High Ground - Boundary Solutions



Scenes from an Unremembered Victory

Six Days that Kept the World from Going in the Crapper

Dennis H. Klein

240 Miller Ave. Mill Valley, CA 94941

415 381 1750

CSUM PRESS©FEBRUARY 2010

Most who lived through ‘68 think of it as just one lousy year. A partial roll call includes the Viet Nam Tet and Me Ley horror and humiliation, racial unrest in the cities, Bobby and Martin assassination, DC burning, Chicago Convention chaos, Mexican Olympics’ student massacre, Paris 3rd Communard, the Sartre resurrection, and Prague Spring shattered by Russian invasion. And in the midst of all this worse of all possible years is a feel good story about 12,500 GIs standing in the way of 400,000 combat ready Korean People's Army (KPA) combatants bent on invading Seoul Korea. Not to worry. This tale has a nuclear option, with the top secret op orders known to most GIs being carpet bombing our own forces upon being overrun. At the same time that Nam tips forever into the abyss, 3,000 miles to the north, the US Army fights its way to an unremembered victory. ‘Unremembered’ because something has to be known before it can be forgotten. ‘Victory’, because America unconditionally won a lethal game of Cold War chicken -- the enemy blinked first, giving up any notion of invading South Korea. Forever. ‘Scenes’ because the author was there. This is a We Are All in this Together story too big to drop out of history for lack of recollection.

This story starts suddenly with a North Korean commando raid to kill South Korea’s president and the US Ambassador on January 21, 1968. The USS Pueblo, a spy ship, is seized the next day as part of a Russian coordinated second front to the Tet Offensive. Within two days, over 100 combatants on both sides are dead; 82 Pueblo sailors are prisoners of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK); and daily firefights commence along the DMZ as a run-up to an impending invasion. By the time the body counts are in, the Tet Offensive knocks this story off the front page. When Tet goes disaster, it’s knocked out of the news for good. According to one one-one-one comment by a AP News Reporter while touring the DMZ, "We file reports dialy but nothing goes on the Wire due to the American people being too demoralized by Tet to handle a second front. It is conveniently swept under a news blackout. One upside, if the Russian people knew about this second front through the American media, their moral might have been bolstered enough to make the Cold War go all the way to 1994. Who Knows?

Most Boomers know the Pueblo was seized by the North Koreans, that the crew failed to return fire when strafed and bombarded, to destroy all their intelligence materials and/or to scuttle the ship before being captured. Some remember that the captain and the crew stood up well to the rigors of a brutal captivity. A few remember the crew being returned at the end of the year. Nobody but those who were there, and their families and a few Army College historians know there was a ground war fought most of ’68 along the Korean DMZ and seacoast. Just about no American born after 1970 has a clue that any of this ever happened. No mention in the text books, skipped over by Hollywood, fallen through the cracks of history. At least the War College has given it a name. First it is called the DMZ War, later upgraded to the 2nd Korean War as more evidence of its Peninsula wide nature were unearthed.

So why tell it now? Perhaps this little story can set the bigger Nam story straight. Perhaps this story is proof that the measure is not the quality of a generation but the fights they are asked to win. The 2nd Korean War is not a small engagement. It could have gone global, plunging the world into a nuclear holocaust if the line had not held. But it did not wiggle due to a very few who leaned into this fight that had to be fought. The whole world was watching their parents in the ‘40s. The men and women of the 2nd Infantry Division won the 2nd Korean War with no one watching at all.

Day 1: January 22

The 2nd Korean War starts poorly. Thirty one enemy commandoes slip undetected through our lines and nearly assassinate the Korean president, a navel ship is seized without a fight, company commanders along the line when ordered to move out to designated positions to get ready for a pending invasion complain bitterly, requesting that the Cornel be told that they were not doing jack!, far better to die warm and comfortable than bivouacked out in the cold. And when they deploy to the field, their trucks won’t start and their ammunition is too old to shoot. How is this possible? Answer please.

So little had happened in the 15 years since the end of the (1st) Korean War that a favorite expression of among the 55,000 soldiers in 8th Army was,

“I’ve done so little for so long, I better not be told to do anything ever again.”

