The Forgotten Soldiers of The DMZ Conflict, by Scipio

While the war in Vietnam was raging another war was simmering on the DMZ in Korea.  One military historian, Major Daniel P. Bolger in “Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966-1969”, called it the “Second Korean Conflict”. Other military historians have called it “The DMZ Conflict”. The dates given for this time period is from Oct 5, 1966 to Dec 3, 1969.

For me it started November 2, 1966 when (NKPA) communist soldiers slipped across the (MDL) Military Demarcation Line in the middle of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) into the American south sector, and ambushed a routine US patrol killing six of the seven patrol members. The lone survivor was awarded the Silver Star for his heroics in driving back the attackers and trying to save his buddies. That was my first day on the DMZ with the Second Infantry Division.  Situated behind us were elements of the Seventh Infantry Division and support units at Camp Howze, Camp Red Cloud, Camp Hovey, and Camp Casey. We were on the tip of the DMZ spear.

Guarding the DMZ (the Z) was made more complicated because poor Korean peasants living nearby would sneak up behind us at night collecting our spent brass to fabricate items such as ashtrays to sell.  They risked their lives for this spent brass, that is how poor they were. When we caught them, we didn’t know if they were NKPA (North Korean People’s Army) infiltrators or just locals.  We had KATUSAs (Koreans Augmented To the US Army) who were native Koreans imbedded in every company who translated for us.  If we thought those we captured were commies, we turned them over to S-2 for interrogation.  If not, we turned them over to the KNP (Korean National Police) who first kicked and beat the shit out of them before asking any questions.  I hate to say it but I wanted dearly to kick the shit them also for coming up behind us and scaring us to death.

I spent most of my operational missions actually positioned in fortified fox holes, OPs, and bunkers.  Each company had a (QRF) Quick Reactionary Force to quickly respond to any incident.  The DMZ fence you see in pictures today, was not there when I was, but it was under construction at the time.  Instead, we walked what was called the “South Tape” which was made of old white strips of fabric strung out drooping along the way sometimes attached to a concrete marker that had been surveyed thirteen years before.

Patrols did actually go into the Z right up to the MDL, a thousand meters if I remember correctly. But they were restricted to the number people and type of weapons allowed in the Z, no auto fire for example. This was really scary territory knowing the NKPA were just meters away and nothing between you and them.  Fortunately, I never went into this area even though I still have an arm band we were supposed to wear if we did.  The arm band said in English and Korean, “US Army MP”. Technically we were “police” while in the Z, not soldiers. That’s where the term “police action” comes from.

It was pitch black dark and quiet at night on the Z.  Our company specialized in going out at night because we had ONE Starlight Scope.  Whoopee! In the winter, on the other hand, it was often difficult to hear. The sound of the wind blowing in our faces and the cracking of the ice in the frozen Imjin River to our front made it quite challenging to hear if the enemy was approaching.  The Imjin River, at our sector, split the DMZ and the (MDL) between North and South Korea and froze over during the winter.

It got extremely cold, sometimes subzero temps, and we had to wear specialized cold weather clothing and special insulated boots we called “Mickies”.  This equipment was much inferior to the ECWCS gear developed in later years. It was left over Korean War winter clothing. In addition, we had to wear cold weather masks to keep our faces from freezing. By looking into North Korea we had the frigid winds coming out of Manchuria and Siberia blowing over the ice in the river into our face. It was so cold your eyes would water blurring your vision.  A combination of watery eyes, ears covered to keep from getting frost bite, and cracking of the ice on the river had you hearing what I called “ghost infiltrators” coming toward you all night long one after another. The bundling up we had to do probably accounted for some of those “ghost” being real NKPA infiltrators slipping past us. I still have bad memories about that even today when I step out into a cold night with the wind suddenly blowing in my face.

Sometimes, I stood with my finger on the safety of my locked and loaded M-14 in one hand and a signal flare in the other thinking this time the sound in front of me was a real commie, not a “ghost”.  SOP (Standard Operation Procedure) was to set off a flare and start firing.  If we had a claymore you hit it first. However, if you set off a flare, you had pretty damn been sure it was for real because it set off a chain reaction of responses around you; radios erupting in chatter, sit reps (situation reports) in rapid fire, people moving around you in the dark, etc.

