It is often referred to as the forgotten war.
But Frank Smyth's memories of the Korean conflict are as fresh today as they were when he was one of the 27,000 Canadian military personnel who took part in the battle.
Smyth's experience in Asia are on his mind this week when the Coquitlam resident joins a contingent of veterans and federal officials travelling to South Korea to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the war.
"I have a lot of mixed emotions," he said. "We are going to be touring the Commonwealth cemetery. There is a beautiful new Canadian memorial there."
The statue, which depicts a Canadian soldier holding the hand of a small boy while carrying a little girl in his arms, commemorates those who fought and the 516 Canadians lost in the war.
Smyth said he is eager to pay his respects and visit some of the cities he last saw as bombed out ruins before he left Korea in the mid-1950s.
EAGER TO JOIN
Frank Smith's route to the Korean War was far from straightforward.
As a member of a military family (his father and grandfather both served and his uncle fought at Vimy Ridge), the 17-year-old Smyth was eager to go overseas when hostilities first broke out in 1950 but he was too young. That did not stop him from trying as he even tried to bribe an official with a bottle of whiskey in an effort to forge documents to allow him to join up.
"You wanted to be with your buddies," he said. "You didn't want to be standing waving goodbye when everyone else was leaving."
Smyth's bribery attempt did not work but a couple of years later, he was allowed to join the infantry and later qualified as a paratrooper, making 156 parachute jumps in what would become a 20-year career with the armed forces.
20 YEARS
Smyth's tenure with the military did not end with the signing of the armistice in Korea in 1953.
He went on to take part in actions in Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus, later becoming a military police officer when the strain of infantry training became too hard for his knees.
It is not lost on Smyth that all of the countries he has visited as a soldier are still in the international headlines today.
He closely followed news of the banking crisis in Cyprus, the 2011 revolution in Egypt and the 2006 war in Lebanon. Smyth was also watching earlier this month when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ripped up the armistice agreement Canadian officials will be commemorating this week.
"It's not a peaceful world," Smyth said.
MEMENTOES
In the late 1960s, years of parachute jumping and training finally caught up with Smyth, who said his knees could no longer handle the exertion of military work. He released from the military in December 1970 and has since worked for Hilti power tools and was a fraud investigator for the B.C. government.
But his tenure with the army is still a big part of his life, and his basement is adorned with pictures and mementoes from his time in the military.
These days, he spends much of his time speaking to school children in the Tri-Cities about his service and he is a fixture at Remembrance Day events in the region.
Living in Coquitlam, a municipality that boasts a large Korean population, he has been thanked by many people he has met over the years for his service fighting on the Asian peninsula.
"The freedom of the South Koreans is something we benefited from by a mass of immigration," he said. "They have become very good contributing citizens... The South Koreans I meet have not forgotten what we did during the war."
