Nov. 24-28
South Korea

We took a Korean Air flight to Incheon, arriving at about 3:30 p.m., and were picked up by David Otim. We are now 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Our accommodations are at the Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan in Seoul. It’s amazing how many people are crammed into the city – 23 million in greater Seoul – nearly half the country. They live vertically. I’ve never seen so many high rise dwellings.

The Korean-American Friendship Association is holding its year-end party and Thanksgiving celebration at 6 p.m., so we quickly change and head to the party. They honor 300 enlisted members of all branches with a free ticket to the dinner, which is also good for a door prize. Those attending have been selected by their NCOs to attend. The door prizes are worth over $50,000, and it is a real plus to those selected to attend. The second high prize is a round-trip air ticket to Germany, and first prize is a round-trip air ticket to the United States. Rita, Tony, Liz and I sit at the table with Gen. Sharp and his wife, Joeanne; Dr. Wang, President of the Association; Mark Tokola, Deputy Chief of Mission; and LGEN Fil, Gen. Sharp’s Deputy and Commander of the 8th Army. The food table was about 100 feet long. There were separate desert tables, and they had two acts for entertainment. It was a great night.

Wednesday began with a trip to the PAO office with Steve Tharp, Chief of Community Relations in the PAO office. He set the schedule up and escorted us for most of the visit. As a retired Army LCol who worked in the Armistice section on the DMZ and has been in Korea for some 30 years, being married to a local, he is extremely knowledgeable about all phases of our presence. He starts with a briefing titled “Past and Present,” which is brutal; whenever China or Japan wanted to attack the other, they generally did it through Korea. The most recent was the Japanese colonization of Korea from 1919 to 1945. Since 1945, South Korea has become the sixth largest military and the 13th largest economy.

Our next stop was at the embassy to meet first with Deputy Chief of Mission Mark Tokola. He started the conversation by asking why we were there. So we had a conversation about The American Legion. He then gives us a short brief on what he does, then turns us over to the country team, which provides a much more extensive brief on Korea in general. The briefers covered American citizen services, economic affairs, political military affairs, and the naval and army attachés. They answered all of our questions. I brought up the APO/FPO issue with retirees, and they were unfamiliar with the issue. I told them about our Legion letter to DoD and DOS asking that they reconsider the issue. They did express the opinion that while there may be an impact on pharmacy deliveries, they believe that most retirees are on direct deposit.

Our call on LGEN Fil got cancelled late as he was called into a meeting. We met instead with his second, MGEN Williamson. He gave us a brief on the proposed move to Camp Humphrey in 2012 and the need for The American Legion’s support. The camp will triple in size and most of those stationed at Yongsan will be moving. This is scheduled to happen in conjunction with the change in OPCON to the South Koreans. There is a lot that has to happen before the move, but they are well on their way.

It is interesting to note that at every meeting above, including the year-end party the first night, I mentioned the Samsung Scholarship program and no one was aware of it. Some at the embassy took notes, but I doubt anything more will come of it. Steve Tharp is also a Legionnaire, but there are no Posts in South Korea. There are seven VFW Posts, and Steve is a past three-time commander of the one in Seoul. He is real interested in getting a Legion presence, and says he has a starter kit. I told him I would see about getting him a sponsor.

Our final stop today was a visit to Camp Humphrey to see firsthand what is involved in the move. They have cleared a massive amount of land and brought in new dirt to cover it all. Very little construction has started, but it will soon. We went to what they call the super gym, and it is all of that. I’ve never seen so much in one building – three stories worth of exercise opportunities. The outdoor pool complex is also impressive and well-attended when the weather is right. If you don’t mind cold weather, this is a great place to be. Dinner was at the Red Dragon Dining Facility with about 20 troops. They represented most of the commands on the base and “volunteered” to eat with us. We did get a great group picture.

Thursday will be spent at the DMZ. It starts at Camp Boniface with a Joint Security Area briefing concerning the layout of the blue and gray buildings. Their motto is “In Front of Them All,” as that is where they serve. When we went to the area, we were the only visitors there as it is a holiday, tour closed day. Two North Korean soldiers come down, one with a video camera and one with a still camera and begin to film us. Coincidentally, I have on a red cap, Tony a white cap and Larry a blue cap. When we went inside the Military Armistice Building, the two North Korean soldiers who were on guard begin looking in the windows at us on both sides. We get some great pictures with them in the background, one of which is posted on Facebook. Everyone on the DMZ wearing an MP armband is armed, if wearing a yellow armband, are not armed and are there for enforcement of the Armistice. While we’re in the building, there is an ROK soldier standing near the door to the north side, which is locked. We also passed both sites where our troops were murdered by North Koreans.