Heaven forbids if someone more frightened than you pulled off a round, then the whole brigade would be called to full alert with the “go to war” sirens going off in the compounds behind you.  This didn’t go over big when it was 2:00 AM and the boys to your rear in the barracks were trying to get some much-needed sleep.  It particularly was unpopular when there was a zero-degree wind chill. It was an almost sure Article 15 (company level mini courts martial) if it proved to be negligence on your part. So, you took the chance you would die rather than face the wrath of your CO or fellow soldiers when they found out it was you that set off the false alarm.  Unfortunately, there were many, “alerts” that were NOT false alarms.

North Korea used psyops against us relentlessly.  During the day they used balloons that drifted over and dropped propaganda leaflets. The wind was always at their backs, so it worked consistently to their advantage. The leaflets were written in Korean, and were part of Kim’s Il Jung’s (North Korean leader) propaganda campaign to get southern Koreans to defect or turn on the Americans.  One day one floated in our defensive area, and I picked it up and asked a KATUSA with us what it said.  He said, “It says, I kill you, I get $600.”  I made sure I knew where that guy was the rest of the day.

The NKPA did another thing to play with our minds.  They used huge speakers mounted on the back of big trucks like our deuce-and-halves (two and half ton trucks).  They were only about two clicks (2,000 meters) or so away so we could see them clearly during the day. The speakers were very loud, and they would play them mostly at night with either Korean music or Koreans spewing commie propaganda.  They were so loud that sometimes they would suddenly blare them out late at night to startle us.  Being that loud, they also used them to cover the noise of infiltrators.

One thing particularly galled me. They had an American deserter who had defected about a year earlier. Over the speakers we would hear this GI tell us how wonderful it was in the North Korean workers’ paradise and for us to leave the exploiting capitalist and desert.  He encouraged us to go home and overthrow our government. What really made me mad was the guy spoke with a Southern drawl.  But it wasn’t just any Southern draw, it was a North Carolina accent, my home state. His name was Sgt Jenkins. It infuriated me any American, especially from my home state, would be such an open traitor and deserter.

My DMZ experience happened thirteen years after the end of the Korean War. Many Korean families were separated during the fighting in the Korean War finding themselves separated between the North and South at the war’s end. They would consider almost anything to be reunited, even give aid and comfort to infiltrating commies up north. One village in particular, Munsan, was off limits to us GIs because there were so many commie sympathizers there.  We were not allowed to go to any village alone because there was a $650 bounty on our heads.  To put that in perspective, as a Sgt E-5 I was paid comparatively well, $250 a month; conversely, the average Korean made about $300 US dollars a year.

We were also never allowed to have civilian clothes because the US Army Command felt another North Korean invasion was imminent, so I never wore civilian clothes for thirteen months.  It wasn’t until I came home (bad experience at the airport in St Louis BTW), that I was able to ditch my OD’s for real clothes.

Most of the 180 miles of the DMZ was guarded by the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army.  We guarded an approximate 13-mile stretch that had been the route of invading forces dating back to the Chinese emperors.  It was called the “bowling alley”, because, except for the small Imjin and Han rivers in the way, it was a straight mostly unimpaired shot from Pyongyang to Seoul. We Americans were put there as a deterrent to North Korea so they would think twice before invading and bringing the US into the conflict.  It was the hottest sector on the DMZ.  The Second Infantry Division’s main mission was to keep North Korea out of Seoul for two hours so they could evacuate.  In other words, in case of another Korean War, we had two hours to live or become POW’s. That was not a reassuring mission to statement.

North Korea’s dictator, Kim Il Sung, grandpa of current “Rocket Man” believed South Korea was ripe to be overtaken because of the US being preoccupied in Vietnam.  He incorrectly thought there were many commie sympathizers in the south who would rise up in arms in support of the North if the ROK was attacked. For month’s he had sent infiltrators into the south to form commie cells and indoctrinate the locals.  It turns out some of those “ghost” soldiers I was hearing were real. Keep in mind, Korea was a third world country at the time, with little news from the outside world, not the successful modern nation it is today.

