Day 7: The DMZ
By Randall Smith | November 10, 2007 | Korea
Friday
Today, we got up early to travel an hour by bus to the demilitarized zone. Once there, I thought it was the biggest, military-protected natural habitat in the world. Where else could you go in Korea to see wild boar, pheasant, deer and perhaps a tiger? There are many stories of brutality and espionage in this eerie place. But today it's also a tourist mecca, drawing thousands of visitors each year on military-escorted tours. While there today, I waved at some tourists, who must have been Russians, on the North Korean side. They waved back. What you have is two essential settings. The first is a set of buildings used for meetings that are on both sides and sit tightly on the line. The second is simply wide swaths of forest and wildlife. Scattered outposts dot the ridge. On our tour, we heard many stories of the past. My favorite was about the tunnels that were dug by the North Koreans to filter in espionage agents. When they were caught, they claimed that they were digging a coal mine. They even sprinkled coal dust throughout the mine -- even though there's not coal in the area. At the moment, there are 50 U.S. soldiers in the DMZ and 700 from South Korea. If anything should happen, a large force would be brought up from Seoul and reinforced by soldiers who are stationed in Japan.
By contrast, North Korea has 700,000 soldiers near the border or about 70 percent of its entire military force. And they're set up to lob rocket rounds into Seoul within minutes. But you also have to remember that we control the air and the sea around Korea with high tech weapons, meaning it would be a totally different kind of war than in the 1950s. A myth is that the DMZ is on the 38th Parallel. It is not and is in fact many miles to the south of it. While here, I walked into a conference room used by North Koreans, South Koreans and Americans for talks. There are many interesting stories here.
First, you can stand in both countries because the conference room straddles the DMZ line. Second, the door out of the conference room to the North Korean side is tricky. When securing the door, soldiers must work in pairs because North Korean soldiers have been known to open it quickly and try to pull South Korean soldiers into North Korea. Third, the American and South Korean flags, according to our tour guide, have been desecrated by North Korean soldiers who have been in the room.
So now they're behind a special glass case to make it harder. And, finally, the conference table has foot prints on it, believed to be placed there by North Korean soldiers who walk on the table for fun. When you look over the DMZ into North Korea, one of the first sights that you'll notice is a fake village that was set up to entice South Koreans to defect. Regularly, the North Koreans play music from loudspeakers there. And, with the help of 50 soldiers, they hoist a four-story, 600 pound flag that's visible from anywhere on our side. For kicks, Soldier of Fortune magazine offered anyone $1 million if they could steal the flag and find a way to bring it to the American command at the DMZ. Nobody has taken them up on it.
There are other places to see: The now-closed \"bridge of no return\" where the sailors from the Pueblo crossed back into U.S. custody. There's also the briefing center, which contains a theater where you can look at a topographical map of the area. In other spots, you see bridges that can be blown out in case of an invasion and deep holes to stop tanks. The U.S. is slowly drawing down its forces in Korea. Deployment has gone from 37,500 soldiers in 2003 to 28,000 as of today. The goal is to be at 25,000 by 2008. Furthermore, the military is also moving its barracks in Seoul to a site about 70 kilometers to the south. Military commanders told us that they'd like to see their former barracks, built first during the Japanese occupation, be dedicated as a city park.
Many are hoping that the same thing will soon happen to the DMZ.
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