No Gun Ri Massacre

"We thought it was safe. The tunnel I was in was packed with people. I saw people from my village and thought it was okay. Then the shooting came. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete and hit the people like popcorn in a frying pan. Mother wrapped me with a quilt and hugged me. It was shooting from both sides. When there was shooting coming from one side, we rushed to the other side. When the bullets came, we could not even raise our heads. We just dug under dead bodies."

"They were shooting at us from this side. We ran out the other side, but they were shooting at us there, too. … I told my mother, "Ive been shot," but she had my brother and sister, and she had to save them. She said, "Follow me if you can" and went on."

"In the 15 years since the world first learned of this mass killing, it has become increasingly clear that the U.S. Armys 1999-2001 investigation of No Gun Ri suppressed vital documents and testimony, as it strove to exonerate itself of culpability and liability, and to declare – with an inexplicable choice of words – that the four-day bloodbath was "not deliberate." But these suppressed archival documents, showing U.S. commanders ordering troops to fire on civilians out of fear of enemy infiltrators, are now on display at the peace parks museum, illustrating a growing divide in how No Gun Ri will be remembered – or not – on two sides of the Pacific."

"I can still hear the moans of women dying in a pool of blood … Children cried and clung to their dead mothers."

"The planes came, raining down bombs and big bullets. The planes shrieked past repeatedly. People ran for the shrubs and trees. A lot of people died. Something hot dropped on my back. It was the severed head of a baby."

"The truths of No Gun Ri have taken root in the heart of South Korea. A memorial tower, museum and garden of mournful sculptures have risen from the soil of the central valley where the 1950 refugee massacre took place. In the United States, however, home of the agents of those killings, much of the truth remains buried, by official intent and unofficial indifference."