Call it the “Forgotten Memorial.”

In 1990, a Kansas University committee began a campaign to erect a memorial for about 60 students, faculty and alumni who were killed in the Korean War, often called the “Forgotten War.”

But fund raising never got off the ground, and the memorial never was built.

Now, KU officials are starting a new drive to build the memorial.

“We’re a little more serious about it now,” said Jeff Weinberg, special assistant to the chancellor.

A portion of the money raised from program sales at football games this season will go toward the memorial. Weinberg said a minimum of $60,000 must be raised for the project.

Greg Wade, a KU landscape architect who served on the project in the early 1990s, said a committee met for about a year to plan the memorial. The committee even had a student competition to determine a design.

But the committee’s preferred site along Memorial Drive between the Campanile and the Spencer Research Library was vetoed by the KU administration. He said that and turnover on the committee led to the project’s demise.

‘Lost momentum’

“Unfortunately there never was a plan to put together to be taken to the administration,” Wade said. “It lost momentum.”

Only about $3,800 was raised for the project.

The resurrected effort involves the same site the committee picked before. This time, a campuswide landscaping plan is under way that includes major changes along Memorial Drive, including moving parking on the south side of the road and adding a walkway and plaza areas along the north.

Warren Corman, university architect, said a memorial on the north side of the road probably would involve benches and a plaque. But he said no final decisions had been made.

“We were thinking that would be a real nice place for a Korean War memorial,” he said. “It seemed like a natural. It would be more of a nice sitting area.”

Memorials on campus include the Kansas Union and Memorial Stadium, which is a memorial for World War I victims; the Campanile, which memorializes World War II victims; and the Vietnam War Memorial, which is along Memorial Drive.

“It would complete Memorial Drive,” Weinberg said. “It’s incomplete now and will continue to be until the Korean War memorial is in place.”

He said no time frame had been set for the project’s completion. That, he said, would depend on fund raising. The KU Endowment Association also has established a fund for the memorial.

‘It’s due’

Between 1950 and 1953, about 25,000 American soldiers were killed and more than 100,000 were injured in Korea. Two million Koreans were killed.

Despite that, Korean War veterans often have been overlooked. They didn’t have a memorial in Washington, D.C., until 1995.

Mel Lisher, a Lawrence resident who served in the Army in Korea, said he didn’t understand why Korean veterans haven’t got as much recognition as their counterparts in other wars.

“It’s the forgotten war,” he said. “I don’t know why. They’d kill you just as dead in that one as any other one.”

He said it’s time for KU to recognize its veterans and those killed in Korea.

“I think it’s due,” he said. “I really do.”

Vern Russell, who commands a local VFW post, said KU should act quickly on the memorial before more Korean veterans die.

“I think the Korean veterans need their own symbol, so they feel like they’re not forgotten anymore,” he said. “At the post, it seems like we’re losing one a week or one every two weeks from World War II and Korea. They do need something like that up there on the KU campus before they’re all gone, so they can all enjoy it.”