In God We Trust
We are happy to report that yet another donation towards our effort to migrate the old KWE website onto the new one just arrived. Our long-time supporter, Sheila Kronenberger of Illinois, gifted $500 to the KWE. She also sent us dozens and dozens of obituaries of Korean War veterans for posting on our Death Notices page. All of them have now been added to our site. After discussing it with her, we have decided to use her gift to migrate the more complicated Topics page "Stateside Tragedies" over to the new site. These tragedies include training accidents, airplane accidents, train crashes, and much, much more. All of them took the lives of Korean War veterans who were training for duties all around the world, already on duty stateside, and those going to and coming from Korea. The Korean War was not just about lost lives in the Korean combat zone. The Korean War Educator cherishes the life of each and every veteran that lost his or her life while serving their country during the Korean War timeframe. Thank you and God Bless You, Sheila!
Hooray! The KWE received a $1,000 anonymous donation today! The money will be used to migrate more Korean War memoirs over to the new KWE website. There is so much content that needs moved over to the new site it sometimes feels very overwhelming. Every single dollar given to the KWE makes this tremendous undertaking possible. Thank you so much to the donor who filled our life with joy today.
The new year 2025 started with happiness for the Korean War Educator when we learned that Ruth Ann Scott of West Virginia, a long-time supporter of the KWE, stopped at the office of our webmaster in North Carolina to give our website a $1,000 gift toward the migration of the old site onto the new one. As a result, many more KWE memoirs are being migrated over this January. We also received a $100 donation from Robert Lundquist of Illinois, who wrote: "That war started just before my life in the USMC. I missed the worst of it. I had a few friends who survived a night in their sleeping bags covered with snow to survive. The Korean troops were shooting anything that moved as they advanced past the dam. I watched a television program showing the enormous size of the Korean military as they saluted their "general", who is planning missiles that can reach the USA. These are atomic missiles. A scare? Yes." As a result of Robert's donation, two more USMC memoirs will be migrated to the new site this month. Thanks to both of these special donors!
Carol Beals in Illinois gifted $30.00 to the KWE on Christmas Eve. At this time all incoming funds are going directly to the migration of the contents of the old KWE site onto the new one. Many thanks, Carol!
Merry Christmas to KWE readers who enjoy reading the memoirs of Korean War veterans located on our website. The migration process is still underway, so it was a wonderful surprise to open a Christmas card from KWE supporter Sheila Kronenberger of Southern Illinois and find a $1,000 gift to the KWE. One hundred percent of the money was forwarded to the KWE webmaster so many more of the memoirs on our old site can be transferred to the new one. Sheila has supported the Korean War Educator since Day One. There are no words to express how much her generosity means to Korean War veterans past and present--not to mention the many kindnesses she has shown to me (Lynnita) over the past many, many years. Much love to you, Sheila!
Priscilla Martin of New York, the niece of the late Paul G. Martin, gave the KWE a $25.00 donation just in time for Thanksgiving. Here are her kind words: "Hope you would accept a small donation to keep your incredibly important work going! I also gave your contact information to my cousins, so maybe they will be able to contribute something as well. I especially loved the part of my uncle's interview where he gave a few tactical suggestions to a General (which were later enacted!). Also the part where he broke the Korean War down to a chess game! Many blessings and much happiness to you. Thanks for your hard work and dedication." Paul's memoir is located on the Korean War Educator. Thanks, Priscilla!
The KWE received $120 from the daughters of Maurice "Bob" Slaney. Thanks to Ann, Grace and Shirley, more updates were made to our female Korean War veterans page. Many thanks to them for their thoughtfulness.
The KWE's application for a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council was denied today. The website will remain askew until someone or some company believes in us enough to help fund content not yet transferred from the old site to the new one. Meanwhile, we're still plugging away and trying our best.
Our newest life member is Rich Kolb of Missouri. Half of his $100 membership was placed in the General Operating Fund and the other half was added to the KWE's Endowment Fund. Welcome, Rich!