This attitude makes it possible for the 31 KPA Commandos, in full combat gear, in the dead of Korean winter, to cut a hole in the highly guarded anti-infiltration fence (across the entire length of the DMZ), make their way to Seoul undetected until spotted within 200 yards of the Blue House, Korea’s presidential mansion. Once detected, instead of running away, they try to fight their way into the Blue House. Only when a solid cordon of tanks bars their way do these ultra fighters decide it’s not their night and hightail it north. Even on the run, they set up ambushes and kill their pursuers at a rate of more than two to one. After two days of fighting, 29 commandos are dead, one captured and one made it home, at the cost of 68 Republic of Korea (ROK) soldiers, 3 GIs, and over two dozen Korean noncombatants.

Where they came though our lines is easily discovered. Ten feet high topped with concertina wire, the fence is chain link. Cut a hole in it and it is near impossible to hide the cut. Scuttlebutt is that questioning the GIs on duty that night went something like…,

“Did you see them come through the fence?”

“Yes”

“Why didn’t you shoot?”

“There were so many of them, we were scared we would get killed”

“So why didn’t you tell someone what happened?

“We didn’t want to get in trouble.”

These were not bad people, just bad soldiers, swept up in the cool of “What does this have to do with me”.

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Anti Infiltration Fence, 2nd Infantry Division that t he Commandos’ Cut Through

Day 2: January 23

Why isn’t the Pueblo notified of the commando raid the day before it is surrounded by a dozen enemy ships and two MIG fighter jets. Instead, they were attacked without warning. The Pueblo is way far from shore, spying not on North Korea but Russia. The same lollygag behavior endemic throughout 8th Army is true here too. For starters, this 1944 era frigate should have never put to sea, just recently ragtag refitted to be a spy ship on Soviet communications and ship movements. It starts its maiden voyage just two weeks before its demise. The Pueblo did resist capture. After they were fired on the first time, they acted like they were going along with being escorted to North Korea, buying time to destroy documents and equipment. But when its skipper, Commander Lloyd Mark Bucher, took evasive action to keep the KPA from boarding, the Pueblo deck is swept with lethal fire, wounding three. With one crewman dying, Captain Bucher lets them board. The only armament is a single mounted 50 caliber machine gun. As can be clearly seen in North Korean propaganda photos, it is completely exposed with no protection. Though mounted 50s have surprisingly high fire power, with multiple North Korean war ships less than 40 yards off their bow, whoever manned the gun would have lasted but a matter of seconds.

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Day 3: January 24

On the ground, this “what does the invasion have to do with me?” For the past year, high entertainment in the ranks is the latest friendly-fire death story, a new one near monthly. They range from casual fatal death by trucks falling off repair racks to death by twisting-handle-off-ancient-Chinese-grenade-held-between-legs-while-platoon members-gather-around-to-see-how-it-turns-out. Along the DMZ, most would be quite committed to business as usual, no matter how high the casualty rate got.

This mood is about to be shattered with a ferocity perhaps not seen since George Washington took over the Continental Army. So where did this change come from? Not from the bottom as a self-imposed awakened call-to-duty. Not from the top. The 8th Army Commander, four star General Charles H. Bonesteel III, though later rated by the Army War College as a decent strategist, his first impulse is to use nukes to get back the Pueblo. After a day or two, he decides to stand pat on the security apparatus put in place for the last 15 years and see if it works. However, just hoping the line holds against intensified enemy activity with the existing troops does not make it so. Unless there is enough leadership to transform 2nd Division moral from sludge into a song, then “Joe just might jump” (invade Seoul), sweeping right over their lollygagging. Bonesteel was hardly a leader of men great enough for this occasion. But Bonesteel was something better. He was lucky. The name of his luck is Major General Charles M. Izenour, 2nd Infantry Division Commander, particularly lucky since up until the Blue House Raid, Izenour is hardly a likely candidate to keep Korea from becoming at first an embarrassment, and then a trigger setting off a global thermo nuclear exchange.

Izenour arrived six months prior to the Pueblo incident to relieve his predecessor, another victim of creeping complacency, Major General George Pickett, (yes, the great great grandson of the Pickett’s Charge Pickett). He might have muddled through if only his Atomic Demolitions Munitions platoon (hand held tactical nukes) flunked their inspection, grounds for automatic dismissal. But when the Joint Chiefs of Staff learned for the first time that six of seven GIs on patrol in the DMZ are slaughtered by the KPA first in the Washington Post rather than by official military communiqué, Pickett loses this charge too.

