITH U.S. EIGHTH ARMY-Members of the 83d Ordnance Ammo Battalion, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, a unit of the Eighth Army, recently delivered belated Christmas gifts to 105 orphans of the Choong Hyun Baby Home near Seoul. When the 83d moved into their present location in September 1951, they found the Choong Hyun Baby Home almost on their doorstep. In no time at all the men of the organization had taken the children under their wing.

SEEING THE need for many things around the home, they began to make baby beds from ammunition boxes and to fix up the house in general. They donated their candy rations and helped out in many ways with the food problems of the home.

Prior to Christmas, a collection was taken up from the personnel of Headquarters and Headquarters company to buy some warm clothing for the youngsters. Cpl. Norman J. Benson, Houston, Tex., spark-plugged the operation. He sent a money order for $130 which had been collected to his mother, asking her to buy warm clothing for 105 youngsters housed at the home. He told her to get what was needed and to take any additional money required from his personal account.

IN HOUSTON, Mr. Benson called on a Houston Press reporter, Andy Anderson, and they in turn contacted Arthur M. Meyer and George Shapiro, both in the clothing business in Houston. Through the efforts of these people, 106 pairs of flannel sleepers and 120 pairs of baby training pants were soon on the way to Korea. Today, almost a month after Christmas, the clothing was distributed to wide-eyed and eager children at the home.

THE CHOONG HYUN Baby Home is managed by Mrs. Cheoi Kyung Ji, who is herself the mother of three children, and who has been doing this type work for many years. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, she operated an orphanage in Pusan. After the reoccupation of Seoul by the UN forces, Mrs. Cheoi came here at the request of the Republic of Korea government to open the baby home.

MOST OF THE children in the home were found in the battle zones or were abandoned or separated from their parents near the front. The 105 children at present under the care of Mrs. Cheoi, range in age from three days to six years of age.

MISS RIM Hi Aecha, a young Korean college student is the assistant manager, interpreter, nurse and bookkeeper at the orphanage. Miss Rim has two ambitions: first to finish her college education and second to go to the U.S. The orphanage receives assistance from the United Nations Civil Assistance Corps in Korea, and the majority of the children have been placed there through this agency.