The Petronas Towers have been featured in major motion pictures, and in advertisements, travelogues, telecasts, magazine and newspaper articles.

The Petronas Towers constituted the highest buildings in the world from the time they opened in 1998 until 2004.

Then they were surpassed by the much acclaimed Taipei 101, the 510-meter high (1,673 feet) tower located in the Xinyi District in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.

Again, Samsung Engineering and Construction of Korea was principal contractor and project manager.

In Korea itself construction began on the DMC Landmark Tower in Seoul’s Media City district in October, 2009. Again, Samsung C and T’s engineering and construction wing is the primary contractor and developer.

“DMC” stands for Digital Media City, the name of a vast digital-related research and educational complex on the western side of Seoul, not far from the Han River.

The 640-meter (2,100 feet) Tower is planned for completion in 2015. It will stand on the route into Seoul from the Incheon International Airport, showcasing the nation as one that is buttressed with the most progressive technology in the world.

This project has been personally supported and driven by the Mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-Hoon.

These are just some examples of the great spires rising in Asia and elsewhere that rely upon Korean talent and know-how.

If you see an article about such a behemoth high-rise going up virtually anywhere, chances are that research will show Korean engineers, entrepreneurs and financiers are heavily involved.

Just days before the opening of the Burj Dubai Towers in Dubai, Korea Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), a state-owned utility, led a Korean consortium that was awarded a $40 billion (US) contract – read 'B' for billion – to design, construct and operate four nuclear power plants for the same United Arab Emirates.

(We'll get to the Korean War Veterans very soon, read on)

Winning the huge prize was a feat that attests not just to the technical competence and track record of the Korean firms, but to outstanding business acumen.

The Koreans out-dealt, out-manoeuvred, out-marketed some of the most brilliant advertisers and deal makers in the world. They have been doing it for decades, without fanfare.

The president of Korea, Lee Myung-bak at one time was president of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, one of the partners in the KEPCO consortium that won the colossal new business.

Veterans who return to Korea next year – at least 2,400 of them – to participate in ceremonies and events that commemorate the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War will be longing nostalgically for the strange land that captured their lives so long ago… and has never left them.

Amazingly, the spirit of the people and those times is still there, and flourishes. The Veterans will not want for reconnecting with their past.

Yet they should also realize the absolutely superb steps – not steps, but great leaps! – taken by this nation they fought for so long ago.

Compared against any other nation in the world Korea is at the forefront in all technologies, science, medicine, the arts.

It is also in the fore in the way it treats, respects and welcomes the Veterans from nations that supported the impoverished, nearly crushed country during the years of the Korean War.

In treatment and respect for the Veterans who fought to bring freedom to their homeland soil, the Koreans are without peer in this entire world. No other nation does as much to pay homage to those who fought to bring them freedom.

There has been turmoil in the past 60 years, there have been recriminations, there have been periods of great unrest, but there always has been forward and upward progress.

Could you imagine, cold and shivering in a trench in a war year, or sweating and being stung by mosquitos on a hot, dangerous night, that Korean technology would place the spires on the tallest buildings in the world?

And why the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs and the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Commemoration Committee headed by Prime Minister Chung Un-chan and former Prime Minister Lee Hong-gu are working so hard to make 2010 an especially memorable year for all of the world’s Veterans who fought in Korea, six decades ago.

Some might think it a stretch to say (but not those who fought in Korea) that when one of the great towers is seen, in person, or in a photograph or on a video screen, that Veterans can justly say, "There is something that I did with my life… there is the proof of that very great thing that I did so long ago, in a land few people had ever heard of, and which mysteriously got into my heart and has been with me ever since."

Instead of hauling firewood or ammunition or supplies up the hills on their backs, the sons and grandsons of the Koreans we served with are building great towers in countries all over the world.

Perhaps the Veteran may see happy school children smiling and playing in the streets, or at work in their schools, maybe attired in nice clothing, free and happy as cherished children can be.

Maybe he will see a distinguished older lady in her late seventies or early eighties, a child herself when he was in Korea and maybe when he was not much older. He may watch such as her walk with pride and happiness and approval of her country, or cast her vote perhaps, for somebody of her own choosing, and do it with safety and anonymity and the privilege of hard won freedom.

The veteran should think that they are memorials to his own youth, too, and to that of his comrades who risked all for them, and to those who gave all.

There are contrasts in Korea, as there are in all lands; great dichotomies between the wealthy and those who need charity, diverging political persuasions between left and right, diversity of religion, with temples, with cathedrals of all faiths, with mosques, with chapels, all nourished by the air and the pure water of hope and of freedom.