[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9556]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                 HONORING THE LIFE OF RICHARD UNDERWOOD

  (Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor 
Richard Underwood, a veteran, a member of our Nation's Greatest 
Generation, an educator, and this is his 90th birthday.
  Richard was born in Korea to his Presbyterian missionary parents and 
was a natural native speaker of the Korean language. After the attacks 
on Pearl Harbor, he was repatriated from Japanese-held Korea and 
attended high school in Brooklyn, New York, before enlisting in the 
U.S. Army and joining the Office of Strategic Services. In World War 
II, he served behind Soviet Russian lines in Korea and the liberation 
and division of Korea.
  After his service in World War II, he returned to the United States, 
only to reenlist in the Army following North Korea's invasion of South 
Korea. As an interpreter in the Korean war, Richard and as his brother 
helped interpret peace talks at the end of the war.
  After this military career, Richard returned to Korea in 1957 to head 
the America Korea Foundation; and in 1962, he joined the Korean mission 
of the Presbyterian Church and was assigned to the Seoul Foreign School 
as its principal and, later, headmaster.
  Richard currently lives in Urbana, Illinois, with his wife of 65 
years, Carol.
  Richard, happy birthday, and thank you for your years of selfless 
service and sacrifice to this Nation.

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