Thanks to new donations to the KWE, we continue the slow but steady process of migrating the "old" KWE website onto the "new" KWE website. Included in the donors are Maureen Deaver Purcell of Indiana ($100), Irving Scott of Indiana ($500), and Ruth Ann Scott of West Virginia ($500). We appreciate the three of you so much!
We are heartened to give our readers updated news about the changes to the KWE that are currently occurring behind the scenes of this website. Two financial gifts (one in December and one in March) from Sheila Kronenberger in Southern Illinois enabled us to send $1,000 to the Cloud Carpenter web design company. As a result, one of his employees is now assigned to move the KWE's Memoirs over to the new server. Meanwhile, Lynnita is taking baby steps to learn how to make updates, transfer text and create new pages. While doing that, Lynnita has also been concentrating on adding numerous Silver Star citations to the website. James Blackwell of Virginia sent $100 to help the KWE continue to grow. Merry Helm, a Korean War researcher in Washington State, became a life member and concurrently sent us several Silver Star citations. Tonight we received a $500.00 PayPal contribution from Donald Hall in Maryland. We've got a long way to go and we still need an influx of money for this big transition, but things are getting brighter for the KWE's future. Many thanks to everyone who is making the impossible possible!
We are grateful to James Blackwell of Virginia for gifting $100 to the KWE. The money was placed in the General Operating Fund of the KWE. Thank you so much, James.
Do you have a short story about Korea? Send it our way! We have recently opened a short story section on the KWE's Memoirs page. Lynnita's e-mail address is [Please enable JavaScript.]. Her U.S. mail is Lynnita Brown, 111 E. Houghton St., Tuscola, IL 61953. Be sure to include a picture of yourself to go along with the story. Sending more than one picture is okay, too.
It has come to our attention that quite a lot of Korean War history is being lost needlessly because one particular aspect of the many unique opportunities available to veterans through the Korean War Educator is little known. The KWE exists to educate the public about the Korean War--at no cost to Korean War veterans. Here is what is happening that doesn't need to happen:
Individual Korean War veterans and Korean War veteran reunion groups often have small, medium and large websites on the Internet. Unfortunately, as the veterans age and financial resources to stay online dry up, these informative websites are being pulled off the Internet one by one and the history found on them is being lost forever.
Please spread the word that the Korean War Educator's "Topics" page can absorb these increasingly-disappearing websites at no cost. All you have to do is turn the text and photographs over to the KWE for permanent posting on the Korean War Educator. Naturally, a little money to help make the transaction would always be welcome, but it is most certainly not mandatory. The KWE is a free service to Korean War veterans and always will be--no strings attached. How does one move a Korean War-related website over to the KWE? Simple. Contact us!
Well, dear friends, the Korean War Educator's New Year 2024 isn't starting off the greatest. We have received word of the life-threatening health condition of our beloved webmaster, Jim Doppelhammer. Co-partnering with Lynnita since 2004 to make the KWE a tremendous educational resource, Jim tells us that his health has failed so much he must give up his work with the KWE and close his computer business. The new company handling the hosting and technical support for the KWE is CloudCarpenter. Because the old website was built using FrontPage software from 2003 (over 20 years old!), it is not feasible to maintain and must be migrated to their modern webhosting platform. As a result, our readers will see some drastic changes to the Korean War Educator in the coming weeks and months. All of the information and photographs will still exist, but the site will take on a more modern look that promises to be easier to navigate and user friendly. This is not going to come easy financially or emotionally for the KWE's unpaid staff of one (Lynnita, who is "tech-challenged"), but it must be done. Say a few prayers for Jim and the Korean War Educator, and donate financially if you can as this unexpected transition takes place. Have patience, tell us about any glitches you see, and watch a changing Korean War Educator develop. In the meantime, here are a couple of facts that our readers should know about the KWE: Currently this website has 9,696 files providing 1,439,428 Kilobytes of educational material about the Korean War to its visitors. The site also features 5,549 pictures. As you can see, the KWE is not a puny little website--it's massive! It is very much worth the time, effort and money that has been put into it over its lifespan. Korean War veterans deserve the best the World Wide Web has to offer, and we aim to please! - Lynnita