The message was simple: Write a letter to someone lost in the Korean War. Within a day, responses started pouring in for the latest effort by brothers Hal and Ted Barker to remember the war their father didn't like to discuss. In the three weeks since their plea went out, more than 500 letters and e-mails have arrived -- from daughters who lost their fathers to veterans who lost friends to schoolchildren thanking those who died for their freedom.

"It's been a catharsis for a lot of people," said Hal Barker, 59. "They write a letter telling the person who was lost how their life turned out."

It's been 11 years since the Barkers, inspired by their father's reticence, started the Korean War Project, an online memory bank for the 1950s conflict that claimed about 36,500 U.S. lives. They have helped comrades reconnect and tried to get relatives of the missing to submit DNA to the U.S. government to help with identification.