Council Member Sandra Ung (D-20) is set to host the third annual Flushing Memorial Day Observance Friday at 3 p.m. at the Korean War Memorial in Kissena Park.
The ceremony will feature live music from the Youth Orchestra CYCNY, a ceremony from the Francis Lewis High School JROTC and a flower-laying ceremony remembering the ultimate sacrifice of fallen soldiers.
Attendees are asked to enter the park at Rose Avenue and Parsons Boulevard. Local elected officials, including Assemblymember Nily Rozic (D-25), are expected to be in attendance at the event.
In 2007, a statue was erected at the park dedicated to the soldiers who lost their lives in the Korean War. The bronze sculpture was created by artist William Crozier, and depicts a life-sized solitary soldier. On a smaller scale behind him are the silhouettes of five soldiers carrying a stretcher through the mountainous terrain of Korea. Known as the “Forgotten War,” the Korean War started on June 25, 1950, when over 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July of that year American troops entered the war to fight on South Korea’s behalf.
