Korea: DMZ

Two weekends ago, I took a trip to the DMZ. The tour was through the USO and consisted of stops to several key areas around the DMZ including Camp Boniface, the Joint Security Area, an observation area, the third tunnel, and Dorasan station. Lee and I checked in at the tour office in Camp Kim at 7 AM and were well on our way to Panmunjeom by 7:30. Despite the fact that I was sleep deprived, I was excited, nervous, and a little bit scared. With the sinking of the Cheonan, tensions between the North and South have been increasing, and I was about to go into what felt like to be the belly of the beast.

We arrived at Camp Boniface around 9 and were told we would be riding an army bus to a briefing about the JSA at Ballinger Hall. What was the first thing that really hit me? It was the first line of a thin sheet of gray paper that the US army military police asked us to read and sign. In summary, “You are entering a hostile territory and we are not liable for injury or even possible death.” If those words don’t make a person think twice, I don’t know what words would. One of the MPs then gave a very educational albeit a bit tense presentation on the history of the DMZ. The history didn’t do anything except further emphasize just how tense the situation was between the North and the South Koreans.

After the briefing, we took a short bus ride to the JSA itself. If you look at the pictures below, you can clearly see just how little the distance is that separates the soldiers from both countries. We entered the T2 MAC building (one of the most interesting places I have ever had the chance to stand inside) where we had the opportunity to actually stand in North Korea. The table where many meetings between the North and South have been held had microphones that were symbolic divisions of the military demarcation line. On one side of the table, you were in the south and on the other the North. Of course there were soldiers patrolling and watching everywhere. I don’t think I can truly do the scene justice in words so the pictures are below. On the way back to our regular tour bus, we passed the North Korean propaganda village, the freedom village, as well as the bridge of no return.

The next stop after the JSA was the third tunnel. A North Korean engineer defected and gave information of tunnels that the North Koreans were digging towards Seoul. The North Koreans painted the walls with black paint and tried to cover the walls with layers of coal to claim that it was actually the South Koreans who had dug the tunnel. We were able to walk down into the tunnel itself and see the blockades. The walk down was not for the faint of heart seeing as how you were going 25 stories underground and was a bit steep. I have to say though that the walk back up was probably the best exercise anyone could get in one day. I’ve never seen so many sweaty, tired people.

We went to an observatory just before lunch where we could see the North Korean propaganda village through binoculars. The last stop of the tour was to Dorasan station. It was a station that the South Koreans had built to connect to Pyeongyang. One of the tour guides said that they had done tours using the train up until 2008 when a South Korean woman who walked away from her tour group was shot by a North Korean soldier.

It was an experience that made me feel reverence and awe. Someone asked the tour guide if any South Koreans were ever able to go to the JSA. The woman told us that a native South Korean would only be able to go on a tour of the JSA after 6 months of intensive background checks to ensure no familial ties to any North Koreans and no grievances from the Korean war. This made the experience even more special for me. I realized then that I was truly lucky for getting to have such an amazing experience.

The Bridge of No Return where South Korea and North Korea returned prisoners of war after the Korean war and gave them a choice. Once they chose their country, they were unable to return.