For the first six months after Izenour’s arrival, he is invisible to all less than field grade officers. No one sees or hears anything about him. Word is he rarely leaves 2nd Division HQ. His one project is getting the honor guard parade right. First the parade, then the Division. This is going to take awhile. The banter among honor guard members overheard regularly on the Saturday morning bus to Seoul goes something like …

“We’s GOT to hold ON!!! NeVAH’ give IN!

“Yhasss, tha’s right! NeVAH give an inch. It’s our parade and always will be!

“And this crackah comes into OUR HOUSE and tells us how to do OUR parade?

“Yell and scream all he wants. The Crackah gets nothin’.

“We’s got to hold on to whas’ right!

“Yeah Yeah! Are we togeTHA? Hell yes! Hold on fo’eVAH. Hell with that …”etc.

As weeks grew to months, this invisible commander proves to be most perfect for maintaining the do nothing status quo, and then...

Kaboom!

Through the fence go the 31 enemy commandoes. Down to 8th Army goes Major General Izenour to be torn a new orifice for letting the Blue House Raid happen. Humiliated, Izenour has his helicopter pilot whisk him over the rooftops of Seoul, straight up to the DMZ where he does not fly very long along the anti-infiltration fence before he sees what he knows he is going to see - - two GIs asleep in a warm up bunker with their rifles propped on top of sand bags with helmets propped up on top of their rifles.

Does he wake up the soldiers? Does he call in their company commander? Does he call in the battalion commander? Based on an eye witness accounts, the word the next day was that Izenour patiently waits about a hundred feet from the sleeping men. A jeep arrives with a full Bird colonel on board, the Brigade commander of three infantry battalions deployed along the DMZ. The Bird gets out of his jeep. The two star is violently yelling at the Bird. The Bird is awkwardly holding a salute that is not returned. Every minute or so, the two star points to the sleeping GIs. The Bird reluctantly drops his salute rather than continue to look foolish. The general now violently points his finger at the Bird. The Bird says something to the General. The General says something to the Bird. The Bird gets in his jeep and drives briskly away. Legend has it the last words spoken were…

Bird: “But sir, if I am relieved, what am I suppose to do next?”

General: “I’ll tell you what you are not going to do next.

You are not sleeping in Korea tonight.”

Further, legend has it that the Bird, too humiliated to show his face, does not pick up his gear but has his driver take him directly to Kimpo Air Force Base where he catches the next plane out that does not land in Korea. This lesson is not lost on the brass. In the days that follow, and for every day after that, Izenour is relentless. His two one star generals are seen visibly shaking at Division staff meetings. Though no one else is relieved, the style he uses the first time suffices as his nuclear deterrent to anyone who even looks like they aren’t absolutely signed up for the whole drill. He is otherwise quite rational. Only in discipline from one stripe to one star, unforgiving insistence in perfect procedures, is he a mad man. Officers soon expect and get perfect salutes even north of the fence, seeing their greatest protection not from being indistinguishable to the enemy but having the men around them thinking they are soldiers.

Izenour’s reign of terror is absolute and ubiquitous. In a matter of weeks, everyone on the line is far too afraid of being chewed out one more time for one more thing, by anyone with more rank, to have any fear left over for the enemy. By the end of his tour, seven months after Pueblo is seized, the 2nd Division casualty rate, some 15 per month that winter, has flat lined to zero by July. Yet General Izenour is not mentioned even once in the records (written by people who were not there). Instead, all the credit goes to Bonesteel for his decision to not escalate the defense. Bonesteel deliberately meets highly intensified NKA probing action with hand held weapons, incurring high casualties in exchange for not giving the DPRK reason to invade Seoul by calling any reinforcement 'Escalation'. So 75 American GIs died to avoid provoking a DPRK invasion, followed by being overrun, followed by use of a nuclear deterrent, followed by all the good things that global thermo nuclear exchange have to offer. None of this happened because a rabble became an army that did not waver. Not only did things not go wrong due almost entirely to General Izenour, so many things went right, one after another.

Day 4: January 26

By this time, things look so grim that President Johnson issues Executive Order No. 11392 calling up 14,787 Air Force and Naval Reserve Units to active duty [including their nuclear armaments] due to the seizure of the USS Pueblo. (New York Times, January 26, 1968, p. 1).

