Dwight D. Eisenhower
thirty-fourth U.S. President

With special feelings of sorrow and of solemn gratitude, we think of those who were called upon to lay down their lives in that far-off land to prove once again that only courage and sacrifice can keep freedom alive upon the earth.

On July 27th, 1953, the Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom, South Korea, ending three years of bloody fighting that involved nearly two dozen nations. Less than an hour later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower went on the air in America to announce the long sought-after peace agreement. The Korean War, like World War II but unlike the succeeding Vietnam War, was a conflict marked by mass movements of troops. As part of the first U.N. military force, over a million Americans served in a war in which 170,000 were killed, wounded, or missing in action. The armistice, which has prevented fighting in Korea for nearly fifty years, was but a cease-fire. Korea remains, as it did for most of the war, sharply divided along the heavily fortified 38th parallel.