KOREAN WAR STORIES
NEW DOCUMENTARY COMMEMORATES 50th ANNIVERSARY
Walter Cronkite is Host/Narrator
A new documentary special that features Korean War veterans recounting their own experiences will be broadcast nationally by PBS for Memorial Day. The national premiere will be at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 27, 2001. Check local listings for exact times in your area.
The documentary, titled Korean War Stories and hosted by Walter Cronkite, contains interviews with nearly 30 Korean War veterans. Among the notable veterans appearing in the program are astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Wally Schirra; former Secretary of State James A. Baker III; noted writer David Hackworth; former Sen. John Glenn; Reps. Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Charles B. Rangel (D-NY); Sen. John W. Warner (R-VA); Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams; Lt. Colonel Charles B. Brad Smith; entertainer Willie Nelson, and many more. Two highly respected reporters offer their comments: Irving R. Levine of NBC News, and Bill Shinn of the Associated Press. Three Medal of Honor recipients also appear: Gen. Raymond G. Davis, U.S. Marine Corps; Col. Lewis L. Millett, U.S. Army; and the late Col. Carl L. Sitter, U.S. Marine Corps, who died April 4, 2000, two weeks after filming his interview.
Korean War Stories allows veterans to share their memories of a very difficult and brutal war. Not only does it tell the story of the war and its effect on the men and women who fought, but it also shows how these veteransí sacrifice and effort helped stabilize America and the world during the early years of the Cold War.
This documentary contains many photographs never before seen on television,î said Mr. Uth. ìMany were provided by the men and women who served in Korea during the war. In addition, some photographs that were actually used during strategic briefings of Gen. Douglas MacArthur were recently discovered and included in the program.
The documentary tracks the intertwined history of the U.S. and Korea from shortly before the war broke out in June 1950 to the signing of the armistice in July 1953. ìIt shows how the United States military was ill prepared to go to war, and how our men and women in uniform served and sacrificed for nearly three years to help ensure freedom for the people of the Republic of Korea,î said Ms. Geller.
The program also tells how veterans from this very brutal war returned home, some of them severely disabled, only to find that their contribution was not fully appreciated by the American public. In spite of this, many Korean veterans went on to lives of significant accomplishment.
We felt it was critically important to talk to these veterans, and to bring their stories to the American people,î said Uth.
Korean War Stories is a production of New Voyage Communications, Washington, D.C. Producer/Director: Robert Uth. Executive Producer: Phylis Geller. Written by: Robert Uth and Phylis Geller.
The program was made possible by the generous support of Disabled American Veterans, Ford Motor Company, PNC Financial Services, Bowater, Inc., and PBS.
Press Contact:
New Voyage Communications
E-mail: newvoy@verizon.net
KOREAN WAR STORIES PRODUCTION CREDITS
Producer/Director: Robert Uth
Executive Producer: Phylis Geller
Written by: Robert Uth and Phylis Geller
Editor: Michael Noble
Assistant Editors: Jeffrey Borleis, Steve Rothgeb Videographer: Bill Turnley
Art Directions/Graphics: Simonida Perica Uth
Audio Recording: John OíLeary
Original Music: John Keltonic
A Production of NEW VOYAGE COMMUNICATIONS
New Voyage Communications is a multi-media company based in Washington, D.C. NVC was formed to create and distribute products for broadcast and cable television, the internet, and the non-theatrical video market. TESLA, Master of Lightning, a PBS special about the visionary scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla, premiered nationally December 12, 2000; Korean War Stories, a PBS special recounting the personal experiences of Korean War veterans, will air nationally on May 27, 2001; and a program on the life of cabaret singer Mabel Mercer is in development. NVC also publishes and distributes books under its subsidiary, New Voyage Publishing. Current offers are Midnight at Mabelís: The Mabel Mercer Story, and an upcoming companion book to Korean War Stories (www.newvoyagepublishing.com) A companion book to TESLA, Master of Lightning was published by Barnes & Noble Press.
ROBERT UTH
For the past twenty years, Uth has been the Executive Director of National Productions, a full service television production and communications company in Washington, D.C. He has produced hundreds of programs for corporate and non-profit organizations worldwide. For National Productions, he wrote and directed documentaries for PBS, including Living Double Lives, a look at the nuclear age, and The Spirit of Cooperation, about the cooperative movement in America. Uth has received the Chris Award for outstanding educational program and won first prize in the Casa de las Ciencas International Competition for Scientific Diffusion Videos.
PHYLIS GELLER
Geller was previously Head of Special Projects for Mandalay Media Arts, a high-definition television production company in Los Angeles. Prior to joining MMA, Geller was Senior Vice President of Cultural Programming and New Media at WETA, the PBS producing station in Washington, D.C. She supervised WETAís cultural programs for PBS, including Ken Burnsí Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as the performance series The Kennedy Center Presents and In Performance at the White House. Documentary series included The Face of Russia, a coproduction with the Library of Congress. Geller also pioneered WETAís HDTV productions, including the Emmy-award winning Impressionists on the Seine and Van Gogh's Van Goghs, based on the landmark exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.
Geller was formerly Senior Vice President of National Productions at KCET/ Hollywood, where her projects included American Playhouse, The Astronomers, Secret Intelligence, Millennium and Trying Times, as well as numerous specials for NOVA and Great Performances. She has also served as Senior Vice President for National and International Production at Maryland Public Television. Earlier in her career, she was a producer at WNET, New York, on the drama series Theater in America.
KOREAN WAR STORIES
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Korean War Stories is a one-hour television documentary created to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War. The Korean conflict is often called The Forgotten War. The purpose of this documentary project is to put a human face on the conflict and to create a vivid, unique and lasting impression of what happened in Korea.
To understand the human dimension of this conflict, the documentary focuses on the lives, experiences, and remembrances of the men and women who actually lived through it. Their personal stories, thoughts, and experiences are set within the historical context of the key periods of the war. The unique perspectives of American veterans create a vivid and lasting impression that make the war in Korea hard to forget.
How can a war in which 34,000 Americans were killed, along with 100,000 UN troops, and more than a million Koreans and Chinese, become a ëforgotten warí?. For many reasons, the story of the Korean War has been relegated to the back pages of history. It is a gray area in our national memory, if it is remembered at all. There are a number of excellent historical works on the Korean War, but all the histories combined have not given the war a vivid and lasting place in the American memory and imagination. This is an unfortunate loss because great lessons can be learned from the Korean War that apply directly to our times.
There is another interesting reason why the Korean War was forgotten. The men and women who were there also wanted to forget it. They had the nightmares, the questions, the missing limbs, and memories of some of the most savage fighting in modern warfare. But with the arrival of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, many of these brave men and women decided it was finally time to tell their stories.
Many of these Korean War veterans continue to pay the heavy cost of the war on a daily basis. They explain the personal lessons learned during the war and how, when they returned home, those lessons applied to their civilian lives. They include notable personalities and everyday heroes who were transformed by their experiences in Korea.
This is not a history of the Korean War through name places, dates and statistics. It is the story of what it was really like to be there: in the trenches, freezing and bleeding in snow, fighting dogfights in the air, holding a dying soldierís hand, and knowing what it means to sacrifice life and limb for your country.
This program is dedicated to their sacrifices and the historical role they played in the first military engagement of the Cold War ñ when the rules of war changed forever.
Our goal is to help Americans understand and remember the incredible significance of the Korean War in shaping American history.