Meanwhile, Bonesteel’s biggest job is to keep the Republic of Korea’s Army (ROK) from going north to right the wrongs of the Blue House Raid. This hysteria is so intense, within a month, ROK president Chung Hee Park secretly recruits his own 31 man commando hit squad to go North to kill the DPRK president Chung IL Sung. Their training goes so far as to include a replica of the DPRK Pyong Yang government center for practice runs. The hostilities were over before they were ready. But three days after the Blue House Raid, something happens to demonstrate just how serious the Korean People are about getting even.

It all started at a high school in Pusan where some 200 high school students took it on themselves to go on a little field trip on the Pusan to Paris Railroad. As it does now, the train stops just short of the Imjin River, the southern extent of the DMZ. There they get off, adorn themselves with black head bands with white lettered slogans, form up and start marching north. What happens next is an eye witnessed account.

While eating lunch at an open air dining hall overlooking the road to Freedom Bridge, an Army Engineer Lieutenant sees them coming down the road. Ranging in age from 16 to 18, there were no adults to be seen. Just high school students, as many girls as boys, in black and white uniforms worn by all Korean students. Marching in formation, every forth steps their arms swing up in the air and they belt out in unison 5, 6 and 7 word slogans, each time louder and more spirited than the one before. Curious about what is going on, the Korean cook tells the Lieutenant that the translation goes something like...

“To attack the Blue House is a grave insult!

“This disrespectful act must be revenged!

“There must be war to restore Korean Honor!

“Only total war can get our honor back!

“Mighty and great are The Korean People.”

The Lieutenant figured out that these were the same kids he had seen getting off the train back in town. Tickled by the oneness of their enthusiasm, where they were going did not cross his mind. Coming around the bend in the road, looking down the final approach to Freedom Bridge, one of two entrances to the US sector of the DMZ, reveals a spectacle beyond imagination. The next 20 minutes also reveals the power of Hollywood movies to shape world events. Just before the intermission of the movie Hawaii, the top chief, having lost control of his world, puts one rock on top of another, gets down on his knees in front of the two rocks, sways way back and then plunges forward, smashing his head on the top rock and the screen goes black. Hold the thought.

The jeep catches up to the students but there is no longer a formation, just running, screaming kids. By the time his jeep is at the south end of the bridge, he has to wait his turn, stuck behind the last 40 or so kids over overrunning a solid cordon of half tracks with mounted 50s hastily parked side by side, a formidable defense. The students just saw them as something to scramble over, momentary impedance to their charge across bridge. The Lieutenant screams at the dumbfounded guards...

“How could you let them get through?”

Just as loud the guard yells back, “What to hell are we suppose to do.

Shoot them! They ran right at us and when we tried to block their way, they just ran right over us, yelling and screaming, ignoring the guns and … “

In hot pursuit, the Lieutenant’s jeep is too far across the bridge to hear the rest. Just a short distance on the north side of the bridge, there they are, all 200 of them, trying to climb the anti-infiltration fence, just installed a couple of months before. This time, it is keeping people from going north instead of going south. Easily scaling the chain link fence, but having no success getting through the triple strand of concertina wire welded on top, they were flailing about in a frantic array of elbows and kneecaps, determined to succeed. Succeed at what? Get over the fence to be blown to bits in the dense minefield just beyond. It’s learned later that their grand plan is to run helter skelter into the DMZ, engage KPA soldiers and harass them enough to get the KPA to kill them. The more that die, the harder it is to avoid a big fat war to revenge their deaths. Yes. The students were definitely living the creed that a life without honor is a life not worth living.

As soon as they were dragged off the fence, they would mill about and start climbing the fence somewhere else. Vehicles soon arrived and GIs started putting the students in the trucks. But they wiggle out and start climbing the fence again. As the only officer present, a trick comes to mind to end this mess. Over the den of this clamor, he shouts full throttle,

“Throw them high in the air. Aim for students trying to get out!

As the trucks filled, like a rifle shot he yelled…

“Move! Move! Step on it! Go fast so they can’t jump out!.”

It starts working. Everywhere two GIS grab a single student by their arms and legs, throw them high in the air so their bodies acted like big boxing gloves, knocking down students trying to get out. One truck after another takes off like a shot, delivering them back on the civilian side of the bridge. As the students realize that their plan is not going to work, many, including one in particular, clearly the Alpha girl of the group, begin attacking the GIs with their bare hands, tying to gouge eyes and scratch faces, even unsheathe bayonets to cut themselves or get the GIs to cut them - - anything to cause injury enough that has to be avenged.

