The sculpture is positioned over a granite base, which is inscribed with the names of the 1,743 Illinois residents killed in Korea. Although a number of people have been involved in the effort to erect the memorial, the driving force behind the project is former Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carl I. Greenwood of Springfield. Six years ago, he began what became a personal crusade to honor the memory of Illinois' Korean War dead. There were 58,000 casualties over 10 years in Vietnam, but we lost nearly that many in three years in Korea.
Nobody knows that.
For six years, he criss-crossed the state, rallying support for his cause at every stop and raising money through just about every means imaginable. I met with Carl, and he took me out to the cemetery to look at the proposed site for the memorial. There, we met with other members of the memorial committee, and as we sat there under a big oak tree, I looked around, and it was just a bunch of little old men like me with gray beards. I went to the UI on the G.I. Bill and got educated. These guys didn't have the same chance.