OinK! Only in Korea!
In 1980, years after Vietnam and even more years before Desert Storm, America was experiencing a seventeen-year period of peace. One of the few places a young army officer could find adventure was on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea, Freedom’s Frontier. The second day in-country, the lieutenant was no longer a Korean cherry boy. Hours later he found himself inside the DMZ. By the end of the week, he was wounded.
As the intelligence officer for the battalion, he knew the area around the DMZ was a dangerous place. The minefields took many casualties, small arms fire got others, and artillery short rounds claimed even more, leading up to the bizarre episode of a missing severed hand and the search for the diamond ring that was no longer on it. Even something as simple as crossing the Imjin River after the monsoons turned deadly. And then there was the most feared affliction of all, catching river blindness. It’s not a disease – it’s going down to the river and getting your eyes shot out.
The lieutenant’s daily routine was anything but routine. The averages told the story: a shooting incident every ten days with thirty-three combat related deaths during the year. The patrols were long and cold, the guard posts were desolate, and Freedom Bridge operations droned on until enemy frogmen shattered the monotony. Peace, in that part of the world, had a unique definition. As they say, the DMZ isn’t hell