The air is dense with swearing and screaming on all sides, yet not a single GI is even close to becoming violent. Instead, they quickly developed protocols for carefully and methodically grabbing students harder, throwing them higher and driving the trucks away faster. Every move protects life and ends violence. When all looks lost, in the midst of still quite intense melee, the Alpha Girl suddenly goes down on her knees. She slides a big rock in front of her and then she puts a second rock on top of the first rock and… Sure enough, she is leaning way back to get the swing she needs to smash her head hard, hard enough to kill herself. Like a shot, the Lieutenant shoving all the energy in Asia into his mouth and transforming it into six words, bellowed loud enough to be heard all the way to Pusan…

“GET THAT GIRL OFF THAT ROCK!!!”

Instantly four GIs have her by her hands and feet and she is airborne. Up and up she goes, the highest loft of the day, up in the air and down into the center of the truck, landing with that thunking sound that says without a doubt, “No suicide for YOU today”. With her hauled away, the demonstration runs out of steam and soon all the students are transported out of the DMZ, dropped in town to take the train back home.

But enough about the Korean students. Who are these soldiers? No orders were given to the GIs to not harm the students. Perhaps the familiarity of these GIs with American kids back home protesting a bad war made them sympathetic to these Korean kids demanding the fighting of a good one (to them). The GIs seemed to see the nobility of the student’s desperate act, treated them as precious, deserving respect for their cause, but no way on this green earth were they going to succeed. With wave after wave of obscenities, the GIs firmly and carefully kept the students from getting hurt. The best the kids could point to afterwards as their badge of courage were bruises, cuts, a broken rib, hand or finger or two.

There were no Special Forces on the DMZ. No Rangers, no A Teams in ‘68. No Green Beret. Just a bunch of nobodies swept up in the troop buildup that followed the Golf of Tokin Incident. In 1966, over a million Americans are inducted into the service. Most are sent to Nam, but some 55,000 are randomly selected by computer to go Korea. In Nam, many suffer humiliating defeat. In Korea, a few witness a victory. What is the difference. As for the GIs, none. They are statistically identical. As for the mission, the motive and the amount of justice in the room, the difference is night and day. Fighting to protect and increase free will, ’68 DMZ is evidence nothing beats an American conscript. Fighting to expand constraint, American conscripts cannot do it at all.

Who are these students? Poster child for every one having free will. But every one having free will requires everyone to be okay in the eyes of everyone else. Though Korea in ‘68 is a military dictatorship (with phony elections), the students have free will enough to organize, skip school and go on their train trip north. They march down local streets and then on to a highway, screaming slogans, with no one stopping them. Freedom of speech, assembly and movement is clearly in the room. Did the GIs have free will? Having grown up in America, inculcated from birth with the advancement of all or some at the expense of none, self-opt for benevolent civility. Though no one ordered them not to harm the kids, when the students turned on the GIs, “Steady” was heard a time or two. So, for once, the whole thing worked. But, hold on? Where is free will if the students are not allowed to kill themselves? Not a problem. Since suicide is a right given up in exchange for the comfort and security of civil society, keeping someone from committing suicide is not constraint. So between 1:00 – 2:30 PM, January 25, 1968, along a 160 yard stretch of the south side of the Korean DMZ anti-infiltration fence, inside the 2nd Infantry Division Command, we were the American republic, the one that works because the whole thing works.

Day 5: January 27

Izenour’s reign of terror does not take long to kick in. A conscripted Lieutenant standing on the side of the barrier road along the anti-infiltration fence sees a Bird colonel going by in his jeep. Given all the latest hub bub, with Izenour’s dismissal story at the top of the charts, the Lieutenant thinks…

“Salute. I better salute”.

Bringing his hand up causes his body to shift and the dirt shoulder give way leaving him saluting while stumbling backwards. Instantly he hears the screeching of jeep tires on dirt, a great cloud of dust is kicked up into the air, and out of this cloud emerges a tall, great looking, forty something field grade officer advancing toward the hapless Lieutenant with a storm of words pouring out of his tortured mouth that goes something like …

“We got sh_t to pay out here and you are clearly part of the sh_t. You are the sorriest officer I have ever seen. It’s one hell of a shame that this is all we have to work with. This has to change. This can no longer be. You need to take your sorry ass and make it over into something that remotely looks like and acts like an officer. We are doomed if this sh_t does not stop. Do you hear me, you sorry sack of sh_t. You are under orders to get your sh_t together, NOW! Right now. That’s an order. DO YOU HEAR ME. Get your act together and be what you’ve got to be, not the sh_t Bird you are now.”

