A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Commending and honoring those members of the United States Armed Forces who have been stationed in South Korea on the seventieth anniversary of the armistice which ended the fighting.

WHEREAS, on June 25, 1950, the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea initiated the Korean War by invading the Republic of Korea with approximately 135,000 soldiers; and

WHEREAS, after three years of bitter fighting, hostilities ended with the signing of an armistice at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953; and

WHEREAS, the Korean peninsula has remained in a state of war for the past seventy years; and

WHEREAS, approximately twenty-six thousand South Dakotans were deployed to serve in the Korean War among nearly two million members of the United States Armed Forces, serving beside members of the armed forces of the Republic of Korea and twenty other member nations of the United Nations, to defend the freedom and democracy of the Republic of Korea; and

WHEREAS, one hundred and sixty South Dakotans died while serving in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953; and

WHEREAS, residents of South Dakota have been deployed as active duty service members to provide continued support to the Republic of Korea since the armistice was signed:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Ninety-Eighth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that July 27, 2023, will mark the seventieth anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the open hostilities of the Korean War.