The Most Militarized De-Militarized Zone In the World

I have a story to unravel for you folks. It involves intrigue, romance, danger, and war. I went to the DMZ: The Demilitarized Zone...of Korea. On the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

For those who don't know, the Demilitarized Zone is the 4KM wide de-facto border between North and South Korea. Within the DMZ are special zones, but other than that nobody is allowed within this defined area. As such, this untouched land has become a nature preserve, housing many endangered species of deer and bird. Apparently there are even tigers in it, which cannot be found anywhere else on the peninsula. Indeed, they even have DMZ spring water because of its reputation as pure nature.

With my trip, I only got a cursory glimpse of the nature part, but it was actually fairly beautiful in its purity and a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Seoul. Unfortunately, this foray into nature was short. What I'm here to talk to you about is the Joint Security Area and Panmunjom.

We awoke early Saturday morning and were at the USO Office at Camp Kim before 7 AM for our 7:30 departure. The weather looked like it might turn for the worse at any moment, but we headed North past the civilian zone anyway. Once you cross the river North of Seoul, everything changes. Nothing but military check points up to Camp Bonifas, named after Captain Bonifas who was brutally axed to death by North Korean soldiers during the "Axe Murder Incident of 1976," which I will get into later.

Once in Camp Bonifas we met our tour guide, an enlisted U.S. soldier at the camp, who would "debrief" us and give us our waivers to sign in case we got shot or whatever. From that point we watched a fairly uninspiring video on the history of the DMZ and the Korean War and we made our way to the Joint Security Area. The motto here and at Camp Bonifas is "In Front Of Them All." I finally understood what this meant when we got to the JSA. ROK Soldiers stand at a ready taekwondo pose literally facing the enemy every single day.

The gray building beyond is crawling with North Koreans. Notice the group on the top left balcony...

As we chose the 61st anniversary of the start of the Korean War to visit, we were rewarded by seeing a North Korean DMZ tour on the other side of the border. This, apparently, is not common. The blue building on the left is where the tour goes and certain inter-Korean talks are held.

See?

Inside, we were able to step into North Korea beyond this cement plank.
I have been to North Korea...but not really. I literally stepped about three feet into North Korea inside a secured building that was built by South Korea. Pretty lame, I know.

From there we went to a lookout where we got a solid glimpse of Kijong-dong, the North Korean "Propaganda Village" and home to the second tallest flagpole in the world.
The story of Propaganda Village is a rather involving one, but I'm here and you're here so let's get it over with. Part of the agreement (with God or whatever) is that each side could have one village in the DMZ. South Korea built Daesong-dong, a farm collective of 50 odd families with odd perks and restrictions. They are exempt from military service, pay no taxes, and the government will purchase 100% of their crop yield, thus earning them a salary of around $100K a year. The restrictions are that they have to spend 240 nights a year in the village, 11PM curfew, and men cannot marry into it.

North Korea, instead of investing in a farming village, decided to build a gigantic movie set. Kijong-dong is virtually uninhabited, yet someone turns on and off lights to make it seem inhabited. Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the windows of buildings don't have glass and that most buildings don't even have interior rooms. Then there's the issue of the flagpole. Well, that's just a manhood issue between North and South and the South finally gave up. But the flagpole in Daesong-dong is pretty big too.

We next passed by the Bridge of No Return, named as such because after the Korean War, POWs were exchanged across this bridge with options: they got to choose North or South, but once they chose there was no going back... ...as well as the monument replacing the poplar tree from the Axe Murder Incident of 1976. The story behind that particular incident goes like this: South Korea had a lookout post next to the Bridge of No Return which was surrounded by North Korean lookout posts and blocked from South Korean view by a poplar tree.

Here's a visual aid for you folks of the lookout post in question. Keep in mind that North Korea surrounds this outpost on three sides. The Bridge of No Return is directly to the right of the blue outpost and the poplar tree would be blocking the view of the building if it were still standing.

So one day a dozen or so U.S. and ROK soldiers went over to cut it down (not carrying weapons [besides axes to cut down the tree] per the rules at the time). They were met by about 15 North Korean soldiers monitoring them. About 15 minutes into it, the North Koreans ordered them to stop the tree trimming and attacked, killing Bonifas with an axe and injuring others before escaping. North Korea's reasoning was that "Kim Il-Sung planted the tree personally and nourished it and it was growing under his supervision." The tree was at least 10 years older than Kim Il-Sung.

Then we hauled it over to the Third Tunnel. More North Korean craziness there. Do you see a trend? So, four man made tunnels have been discovered under the DMZ originating from the North. It is believed that there are more undiscovered ones. The idea is that North Korea would construct a series of tunnels leading to Seoul that would effectively transport troops and artillery underground in the case of an invasion. This particular tunnel could transport 30,000 troops per hour if completed. It was discovered prematurely, however, and the tunnel ends several kilometers shy of Seoul. When North Korea realized the South was aware of what they were doing, they covered the walls in black. "Why did they do that, Steve?" Well, their subsequent explanation for the tunnel was that it was a coal mine. Yeah, pretty lame considering it's in limestone rock with no coal anywhere in the area. Anyway, the tunnel was...a tunnel. It was surprisingly deep though, at about 400 meters underground (for those dastardly Americans, that's about a quarter of a mile).

Here is also where the gift shop was, so I purchased a rare treat (and probably the only interesting, unique thing in there):

"Chiggity check yo-self."

North Korean beer. It was actually better than South Korean beer because apparently Kim Jong-il imported, brick by brick, a brewery from England to create his own beer.

Our final stop was Dorasan Station. This train station was built in the hopes of reunification. It's an unused train station with two significant points of interest: first, it is the northern most train station in South Korea and second, it has tracks going to Pyeongyang. If this reunification were ever to be realized, this train station would be one of a long, long line of train stations running from Busan, Korea to Lisbon, Portugal. Yes, it would be the longest train line in the world. North Korea is literally standing in the way of that...

"None shall pass!"

The DMZ tour offered through the USO is definitely a worthwhile experience for those visiting Korea or living here. Even to those living here, it is a bizarre look into the sensitive relationship between the North and South.