The Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance, found on the National Mall, opened last summer: a black granite tribute near the Lincoln Memorial, etched with the names of thousands of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
But according to Hal and Ted Barker, two brothers who live in Dallas and run the Korean War Project, around 1,000 of the names on the memorial are misspelled, and another 500 are missing.
The Barker brothers run the Korean War project from a two bedroom apartment. According to Ted, they began learning about the Korean War to better understand their father, a Marine Corps Pilot officer who served in the conflict.
"My brother started in 1979 to try and figure out what made our dad tick," Ted said.
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Their dad didn't speak much about his time overseas. So as the brothers researched his past, they also collected thousands of stories and information over the years, from other service members -- creating a database for families of veterans to reference.
The project, according to its website, has been online since 1995, making it "the oldest continuous website in the Dallas area."
"This is a book that we, I, created that has the actual correct names," Hal said, gesturing to a series of thick, leather-bound books on the table in his apartment.
Over 36,000 Americans lost their lives during the Korean War, sometimes called the forgotten war. The memorial wall on the National Mall opened last summer, with a dedication to unveil the monument to those many thousands of service members.
But as first reported by the New York Times on Monday, the Barkers found some problems.
"Almost everyday we get changes, corrections," said Hal. "'Oh you got my nephew, but his name is spelt wrong,' or 'oh you got my father, but his name is spelt wrong.'"
The thousands of misspelled names, and hundreds more missing names, appear on a memorial that the National Park Service says was paid for by $22 million in donated funds.
"If you're killed or died in a war, people need to know what your name was so they can find you and memorialize you properly," said Ted Barker. "A name is everything that we have."
In statement, the Department of Defense says the errors are a very unfortunate mistake, and they're working with the Department of Interior to correct it.
"We are also aware that some names are on the Wall of Remembrance which were not included on the Department’s final list of Korean War casualties," the statement continues. "The respective Military Departments reviewed every name on the Korean War Casualty List for correctness against available official military records. Though not common, the official records themselves may have contained errors making this review challenging."
"Additionally challenging was determining if a deceased service member that was previously considered a Cold War era loss should be re-categorized as a Korean War loss. We encourage all family members or concerned citizens to notify the Department of any names that were omitted, misspelled, or included in error."
The Barker brothers say they gave their book of names to the government years ago, but never heard back.
"If they had just talked to us and worked with us, we could have saved the United States taxpayers probably $10 million to $15 million," said Hal Barker. "Because that's what it's going to take to redo this."