There were increased infiltration and outright attacks against us that increased steadily during my thirteen months there. That was the “Second Korean Conflict” or sometimes called “The DMZ Conflict” that never made the newspapers back home because the media and the nation were preoccupied with the far bigger conflict in Vietnam. That would change briefly starting January 21, 1968.

North Korea sent 31 highly trained special forces operatives to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-Hee in his presidential residence, called The Blue House on January 21^st 1968. They actually penetrated the outer perimeter before being driven back.  Of the 31 attackers, only two survived; one made it back to North Korea, the other surrendered.  Those not killed in the fighting at The Blue House were tracked down and when cornered committed suicide by putting a grenade to the side of their head and pulling the pin. I saw pictures of a lot of guys with big holes in the right side of their heads.

During this time fire fights were erupting all along the Z.  Our company medic, surfer from California, won a Bronze Star when the position he was assigned was attacked. Everyone except him was wounded in the fight. He rendered aid to the wounded and drove the attackers off.

At one-point soldiers of the 2 ID engaged approximately 75 NKPA in a half day battle south of the Z.  That was the largest excursion of commie solders across the Z since the Korean War. On another occasion, the ROK sent a company size force across the border in a raid into North Korea.  Just north of where I was stationed an hour-long artillery duel took place between ROK and NKPA forces.

Two days after the Blue House attack, on January 23, 1968, events escalated further when North Korea captured a US intelligence ship, the USS Pueblo, killing one seaman in the attack and detaining and torturing its eighty-plus-member crew for eleven months.

Then on April 15, 1969 a North Korean Mig-21 shot down an American reconnaissance plane killing all 31 crew members on board.

Suddenly, the DMZ was not “forgotten” by the brass at the Pentagon. They quickly redirected some of its forces from Vietnam to North Korea resulting in a stand down by the North Koreans. Rumor has it that Chuck Yeager led a large contingent of F4 Phantoms deep into North Korea daring them to shoot them down.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s a damn good story.

Now getting back to the way it was on the DMZ, because of our Rules of Engagement (ROE), we were not allowed to return fire if fired upon from across the DMZ. That would be a violation of the United Nation’s peace agreement signed by the US. North Korea and South Korea, however, were and still are technically at war. They didn’t sign the agreement; they just signed a cease fire. We were, however, forced to follow the rules of engagement outlined in the peace agreement and monitored by the United Nations in Panmunjom just north of us. The NKPA ignored it with impunity.

Sometimes the NKPA directed firefights against us were part of their asymmetric warfare. Other times it was to distract us from mass infiltration in another area.  Increasingly they came across the Z, set up an ambush, and fled back before we could block them and/or cut them off from their egress.  One time they penetrated into one of our compounds and blew up a barracks.  One of my AIT buddies was in that barrack when it happened, and he was blown out of his bunk, but he only suffered superficial injuries.   Another time the NKPA shot up nearby company’s mess hall during chow time wounding over a dozen.

They began planting mines on our service roads along the Z blowing up patrol jeeps and supply trucks.  Often these mine detonations would coincide with an ambush.  On August 10, 1967 the NKPA synchronized two simultaneous ambushes at two different locations that killed 3 GIs and wounded 16 others. A Bronze Star was given to the platoon leader in one of those ambushes for his organizing getting the wounded out of danger under fire.  That happened during a three-week period that saw nineteen armed attacks resulting in the death of five ROK troops in addition to the 3 Americans cited above. Later, a similar attack happened August 29^th when one GI was killed and five others were wounded.

It got so bad that before any vehicles went out, the EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) boys from Seoul were brought up and attached to us. They mine swept the roads north of the river every morning before traffic was allowed on the road. We had to pull security for them as they did their job.

About six years ago I bumped into one of my old Army buddies at Myrtle Beach, SC.  We had been together in the Army from Basic Training, through AIT (Advanced Individual Training), and on to the DMZ.  We were tight.  Besides, he was from my hometown but I did not know him until the service. Our talk immediately turned to our time on the DMZ.