Just as suddenly as it started, it ended. The Bird is back in his jeep, driving away. At first, the Lieutenant is pissed he is singled out for this treatment, but not bothered. Being chewed out was steady state at Belvoir OCS. The Bird could have been the Brigade Commander who didn’t get relieved two days before. Or he could have been any colonel of the line sliced and diced by Izenour at that morning’s Division Staff meeting. Regardless, about half way through, the Lieutenant gets it… this is “training”. He can’t wait to start using this new tool to fix the unfixable.

Combat zone dress code violation is sport to a seven man survey crew assigned to him. Even when north of the fence to survey in the guard post roads, flack jacket, helmet, loaded weapon with ample ammo, all that stuff, instead of being at the ready, is back in the truck. Worse, when their bodies are found, and they are seen as bullsh_t, in the Lieutenant’s mind, only a long stretch at Leavenworth will be remedy enough for his letting it happen. Though fraternization between officer and men is zero, the problem that the Lieutenant likes the crew and the crew likes him. But even the new enter-screaming protocols do not change things. Then the Lieutenant remembers a picture the three striper in charge showed him of his wife – a one in a billion babe! So, one morning the Lieutenant tries a more tactful approach. He enters screaming …

“You know when Joe kills your ass and all your men, I’m going to write your wife a letter and this is what I am going say… ‘Your husband is dead because he was a dumb f_ucking piece of sh_t. He got himself killed, along with all his men, because he was a f_cked up A_hole. Etc.”

From then on, they were picture perfect. They never got attacked, though they operated daily north of the fence. Often along the hottest part of the line. Perhaps it is because they were ready. The North Korean infiltrators were masters of attacking weakness, like sleeping GIs, avoiding the strong to hedge their bets. Cause and effect. Near perfect military procedures are achieved by May. No one anywhere along the line is shaving points no matter what the orders. By July, a GI could not get hurt in the 2nd Infantry Division, either from friendly or hostile fire.

Day 6: January 28th

The results were in from a recon of all the roads to all the guard posts in the American Sector of the DMZ. Some needed better drainage but one needed to be built from scratch. Otherwise, the highest ground in the DMZ, Guard Post Charlie, can only be supplied and/or reinforced by backpacking it in along single track trail up a cliff. From anti-infiltration fence gate to the GP Charlie is a couple of miles and 350 feet elevation. The Combat Engineer Officer and his rod man picks up infantry security to flag the alignment of a new road. While the engineers uses a hand level to determine a least blasting route to the top, five rifle security surround them, each setting up fields of fire to make undetected assault or ambush near impossible. Of the five rifle, 2 are KATUSA, Korean Augmentation to the US Army. Much of the 2nd Infantry Division is staffed at 40% KATUSA.

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There are two choices for getting a road to the Guard Post Charlie. Do the easy route, requiring a 200 yard incursion into North Korea, or blast a 25% grade up the nose of a granite ridge. It takes three recons to flag the route to the top. Once on top, another three days are spent putting the road in defilade, meaning use of side hill cuts on the south side of the ridge to keep it protected from enemy fire. It is during one of those days when the five rifle are picked up at the gate, but only two are the same, one GI and one KATUSA. The GI explains in a flat voice that they were in a fire fight the night before and two are dead and one GI is in the hospital, in really bad shape, and may not make it. And that is it. Without any further conversation, they all went through the gate, walking silently to complete the flagging of the ridge road to Guard Post Charlie.

Air compressor, C4 expert, C4 in quantity and a platoon of combat engineers arrive. Blasting begins. Drill, set charge, blast. Over and over and over again, they inch their way up the ridge. After taking fire in the staging area one morning before work, the combat engineers post their own security. Then one day the helicopter appears as just a speck in the ski. It slowly looms larger, flying right at them. On its side are two white stars on a red rectangle. It lands. General Izenour leaps out and menacingly strides up the hill directly at the Engineering Officer. Izenour’s eyes are blue. He is amazingly tall, craggy faced, square jawed, thin lipped. The Combat Engineering officer digs his heels into side of the steep hill to give the general the best salute he’s got. Without returning it, the General is SCREAMING …

“HOW LONG TO FINSH THIS F_CKING ROAD!”

