A U.S. congressman has introduced a resolution calling for a memorial marker honoring American servicemembers killed or missing in action while helping defend South Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War.

Rep. William Keating introduced the concurrent resolution on Thursday, saying many servicemembers have died or been wounded in Korea as a result of hostile fire from North Korea in what is known to their families as the "DMZ War" or the "Forgotten War of the Forgotten War."

The DMZ is short for the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

The resolution calls for providing an appropriate site in the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery for a memorial marker to "honor the memory of those who have been awarded or are eligible for the Korean Defense Service Medal who are missing in action, are unaccounted for, or died in-theater."

The medal, which was first established in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration, is retroactive to the end of the Korean War and is awarded to all members of the U.S. military who have served duty in South Korea after 1954.

"Since the armistice was signed, more than 40,000 armistice violations have occurred, many of which affected members of the Armed Forces who were stationed in and around Korea," Keating said in the resolution. "Some of those violations, like the capture of the USS Pueblo, caught the attention of the media, although most have not."

For example, the congressman said that North Korea shot down a U.S. Bell OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter in 1994 and killed one of the pilots, Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, while holding the other, Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall, captive for 13 days.

Some veterans also suffer from exposure to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange, which was used during a period that began in 1968 and ended in 1971 in and around the Demilitarized Zone, the lawmaker said. (Yonhap)