-Source-CNBC-
More than 35,000 Americans perished on the Korean peninsula between 1950 and 1953, in a fight that pitted the communist North Korea, backed by China and the Soviet Union, against the U.S. and United Nations-backed South.
The breakthrough reached between the U.S. and North Korea in Singapore on June 12 carries tremendous weight for surviving Korean War veterans and the families of those who were lost.
Whatever the potential outcome, President Donald Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last week was historic, marking the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a head of state of the rogue Asian nation.
And while the perspectives of South Koreans, the Chinese, the Japanese and even the Russians have been analyzed, little attention has been paid to the community whose intervention enabled South Korea to become a democratic and open country: American veterans of the Korean War.
"It's time for a real peace treaty after 66 years in a state of war in which nobody wins and everyone loses," said former U.S. Navy petty officer Jack Keep, who served aboard a ship patrolling the North Korean coast in 1953.
Speaking to CNBC via email, the 83-year-old veteran was hopeful. "The people of North and South Korea, as well as we veterans, would welcome a peaceful outcome to these talks. The North Korean people have been suffering desperate poverty all these years."
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