Thanksgiving Day lunch will be at the Sanctuary Club which is the dining facility at JSA on Camp Boniface. This is one of the best spreads of food I have ever seen. I start on the serving line with LCOL Skip who runs the operation. He gets replaced by a South Korean LCOL, then we both get replaced by Rita. It was great to serve the troops, and then share the meal with them. This was why we scheduled South Korea when we did.

On the way to Tunnel 3, we go by the Bridge of No Return, but have to shoot it through the windows. There have been four tunnels found over the years from the north to the south, so there are probably more. The North, of course, accuses the South of having dug them, and the ground is mostly granite so they couldn’t have gone far in a day and had to use dynamite in the dig. There was a defector who first told the South of the existence of Tunnel 3, but it took three years more before they got to the South and were discovered. We take a train down, and it takes about 15 minutes to reach the cave. It’s a fairly long walk to the point in the tunnel where the South Koreans have placed three separate barriers to stop any usage. It’s a painful walk when you have to duck the entire distance. There are a lot of tourists visiting the tunnel, and it seems to be attracting a lot of students.

Our final stop was at Observation Post Dora. We are briefed by 1st Lt. Singh of the New Zealand Air Force. The weather had lifted enough that we could finally see the two villages with their monster flag poles inside the buffer zones of the DMZ. The one on the south side is called Freedom Village and has many rules for farming and curfews for who can live there. The one on the north side is called Propaganda Village, and virtually no one lives there, they used it to blare propaganda toward the south in an attempt to get people to come over. There is also a town in the north that has accepted South Korean industries. There is one road and one railway and 21 crossings a day-raw material to the north and finished products to the south. Over 40,000 North Koreans are employed here for labor. They make $65 per month with the government keeping all but $13 of it. But with the average monthly income at less than $3, they are still well off.
Friday morning is spent shopping, starting at the PX and moving to Itaewon out in town. We then go to the National Cemetery, “The Spirit of the Nation,” and Rita and I lay a wreath. This is a very formal ceremony – we put on white gloves and walk about 100 yards between members of each branch of the South Korean military. At the end of the walk, we take the wreath about five feet, then two South Koreans take it behind the burning incense pot and place the wreath. We then add three pinches of incense each to the pot, then bow our heads for what I take to be their version of Taps. After our return to the entrance, we sign a massive log indicating our presence.

An office call on the new Korean Veterans Association Chairman, Gen (Ret.) Park, Se Hwan. He asks us a lot of questions about how Rita and I got elected, as he was just elected in September. He also expresses the opinion that the change in OPCON should be delayed beyond 2012 as he doesn’t believe the country is ready for it yet. At the end of his comments, he presents a medal and certificate making me an honorary member of the KVA, and gives me their belt and buckle and ball cap.

Next up is a visit to the War Memorial of Korea, which covers all wars and you would need a lot more time than the hour and a half that we had. They only tour us in the June 25th War section, which covers the Korean Conflict in detail. They think a lot of MacArthur and the U.S. Military for our support against the North Koreans.

A traditional Korean restaurant, Ji-Hwa-Ja, located at the National Theater of Korea and hosted by the KVA Chairman, was the site of our last meal in South Korea. This was a multi-course meal as I indicated on Facebook. Some of the individual courses had multiple offerings. They also served red wine and Saju. I sat directly across from the Chairman, and he continually commented on my obvious delight eating Korean food – kept asking me if I liked Korean food. It’s food, so what’s not to like? When the meal ended, most of the KVA left as a reporter from the Korea Defense Daily, Jong-Won, Kim, started his interview. RADM (Ret.) Yoon, Jong Ku, Director General of International Affairs for the KVA, served as my interpreter. At first, he wanted to talk about North Korea and their nuclear weapons, then the OPCON shift in 2012. I told him I could not talk on those subjects, so we got to talking about The American Legion and our programs for veterans, especially H2H.