Great-grandson of Korean War hero teaching in Mokpo.

Last week Yonhap and the Chosun Ilbo profiled Ben Forney, a Fullbright Scholar and native speaker English teacher at a middle school in Mokpo, most notable perhaps for being the great-grandson of General Edward Forney, one of the men who helped hundreds of thousands of UN troops and Korean refugees escape from North Korea during the Hungnam Evacuation (흥남부두 철수) in 1950.

Ben arrived in Mokpo last summer and has written about his time in Korea for his alma mater and on his blog, the latter including an anecdote from his trip to Geoje island and the statue of his great-grandfather:

[T]hanks to the excellent Korean skills of my friends, we talked to a lady at the information booth and explained who I was. She made some calls, and thirty minutes later, two old men walked up and began talking to us. Survivors of the Hungnam Evacuation. They were awesome. Surprisingly, they spoke a little English, and with the help of our collective Korean knowledge, we heard their stories, and somehow arranged for a quick piggy-back ride. It was a pretty typical wacky exchange with Koreans. Don't bother asking me why he gave me a piggy-back ride. The world will probably never know.