KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A new letter from the military to the family of a Navy man killed in an “enemy action” stirs familiar feelings of betrayal.
“Just another slap in the face to the families again!!” wrote Terri Mumley in a recent email exchange.
Mumley also included two letters from the Navy and the Undersecretary of the Department of Defense notifying her of the new government denial of her request to add the name of her grandfather to the National Korean War Memorial Wall of Remembrance in Washington, D.C.
“I’m so devastated,” said Mumley, the granddaughter of Lloyd Smith Jr.
He was already a decorated veteran of World War II. On a fateful mission on Jan. 18, 1953, during the war in Korea, his Navy plane was shot down by enemy fire. A rescue attempt by the U.S. Coast Guard off the coast of China was riddled with mishaps, a case WBIR documents in previous reporting. Before the dark day was done, there would be more dead and missing Americans.
In the decades since then, Mumley led several families of the fallen to run a gauntlet of military bureaucracy in an effort to see their loved ones honored for their service and sacrifice.
In 2023, WBIR documented the tributes by fellow veterans, public protests by family members and heard frustration from Congressman Tim Burchett (R - TN) about the refusal by the Navy and Department of Defense to acknowledge the losses of almost a dozen men that day and honor them with a place on a memorial wall in Washington, D.C.
“If a person died in service to our country, they deserve to be there. That's my bottom line,” said Burchett in an interview with WBIR-TV almost 17 months ago.
“There's another crash that was approximately 32 miles away. Also in China, also very similar aircraft and very similar mission. But, it is considered they're killed in action in the Korean War due to hostile enemy fire,” said Hal Barker of the Korean War Project.
The Korean War Project is a private nonprofit devoted to collecting and archiving the names of the dead and missing during the war in Korea.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance was dedicated in the summer of 2022 and includes the names of 36,634 dead Americans and 7,174 Koreans killed fighting on the U.S. side of the conflict. Barker is a years-long vocal critic of the relatively new national memorial, pointing to hundreds of misspelled names, including Medal of Honor recipient Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Ambrosio Guillen, 23. His name is spelled “Guilien” on the wall.
“I believe it's going to have to be rebuilt,” said Barker in a most recent interview about fixing the mistakes on the wall.
The latest letters from the military suggest Smith Jr. was killed outside the “defined combat zone.”
In response, still grieving granddaughter Terri Mumley wrote, “Our Govt sends billions of dollars to other countries but can’t honor those that gave the ultimate sacrifice! It is sickening! Nor stand by the families that have suffered for over 70 years.”
