Her Kindness to Korean War Veterans Goes Wherever Asia Campbell Goes
From the Korean War Veteran, January 29, 2023
Through the years, this youthful advocate has shown veterans compassion and care in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, her home country of Korea, and this month, the United States.
Asia Campbell, 15, while on a family holiday in Florida, went with her Vietnam War grandfather, Ralph Campbell, to the VA hospital in Orlando where he had a health assessment. While there she combed the floors, looking for Korean War Veterans… and she found two of them and gave them hugs and greetings from her native Korea, and thanks for defending her nation during the Korean War.
Asia is the daughter of a Canadian educator, Richard Campbell, and her Korean mother, Sungjung Lee (In Korea married ladies do not use their husband’s surnames). The family lives in Busan, where her father is a professor at one of the universities.
Since she was eight years old Asia has been greeting veterans and bereaved family members at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, writing to others, visiting graves for bereaved family members who could not travel to Korea.
She has been appointed as the official youth ambassador for the UN Cemetery, and when a committee from the Bureau Internationale des Expositions comes to Korea in April to make their assessments of the nation’s suitability to host the 2030 world Expo, Asia will be their official greeter and guide at the cemetery. More than 2,300 veterans from 11 nations are buried there.
Last November she flew to Paris in the party of the Prime Minister of Korea to make a personal presentation to the committee at the Palais des Congres, as part of Korea’s quest to secure the 2030 world Expo for her home city of Busan.
She hosts three children’s TV shows on KBS TV in Korea, and at times teaches them about how the UN allied nations came to defend Korea during the dark days of the war, and the post-armistice days that followed.
On her first trip abroad to visit veterans in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, when she was only ten, she met with several veterans from Holland’s famous Regiment Van Heutsz. They lamented that they did not know the names of 20 ROK soldiers who had fought with them, who had fallen in battle.
When she returned to Korea, Asia, though very young, worked with officials at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, as well as with some from Holland to find and name those veterans. Thus far, she has been able to provide 13 of their names for inclusion on the Korean War Memorial in Holland.
She did not provide us with the names of the two veterans she met in the Orlando VA hospital last week, but one was a veteran who had served in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam – a very rare veteran who must be deep into his 90s.
One thing of significance is that neither of the two veterans had ever been back to Korea, and neither one had ever heard of the Korea revisit program that is offered several times a year by Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs.
Asia personally greets all of those revisit groups when they visit the UN Cemetery in Busan. She directs veterans and bereaved family members to the graves of their friends and loved ones.
Marine Colonel (Ret’d) Warren Wiedhahn, assistant to the president of the Korean War Veterans Association USA is the association’s revisit coordinator. Through Warren arrangements are made for veterans to participate in those revisits.
Perhaps veterans who are members of the KWVA who read this article could make inquiries with the Orlando VA or local Florida chapters and find out who the two veterans are.
If they could travel, it would be wonderful to get them back to Korea to join with former comrades and celebrate the 70th year of the Military Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War on July 27, 1953.
It was while she was in Florida that Asia Campbell also learned that she had been appointed the official host and tour guide for the 2030 Expo selection committee when it visits Busan in April, prior to the organization’s selection vote this November.
She is doing all of that at age 15, but doing it very, very well.