'What pictures they took!' LI Korean War veteran's portrait is among many documented in artist's project

A Smithtown park ranger is doing the local legwork for a South Korean photographer taking portraits of thousands of Korean War veterans.

Ranger Charles Kang, 46, of East Northport, has arranged photo shoots of about 100 Long Island veterans of the 1950-53 war for photographer Rami Hyun’s Project Soldier. Hyun, 42, used fixers like Kang to arrange shoots and video interviews with about 1,500 veterans from the 22 nations, including the United States, that fought under the United Nations flag during the war. Many are in their 80s and 90s.

"Because of men and women like them, my family not only survived the war but we thrived, and in the U.S., we enjoy a freedom these people sacrificed for," said Kang, who immigrated with his family from South Korea when he was 11, settling first in Ridgewood, Queens, before moving to Long Island in 1992.

In an email, Hyun said the project was inspired by his 2016 encounter in South Korea with Hauppauge Marine Sal Scarlato, a war veteran who had returned to the country for a visit.

"Before I met him, I only saw UN veterans on TV or in newspapers, never in person," Hyun said. Hyun also "wondered why he came to another country’s war, and would he be so proud" of his service. "I wanted to meet with the veterans and ask them where they came from."

When Kang introduced himself to Hyun after seeing his work in 2017, Kang already had contacts among Long Island’s roughly 10,000 Korean War veterans. Some he met by striking up conversation after spotting the cap or jacket that identified someone as a war veteran. He has made contacts while on patrol for Smithtown and at restaurants, where he sometimes picks up the tab.

At Crab Meadow Beach in Huntington, Kang told a veteran "if it weren’t for people like that, that stepped up to the plate, I wouldn’t be here," he recalled. "The guy started crying. His wife told me they’d been married 40 years and she’d never seen anything like that. Now every time I bump into a vet, I make the effort."

Kang met Marine Anselm "Jerry" Cramer, 92, of East Northport, last year and arranged for a group shot of veterans at American Legion Post 694 in Northport. Cramer, whose hands and feet were badly frostbitten during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, recalled that Hyun worked with a sizable crew. "What pictures they took!" he said. Hyun later put the group shot into his book. "Beautiful," Cramer said. "I’ve got it hanging on a wall in my house."

Project Soldier started in 2019 and is scheduled to continue through 2023, echoing the years of fighting on the Korean peninsula that took at least 2.5 million lives, including 37,000 American dead. Photo locations have included veterans' homes, meeting halls and nursing homes. The photographs include stark black and white shots of individual veterans against white backgrounds and group shots in color. Every veteran gets a copy of their photograph; some photographs have been published on Hyun’s website and in his book.

One veteran said he was grateful for the project's attention to a conflict sometimes known as the forgotten war. "It was very nice that they did something like that," said Nicholas Balducci, 86, of South Setauket, a former Smithtown Bay constable who was an Army paratrooper at the Battle of Incheon, the war’s first significant strike by UN forces in North Korean-held territory. "I know the Vietnam veterans came back and didn’t have no parades or nothing, but we didn’t either."

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.