Brothers, government tangle over Korean War records

Star-Telegram: Brothers, government tangle over Korean War records

As this summer marks the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, it remains one of the least understood and most overlooked conflicts of the American experience.

Time is running out for those who fought the war, as most surviving veterans are in or approaching their 80s.

The Korean War Project, founded in 1995 by two Dallas brothers who are the sons of a decorated Korean War Marine, has established itself as a valuable resource for information on unit histories, casualties, battles and those missing in action.

But Hal and Ted Barker are engaged in a tussle with the Defense Department over a digitized version of unclassified Army records that the Barkers believe will be important for historians, veterans and families. The Barkers call it a case of "government at its worst" in the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii.

"We provide them a decade worth of help in the identification of missing in action personnel," Hal Barker said. "Then we ask them for the most basic public records, and they say, 'Take us to court.'"

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, known as JPAC, says it won't release the CDs to the Barkers because they are Army records. The Army has, so far, not made a decision.

"Since JPAC has no equities in the records and [because of] the possibility of information covered under the personal privacy exemption, the digitized records were referred to the Department of the Army for review and direct response," said Michelle Thomas, a spokeswoman for JPAC in Hawaii.

The Barkers seem caught in a bizarre situation -- one arm of the government says the records are public and available for research, yet a digital version of the same records has prompted a complete review by the same government.

It's apparently a common story.

'Bureaucratic rules'
Brian M. Linn, a professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in military history, has been stymied for well over a year by the Army in his attempt to get access to records from the post-Korean War years.

"People at the National Archives are working really hard, but I get the sense they're frustrated by these bureaucratic rules," said Linn, president of the Society for Military History. "We're supposed to live in a free society. I've been told by people in the Army, 'You need to tell the Army's story.' But to actually try and do that is a lot more difficult than it should be."

In December, the Barkers discovered that the Marine Corps had digitized more than 100,000 pages of command reports and unit diaries from the Korean War, from the battalion level down to company level. The records were not available online, but they could be bought.

"I paid $300, and in five days, I got 25 CDs in the mail," Hal Barker said.

The men have put about half on their website, allowing "a researcher anywhere in the world to look at the intricate details of Marine operations in Korea."

The Barkers had hoped for a similar outcome when they filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the digitized records of the 7th Infantry Division, 24th Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division from JPAC, which has been digitizing records held at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Md.

JPAC, which oversees the effort to find, recover and identify remains from past wars, is hoping the records will shed light on casualties.

"Sometimes even the smallest of clues, such as message traffic between units during any given engagement, allows us to include or exclude casualties from a specific area," Thomas said.

From the Barkers' perspective, the relationship between the Korean War Project and JPAC had always been share and share alike.

"We've worked with JPAC for over a decade," Hal Barker said. "We've had over 2,000 e-mails with JPAC alone, relating to the identification of MIAs from Korea. ... We have provided them with hundreds of photographs. They requested copies of our 800 maps because many of the maps we have they don't.

"We've been providing the Defense Department with family contacts to obtain DNA samples to help with identification. We have provided them with a huge resource that would have cost them thousands of dollars on their own. We did it for free."

A question of ownership
But Johnie Webb Jr., in charge of public relations and legislative affairs for JPAC, responded to the Barkers by telling them that JPAC can't release the records because they belong to the National Archives. The National Archives responded by telling the Barkers that the digital files represent "unique" records and that it is up to JPAC to release them.

The Barkers appealed to the Defense Department, which promptly sent the appeal to the Army, then to the Army Human Resource Command, which has asked for more time to answer.

It's very perplexing and frustrating for the Barkers.

"The theory that a contract historian photographing public access documents somehow creates a special right to reclassify or otherwise make digital documents unavailable to the public is not supported by any current case law," Hal Barker wrote to one defense official.

The Barkers could go to the National Archives and photograph the documents themselves or pay to have them copied, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. But they don't have the resources for that, they said.

The Barkers have appealed for help to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, among others. They have also drafted a federal lawsuit but hope the issue is settled without the expense of that.

In the meantime, the Barkers have ended their cooperation with JPAC, even going to the effort of blocking the government's access to the Korean War Project website.

"This isn't depriving me of records," Hal Barker said. "I'm just a worker bee. I put these up so veterans, families and historians can look at them. When they deny me at the Korean War Project, they're denying tens of thousands of veterans, for the first time in history, easy access to records from their war."