A little background will help understand what’s next.  Over time (we arrived on the Z together the same day), he had become the motor pool sergeant and I had become the supply sergeant. When we had an alert, I was responsible for getting a very large NBCR container, that required six men to lift, on the back of a deuce-and-half and get it out to the field.

I had asked my motor pool friend if he would arrange for himself to be our driver during alerts because some of the other drivers apparently weren’t aware that hitting ruts on a dirt road at twenty-thirty miles an hour rattled your teeth.  My friend drove much better.

So, he asked me, “Did you know we had a tactical nuke in camp?” Startled, I said, “No!”  He said, “Remember the three times I didn’t come to pick you up on alert?” I said, “Yes”.  He said, “I couldn’t tell you, but those three times I was in charge of taking the nuke out with us.  I was assigned three deuce-and-halves and a tow truck to make sure it got into place.”

That is how serious it got on the Z.  Even though I had a secret security clearance, my best friend couldn’t reveal to me what he was doing. Had it not been for this chance meeting in Myrtle Beach, I would have never known about it, and I was there.

General Bonesteel, commander of American forces in Korea, came up with a plan to deter NKPA aggression.  It was a layered defense system comprised of building a fence, the placement of electronic sensors, creating “footprint” strips of raked sand, laying mine fields, concentrating platoon size defensive positions with platoon size QRFs, and spraying a defoliate called Agent Orange.  Yes, the same Agent Orange later used in Vietnam.

They experimented with us first and it worked so well they took it to Vietnam big time.  I never questioned why nothing was growing in front of us because things were just starting to grow back after the devastation of the Korean War.  We used to joke that if Korea had a motto like our US Forrest Service, “Protect our Forrest”, Korea’s would have been, “Protect our Tree”. I never gave it a second thought, too many other things to think about.

Our own government exposed us to Agent Orange on the DMZ in the 1960’s but did not notify us DMZ Vets after its use in Vietnam was revealed. We had to find out about it on our own. I didn’t find out about it until 2019. Nor would they allow us to file VA compensation claims until the year 2020. Meanwhile, Vietnam Vets got compensation for decades while the government denied DMZ Vets. Once again, we were forgotten and swept under the rug for thirty more years.  It is the cause my medical issues, and I am, unfortunately, a lifetime member of the Agent Orange Health Club.

According to official records, about forty of our guys were killed as a result of hostile action during my tour of duty.  However, I can document eighty two. I personally only knew one. In October 1967 I was “short” and scheduled to return to the “World” in December.  On the first day of October, SSGT Arcemont, from A Company, put his head in our hootch and asked if we knew where the leather gloves and tools for stringing concertina wire were. He had been told we might have them.  We told him maybe C Company had them. So off he went up the hill toward C Company. I had met Arcemont on a couple of occasions when B Company was working with A Company, and he was familiar with most of us in our hootch.  Six days later, he was dead, victim of gun fire from our friends across the river in North Korea.

It could have turned out differently for me.  There are far worse things that can happen to you in the Army than being “forgotten”.  Around October 30th, 1966, four months after being drafted, we left AIT with orders for Vietnam. While processing through Ft Lewis, WA, our orders were changed to Korea. Despite my experiences on the Z, I was “lucky” I didn’t go to Vietnam.

Two of my three best friends in high school went to Vietnam. Bob was in the 101^st Airborne and Bill were in the 2^nd Marines. Both had earned Bronze Stars and received Purple Hearts. They told me horrible stories of things they went through.  My near skirmishes on the DMZ paled in comparison.  However, PTSD did to them what Vietnam couldn’t, it killed them.  Fifteen years ago, Bob shot himself, and twelve years ago Bill hung himself. (Not their real names)

Those of us who served on the Z during this period have been “forgotten”.  Our campaign ribbon is nonexistent. However, to put it in perspective, there is a tomb in Arlington, VA representing a myriad of “unknown” soldiers. Wars have a way of making many soldiers “unknown” and “forgotten”.  Thank God there are those who served, forgotten or not.