Pass the Kimchi

The Koreas are in the news of late.

The indefinite fermata of cease-fire that formed a truce between the nations has left them at war for decades, as the North is wont to remind the world, when it feels it can gain some measure of aid or other support as placating acts from more diplomatic countries.

I remember Thanksgiving north of Seoul.  My year in Korea as a soldier-linguist was a turbulent one.

Though those of us who spoke Korean and spent our time eavesdropping on the North thought of ourselves merely as linguists (linguists plying our skills to gather intelligence on the bad guys), others were constantly labeling us as soldier-linguist and as electronic warfare operators. One of the peculiar quandaries about our view of ourselves as linguist rather than soldier-linguists was the realization that our battle plan, in the event of war on the peninsula, involved moving north toward the Imjin River and the 38th parallel.  All of the wargame exercises in which I was involved predicted all of my unit's assets neutralized within the first 48 hours.  That's watered-down, military-speak for saying we'd all be dead.

In South Korea (i.e., the Republic of Korea, or ROK), we U.S soldiers just assumed the news was always about troubles with North Korea (i.e., the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK – which is a benign name that sounds like much better spin-doctoring than the more descriptive Oppressed Nation of Fanatics Compelled to Worship Their Great Leader with Unwavering Diefication...making for one beast of an acronym: ONFCWTGLUD).

My twelve-month tour included lots of tension over the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which interwove nicely with the DPRK's protests over Team Spirit (a large, joint military exercise with U.S. forces and ROK forces).  Also, Kim Il Sung drew his last dictatorial breath, leaving his nebbish, quirky son (Kim Jong Il) as an alleged heir -- one it was very likely the staunch DPRK generals could not abide.

That suddenly made what I was doing more important:  trying to find out what was happening behind the kimchi curtain.

Even South Korean nationals cannot go north of the Imjin River, unless their families own land between the river's banks and the portion of the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula.  I've been there, though.  One moonless night I drove across Freedom Bridge in the dark, certain I wouldn't make it to see the next day. 

Freedom Bridge is at the northern terminus of Highway 1.  A special ROK military unit is stationed there to control access to the bridge, and, more importantly, to blow it to tiny bits if the North launches an invasion.  A great deal of the bridge, including the road deck, is constructed with railroad ties.  Old railroad ties. The bridge only allows for traffic moving in one direction.  And there are two elevated pathways of rail ties (like the reverse of tire ruts in a dirt road), forcing drivers to carefully steer as to avoid slipping a wheel to the lower level and veering toward the edge.  We crossed around midnight in black-out light. 

Black-out light basically means strict light discipline.  No headlights.  Instead, we have these tiny pin-lights on the grill of the HMMWV (humvee) grills, glowing under a small awning-like hood that directs the faint radiance downward.

I was supposed to have NVGs (night vision goggles) or NODs (night optical devices).  But, I didn't have any.  And I felt I was gonna lay a turd large enough that, if we fell off into the river and survived the fall, I could float to safety on my own -- ahem -- flotation device.  Of course, the steel truss framework of the bridge wouldn't have allowed my vehicle to find a hole and topple to the river below.  But, that was no real comfort.

This Thanksgiving, I’m content to watch the Korean drama unfold from around the globe.  I’m thankful to wake up in my home with my wife and daughters, our TiVo kind enough to play the Macy’s parade for us, and the promise of much food on the table.