In Memoriam

A hero's burial for immigrant, citizen, Marine


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/14/06

He immigrated as an infant, became a U.S. citizen and Marine, and Thursday, he received a hero's burial.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. John Kun Young Kim was born in Korea, grew up in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties, and was killed April 2 in Iraq along with three other American troops when their Humvee hit a hidden bomb.

He died before he was old enough to drink.

"Twenty years old ... too young to die," said the Rev. Peter Hong, pastor of Kim's Korean-speaking Christian congregation, during the funeral service for Kim at Lilburn First Baptist Church.

Part of the service was in English, part in Korean. The cries of Kim's loved ones were in the universal language of grief.

They mourned a young man who enlisted in the Marine Corps not long after graduating in 2003 from Lakeside High School in Decatur.

His relatives and friends said his time in the Marines had transformed him from a reserved, shy teenager to a confident, quietly assertive young man. They also said he was very proud to be an American and perhaps even more proud to be a Marine.

A Marine honor guard laid their young comrade to rest with military precision and solemnity Thursday at Arlington Memorial Cemetery in Sandy Springs. A slow-motion salute from one Marine signaled that the casket was in place. The gesture was recognized by the lowering of the sword of the honor guard commander. Then seven Marines fired their rifles three times apiece.

His casket flag was presented to his older brother, Tae Kim, also a Marine.

People who knew Kim spoke of how genial, how likeable he was.

"He was my hero," said Kim King, a cousin. "He never got angry. He never had a bad word to say about anybody."

Kim started at Norcross High School, she said, but after his father moved to central Georgia, he lived with friends and relatives, while he finished high school at Lakeside.

Instead of going directly to college, he enlisted, she said. Besides following his brother and his father — who had served in the Korean military — Kim wanted to earn military benefits to pay for his own college expenses, she said.

"The Marines became his new family," said David Choe, a longtime friend of Kim's.

That new family, however, had a war to fight.

The mother of one of Kim's best buddies in the Marines, Cyd Deathe of Tampa, said "John was such a great kid, a fun-loving kid."

She called Kim, her son, and another of their friends the "Three Musketeers." All three roomed together at boot camp and in Iraq, she said.

On Wednesday evening, there was a visitation service at First Baptist of Lilburn, the home church of the Korean congregation to which Kim's father, Yong Su Kim, belonged.

A former soldier himself, Yong Su Kim spoke of his son with a soldier's stoicism, though his moist eyes signaled his true emotion.

"He loved peace," the elder Kim said of his son, "But if military action was necessary, he was proud to serve." Then he added, "I wish for no more victims."