Face-to-Face With Commies
"In Front Of Them All" at the DMZ

So on Saturday Joleen and I took a tour of the DMZ. It was a very nice tour. What exactly is the DMZ, you may be wondering? DMZ stands for the De-militarized Zone. After WWII, the Soviets and the US set the 38th parallel as the boundary for the speheres of control between the two countries (Soviets controlling the N and US the S). Technically Korea was still one country at this point, but it pretty much made what was to come inevitable. In 1950 North Korea invades South Korea and at one point had control of everything except the the southern tip (Busan). But with the help of US forces, they're pushed back to about their original position. In 1953 an Armistice was signed and the DMZ was formed. The whole thing is pretty sad because during the Korean War many families were separated from each other (either due to the military or fleeing N Korea/areas of fighting). After the DMZ was formed no one was able to cross it...so some families were split up between North and South Korea. I highly recommend reading the book Still-Life With Rice by Helie Lee. It's really good. It's about a Korean woman's life in Korea during the Japanese occupation and the Korean War (it's kind of a memoir/biography but written like a novel...it's actually written by her granddaughter who's Korean-American). It's amazing to read what Koreans had to go through during this time.

The town of Panmunjon is located on the DMZ and some people still live here (actually their village is called Taesung-dong, or Freedom Village). They get quite a few benefits from this (lots of free farmland, no taxes, military service exemption) but also have to live by some strict rules (have to be back in town by sunset and in their houses locked up by midnight or 11 or something). The JSA (Joint Security Area) was set up on the DMZ in Panmunjon. "Temporary" buildings were built here for peace talks, etc...but the buildings are still up and used, so not so temporary, eh? The DMZ is neutral territory, but there's South and North Korean sides. There are buildings built on this line, so half the building is on the South Korean side and half is on the North Korean side. On my tour I got to go in this building and Joleen and I milled about on the North Korean side for a while. We debated whether or not that meant we've been to North Korea, but decided that it didn't.

Ok, so now on to our actual experience. We boarded the bus at the USO office in Seoul at 7:30am. Our first stop was at Camp Bonifas (which really isn't too far from Seoul). Here we were briefed by a US soldier stationed here on the DMZ. We then headed to the DMZ/JSA. This is where we got to enter the half NoKo half SoKo building. I have included some pictures. First is me standing on the North Korean side of the building. The soldier you see is an ROK soldier (Republic of Korea/S Korean...North Korea's offical name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...yeah, really fitting). Notice he stands at a taekwando-ready position (in order for ROK soldiers to be stationed at the DMZ they need to have a blackbelt in both taekwando and judo). This is how it works: both sides give tours (but many more from the S Korean side). There is a door at both ends of the building. When people from the SoKo side are in the building the door to the N Korean side is shut and locked from the inside. There are South Korean soldiers inside for protection, or whatever. When people from the NoKo side are in the building the door to the SoKo side is shut and locked and North Korean soldiers are inside. They also guard the door to the SoKo side. However, I think their main role is to prevent people from defecting to South Korea...not for protection.

This other picture has a few things of note in it. The blue building on the right that has people filing into it is the building I went in. The 3 soldiers you see in front are ROK soldiers. Notice the guy on the left who looks like he's been naughty because he's facing a wall? Well, he stands like this to observe the NoKo side, but has half his body shielded by the wall so he's less of a target. There's another guy like him at the building to the right of the center one that you can't see in the picture. When NoKo soldiers are posted at the building they assume different positions--again, their job is more to stop people from defecting than for protection (although for both reasons, probably). In 1984, a Russian on the NoKo tour of the DMZ ran across to the SoKo side. NoKo soldiers followed him with guns blazing and 1 ROK and 1 US soldier were killed. The SoKos fired back, killing 3 NoKos. The Russian successfully defected. The concrete building you see in back is a North Korean building. I don't know exactly what it's for, but there's a SoKo building like it (but much prettier) opposite it that we came out of. Funny story: The top tier of the NoKo building was added on to make it taller than the SoKo building. But then the SoKos built a new building; the only requirement? That it be taller than the NoKo building. :D Notice the 2 little guys on the stairs of that building? They are North Korean soldiers watching us. Also, if you zoom in to that area, you can see a guy in the window next to them. He's looking at us through binoculars. We were told not to make gestures at them that could be construed as anything hostile, such as throat slashing motions. There went my plans. :D

We then went to an observation point/check point where you had nice views of North Korea (although it was a bit hazy that morning). On the way there we passed by the Bridge of No Return (see pic). This is where all POWs were repatriated after that Korean War. It was used for POW exchanges at the end of the Korean War. The name originates from the fact that prisoners were given the choice to remain in the country of their captivity or cross over to the other country. But if they chose to cross the bridge, they would never be allowed to return. At the observation point we were surrounded on 3 sides by North Korea. The picture here is of a North Korean village called Kijong-dong, but usually referred to as "Propaganda Village." This is because there's constant loudspeakers blaring across to SoKo propaganda about how great NoKo is and telling SoKo people to defect to NoKo (yeah, right). There's also billboards and signs all over with propaganda messages on them. Interestingly, no one lives in this village. Some people even think that the windows on the buildings are just painted on. Notice the huge flagpole/flag? Funny story. So, both Taesong-dong (Freedom Village in SoKo) and Kijong-dong (Propaganda Village in NoKo) had their respective flags flying on flagpoles. After the Olympics were held in Seoul, the Olympic committe gave the official Olympic flagpole to SoKo. SoKo donated it to Taesong-dong. It's about 100 meters high. The North Koreans didn't want to be outdone, so they got their own new flagpole...160 meters high. And get this: the actual flag on it is 30 meters long and weighs 600 pounds!!!! Holy crap that's a huge flag! Needless to say, that's a competition the NoKos won. The flag in the pic is un-billowed as 1) it wasn't very windy that day, and 2) you need a massive gust to completely unfurl it anyway.

Back in 1976 an event now known as the Axe Murder Incident ocurred. There was a tree (on the SoKo side) that blocked the view from one SoKo outpost. SoKo and US soldiers went to trim the branches (which apparently is routine work in the JSA). A bunch of NoKo soldiers showed up and ended up brutally killing 2 US soldiers with axes. After this Operation Paul Bunyan was put in place; with massive security the tree was chopped down. I think it ended up costing like $30 million to cut down that damn tree.

After this we went to the "3rd Tunnel." In the 70s the SoKos discovered some tunnels that the NoKos had dug from NoKo into SoKo. They've found 4 tunnels so far, but suspect at least 10 more. The 3rd tunnel was big enough for 30,000 armed soldiers with heavy guns and equipment to pass through in an hour. At the time it was discovered it really freaked the SoKos out, especially since it ended not too far from Seoul (44 km). So we got to go in this tunnel. Pictures weren't allowed, but Joleen snuck one anyway. So here's our illegal picture. That was about it. All in all it was a very interesting experience.