“Sir, I cannot speak for the whole battalion, Sir.”

“CUT the F_cking Sh_t. HOW LONG!!”

“Five weeks, SIR!”

With the SIR just beginning to ring in the air, the General has already turned and is back down the hill to his helicopter without returning the salute, bent on terrorizing the next hapless GI he visits next. There are new Izenour-on-the-war-path stories every day, edged with speculation whether or not he talks, not yells, at anyone. One of his West Point class mates later said he did not talk to anyone at the Point either. But anything short of Izenour seven month hissyfit would have not got the 2nd off its dime. For those not there, Izenour’s so necessary behavior has ironically caused him to have be dropped out history as punishment for being such a prick. Any one who ever got face time with the General, after the Pueblo, knows different. Without Charles M. Izenour, lollygag would have prevailed, the line would have caved and a world class (ending?) disaster would have followed.

Days go by. The nose is breached, the road breaks over to the top on a grade that can reliably transport 2½ ton trucks rain or snow. Time goes by and the Engineer Officer pays a visit to see how the side hill cuts are doing to finish the road. Instead, he is shocked to see a graded jeep trail right on top of the ridge in plain sight of the enemy, with the Debarkation Line markers in some places less than 40 feet away. Furious that all his military engineering is JUST ignored, not to mention extra time in harms way for nothing, he screams at an infantryman there nerve to blow off his carefully engineered alignment. In saunters the easy, tall American Infantry officer, gorgeous, strong, and slouched, saying…

“I gave the orders to put the road right on top. We like it that way. We like riding our trucks back and forth, even at night with our headlights on, begging Joe to take a shot. There has not been a shot fired up here since we started doing it.”

It is true. The area around Guard Post Charlie is the first sector of the DMZ to flat line. Then other DMZ sectors sequentially go silent and the conflict is over. By the time the Pueblo Crew is returned on December 22, hardly a shot had been fired since the end of summer.

It’s time to set the record straight. In 1967 - 68, one cut of the same ranks goes to Nam and another cut goes to Korea. Swap them. It does not matter. The GIs who went to Nam would have performed exactly the same way under the same conditions in Korea. It’s just true. So if the guys were so good, why is Nam such a bust and Korea is such a success?

The biggest reason is that ‘Group Ws’ only went to Nam. These were the “father rapers and mother stabbers” on the Group W Bench in Arlo Gutheries’ song “Alice’s Restaurant”. One of MacNamara’s dreams is to have sub humans, orphans mostly, who cannot pass the US Army Induction Physical, be inducted anyway, to die in the stead of a higher cut of kid. Being drug addicts, psychopaths and criminals, they bring drugs and fragging to Nam. Give hard orders on Monday, become a friendly fire fatality by Thursday. With everyone in the 2nd Infantry Division having passed their induction examination, there’s no criminal element. Getting fragged on the DMZ is just not in the equation. Hard orders are given with no thought to consequences other than improving procedures (and moral). Hard Orders among conscripts is the backbone of the 2nd’s success.

Sensitivity training may have made a difference. Every 8th Army officer takes two weeks of Korean Cold War School upon arrival in theater and prior to assignment. Curriculum includes Korean history, culture, religion, language and politics. Bottom line, if Joe Jumps and you are on the run, will the old mamma san hide you under the floor or refuse to open her door. These classes were part of a comprehensive outreach program that included extensive sustained community development programs as well.

Integrated troops is another reason. A major achievement of Bonesteel is that the ranks were completely integrated with two out of five line troops being KATUSA. After 15 years, two-way trust is consummate. The politeness of the typical KATUSA, and reliable performance completes the bond between host and guest. It turns out, many KATUSA are from business class families who deliberately put their sons in harms way so they can learn American style English.

[pic]

Surveyors Assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division. The 3 Striper is on the Right.

Three out of seven are KATUSA, Typical of all 2md Infantry Division Untis.

