10/21/2026
70-year friendship takes 95-year-old Smith Center parishioner back to South Korea
By Alan Holdren
The Register
A 95-year-old Smith Center parishioner is heading to South Korea this month to see an old friend. Francis Sweat met South Korean soldier, Ju Chan Kim, as they served together for separate, but allied armies more than 70 years ago. Their friendship, forged through shared service, has lasted their very long lifetimes and is drawing Sweat back to Seoul.
Francis Sweat grew up on a farm near the tiny township of Cedar, in Smith County. His parents encouraged him to take over the farm, but insisted he get a degree first. It was at Kansas State University while studying general agriculture that he also joined the ROTC program.
After graduating, he went on to officer training school in Georgia for three months. Then, in 1953, he got orders to go abroad. Korea was on the horizon.
The hostilities of the Korean War had concluded the previous year. He served in the U.S. Army’s 21st Infantry Regiment during the first years of the so-called “armistice agreement,” a ceasefire between North and South Korea that continues to this day.
He served in a variety of places over two years. Initially, Sweat served in the Yanngu Valley near South Korea’s east coast, but he also spent several months in Panmunjom. There, he was with a mix of both American and South Korean soldiers as part of the “Operation Glory” honor guard. The special operation was an exchange of the deceased between the allies and North Korea, bringing home many who were lost.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reports that the remains of around 4,200 American soldiers were returned through the operation. Kansas-native, Fr. Emil Kapaun, a Korean War chaplain who died in a prisoner-of-war camp in North Korea and is now being considered for Catholic sainthood, was one of them.
“We stood there at attention and the convoy trucks passed through. We did that about every day,” Sweat told the Register. There were four men representing each of the seven U.S. divisions then present in Korea, 28 total. “The Koreans found out about it… so they wanted to be there too.”
Ju Chan Kim was a platoon leader of the Republic of Korea’s honor guard. “Our duty was simple but solemn: to present arms as the remains arrived from the North. To us, each arrival was a hero coming home,” he told the Register by text message from Seoul.
Kim was actually born and raised in Pyongyang, North Korea. “I went through the heartbreak of retreating south, leaving my mother behind in the North,” he shared. “I was wounded in the war and lost many comrades.”
The American and Korean soldiers serving in Operation Glory didn’t share much in terms of language, but they communicated by gestures and worked side-by-side, Kim remembered.
When Sweat received orders to return to the US in 1955, he stopped through the Korean Army Headquarters in Seoul to visit Kim before departing. Every Christmas since, they have exchanged gifts and letters. Sweat would send National Geographic magazines as well and even offered to help Kim continue his education in the United States, which he politely declined.
Their friendship has extended to include their entire families.
In the late-1980s, the Sweat family visited Kim’s son, Wonho, as he was getting his PhD in Austin, Texas. That’s where the Sweats learned many of the Korean customs.
“We were probably the only Kansas farm kids drinking Ginseng hot tea growing up,” Sweat’s daughter, Janet (Sweat) Schieferecke, told the Register.
In 1991, Ju Chan Kim himself came to the Sweat family farm in Smith County with his wife. The cows got out and Kim jumped right in with Sweat to get them back in the pen. They were serving together again.
“They experienced an authentic farm life during their visit,” mused Schieferecke.
“I had never seen anything like those vast plains and large farms,” Kim remembered. “It was a landscape unlike anything I knew in Korea. It was a new and memorable experience, made all the more special by their warm hospitality.”
Sweat remembers how they marvelled at how bright the night sky was here.
They came to middle America. Now, it is Sweat’s turn to go back to the Korean peninsula.
“Ju Chan always said I should come to Korea,” said Sweat. “And there was farming to do. Colette never did like airplanes at all. I don’t think we would have got her on an airplane.”
Sweat’s wife of 66 years, Colette (Mick), originally from Tipton, died at the age of 91 last year.
Kim was insistent that Sweat come. “I think Ju Chan has something planned. He’s sort of hinted before about some kind of an award for me,” chuckled Sweat.
It hasn’t been simple, but Francis Sweat is a man on a mission. He didn’t know, but he didn’t even have a birth certificate. That didn’t stop him. He enlisted the assistance of a lawyer, got it, and was then able to get a passport.
His two daughters and a son-in-law will travel with him. They depart from Wichita, and after a nearly 13-hour flight over the Pacific Ocean from California, they will see both the Kim family and some sights over the course of a week.
They will tour the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, known as the DMZ, and to the central lakes region. He visited both as a soldier, but he’s particularly looking forward to the latter. “It’s a part of Korea I’ve never been to in the daytime,” he said.
Sweat would also like to see Seoul’s old Imperial Palace grounds again “and take some pictures.” He just got himself a latest-technology Nikon camera for that very purpose.
Fellow honor guard member, Kim, and his family are waiting to welcome Sweat and his family with open arms. “I only wish our wives were still with us to share this reunion,” he said.
Kim, also 95 years old, said he is one of a dwindling number of Korean War veterans left in Korea. He’s often invited to speak at ceremonies, and he imagines there will be plenty of interest in Sweat’s visit by national media.
“Francis,” reflected Kim, “has come to represent for me, the American servicemen who came to a country they had never known and shed their blood for its people. Our friendship is a deeply personal part of the gratitude I feel toward the United States - for its sacrifices during the war and its help in rebuilding Korea afterward.”
Sweat himself says he’s proud of his military service. “The South Koreans were very appreciative. They emphasized that to me several times.”
In a sense, he’s going back to his second home.
“We may not be able to travel as energetically as younger people,” concluded Kim, “but I hope he and his family will see and enjoy as much as they can and return home with many happy memories.”
