Kim Sun-il was a bright, hard-working man who cared for and financially supported his parents in South Korea while working in Iraq, Hyung-sun Suh said.
Suh, 72, of Edmonds never met Kim, but learned those things through a news release that the South Korean government published shortly after Kim was reported to have been kidnapped last week.
Suh, who immigrated to the United States from Seoul in 1964, had closely followed the news and prayed for the safety of Kim, who worked for a South Korean company in Iraq.
But Suh had to face the worst news on Tuesday.
Islamic militants beheaded Kim, 33, sometime in the middle of the night after South Korea didn’t meet their demand that Korean forces stay out of Iraq. His remains were found about 5:20 p.m. Iraqi time.
“There’s no moral code,” Suh said of the killers. “They just do as much damage as possible to the peace of the world.”
As the news spread internationally, the shock reverberated Tuesday afternoon among Korean immigrants in Snohomish County.
Seon Lee and her daughter Diane Han, 10, were at Pal-Do World, a Korean grocery in Lynnwood. In front of the store, two Korean newspaper stands showed pictures of Kim’s grieving family.
Lee, of Edmonds, said she was “angry for something. But I can’t say what it is. It’s just a shock.”
South Korea has been supportive of U.S. policy in Iraq. It now has 600 troops in Iraq and plans to send 3,000 more by August. Lee was indecisive about whether the South Korean government should send more troops there.
“I don’t want to say yes or no,” she said. “I just want this problem solved soon. I don’t want any war.”
Sending troops would do no good for South Korea, said Jennifer Cai of Lynnwood.
“I don’t think the South Korean government should be involved in the war,” said Cai, who came to the United States from China about seven years ago.
Cai doesn’t see a cause behind the war.
“The war is for what?” she asked, adding that she doesn’t see the connection between the U.S.-led war on terror and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The government shouldn’t make concessions to terrorists killing anyone indiscriminately, state Sen. Paull Shin said.
“When the government says, ‘Don’t kill,’ it’s not going to make a big impact, because they are terrorists and they are going to do what they want to do,” said Shin, originally from Kunchon, a city about 20 miles north of Seoul.
Korean civilians in Iraq don’t need to evacuate, but they need more protection from troops, Shin said.
“Civilians are there for business. They are not there for military or political purposes,” he added.
South Korea has about 37,000 U.S. troops on its land to prevent potential attacks by North Korea, said Suh, the Edmonds resident.
Kim’s death was tragic, he said. But he believes his native country needs to assist the United States in Iraq.
The two countries already have reached an agreement, and the South Korean congress has approved a plan to send more troops to Iraq, Suh said.
“Once we committed, we will go,” Suh said. “That’s a pride of our nationality.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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