Kim Il Sung’s main thrust in the 2nd Korean War is to overwhelm South Korea with a war of subversion and terror to get the South Korean people to turn against their American guests. Not much chance of this since 15 years is not long for the typical South Korean to forget what a sour deal North Korean communism is. However, without years of sensitivity training, who is to say that the US could have worn our their welcome by 1968. But it had not. Yes. If GIs were on the run in ’68, just about every Korean of either sex or age would have hid us good. Bonesteel did get it right. The defense that succeeded is the one that was 15 years in the making, with the nurtured good will of the locals being your greatest strength. Just one of those times where things turned out right except for any of it becoming history. Now it’s time to make it history, even to those born after 1970, who have so little feel good history to hang on to. They need this story most of all.

|Jan |21 | |20–21 January: 31 North Korean commandos crossed the border disguised as South Korean soldiers in an attempt to assassinate President Park Chung Hee at The Blue House. The failed Blue House Raid mission by Unit 124 resulted in 28 commandos killed, two presumed dead, and the last captured. 68 South Koreans were killed and 66 wounded, including about 24 civilians. Three Americans were killed and another three wounded in an|

| | | |attempt to prevent the commandos from escaping back via the DMZ.[29] |

|Jan |22 |3 |22 January: U.S. 2nd Infantry Division guard post engaged by KPA infiltrators. Three U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|Jan |23 |1 |23 January: Seizure of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2) off the east coast of North Korea. One U.S. KIA. |

|Jan |24 |2 |24 January: 2ID position (1-23 Infantry) attacked south of DMZ by KPA Unit 124 exfiltrators. Two U.S. KIA; three KPA WIA. |

|Jan |26 | |26 January: 2ID defensive position (2-72 Armor) attacked south of DMZ by KPA Unit 124 exfiltrators |

|Jan |29 | |29 January: 2ID patrols and outposts engaged and repulsed four teams of KPA infiltrators. No U.S. losses; unknown KPA losses. |

|Feb |6 | |6 February: 2ID guard post attacked. No U.S. losses; one KPA WIA. |

|Mar |27 | |27 March: 2ID reaction forces and ROK 25th Infantry Division ambushed KPA infiltrators. No U.S. losses; three KPA KIA. |

|April |14 |2 |14 April: U.S. Army Support Group truck ambushed south of the Joint Security Area in daylight. Two U.S. KIA, two KATUSA KIA, two U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|April |21 |3 |21 April: 7ID patrol (2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment)) engaged KPA infiltrator company in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA, three U.S. WIA; five KPA KIA, fifteen KPA WIA. |

|april |27 | |27 April: 7ID patrol (2-31 Infantry) ambushed in the DMZ. One KATUSA KIA, two U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|July |3 | |3 July: 2ID patrol ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|July |20 |1 |20 July: 2ID patrol ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA; unknown KPA losses. 7ID patrol (1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment) ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|July |21 | |21 July: 2ID patrol (2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment) ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. WIA, one KATUSA WIA. |

|July |30 |1 |30 July: 2ID patrol (3-23 Infantry) ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA, three U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|Aug |5 |1 |5 August: 2ID patrol (1-38 Infantry) ambushed south of the DMZ in daylight. One U.S. KIA, four U.S. WIA; one KPA KIA. |

|Aug |18 |2 |18 August: 7ID patrol (1-32 Infantry) ambushed south of the DMZ. Two U.S. KIA; two KPA WIA. |

|Sep |19 | |19 September: 2ID patrols (2-38 Infantry) and quick reaction forces (4th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized), and the 2nd Division Counter Agent Company) isolated and destroyed KPA infiltrator squad. Two KATUSA KIA, six KATUSA WIA; four KPA KIA, one KPA WIA. |

|sep |27 |2 |27 September: 2ID jeep ambushed in the DMZ. Two U.S. KIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|Oct |3 | |3 October: 7ID guard post (1-31 Infantry) engaged KPA exfiltrator south of DMZ. No U.S. losses; one KPA KIA. |

|Oct |5 |1 |5 October: 2ID patrol ambushed in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA, two U.S. WIA; unknown KPA losses. |

|Oct |10 | |10 October: 2ID boat patrol engaged KPA infiltrator crossing the Imjin River. No U.S. losses; one KPA KIA. |

|Oct |11 | |11 October: 2ID patrol ambushed KPA infiltrators in the DMZ. No U.S. losses; two KPA KIA. |

|Oct |23 |1 |23 October: 2ID patrol engaged KPA infiltrators in the DMZ. One U.S. KIA, five U.S. WIA; one KPA KIA. |

|Oct |30 | |30 October: Ulchin-Samcheok (Gangwon-do) landings by 120 men of KPA Unit 124; 110 of them were killed, 7 were captured and 3 escaped. 40 ROKA and Police were KIA and 23 civilians were killed[30] |

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