FOR VET FORMERLLY STATIONED

This article is my personal take on the potential peace accords between North and South Korea. Since I served a year with the U.S. Army helping to protect South Korea, here is my view:

In 2010, after basic training and A.I.T. (Advanced Individual Training), my first duty station was Camp Casey in South Korea. I was apprehensive at first, but I went.

I fondly look back on that year because of the impact it had on me. The people of South Korea are about as advanced as we are here in the States, especially once you get to the bigger cities. Since I was stationed in the countryside, I got to know the history of this nation. They are a proud people, with a history stretching back over 8,000 years. This nation has had its ups and downs as all nations do, but with its extensive time-line (and me being a history buff) I soaked up a lot of it.

The countryside is peaceful, with grand, majestic scenery – mountains, lakes, streams – the kind of stuff you’d see in CGI-generated films. The people are gracious, kind and humble. Working alongside Korean soldiers, you get the impression of strength, pride and honor. Some of those ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers are some very fierce fighters with training that rivals our military training. The cities such as Seoul, Busan and Incheon are as metropolitan and diverse as New York, Los Angeles and Boston. And I saw technologies there that we’ll probably never see, stateside.

But just as I saw great things there – city living, technology, history, food – bulgogi (Korean BBQ beef) Big Macs for the win! – I saw atrocities, too. Poverty: soul-crushing, mind-blowing poverty. Defections of North Koreans are very common. Human trafficking is a major problem; in fact, Southeast Asia is one of the hotbeds of human trafficking on Earth (see attached link). This country, this region is full of potential and simultaneously full of pain, hardship and regret.

I think of my time there often and I know I had a great time there, on-duty and off-. When I got the news of there potentially being peace between the two nations and what could finally be a unified Korean peninsula, I was overjoyed (and yes a little misty), yet apprehensive.

In my opinion, this would have about the same effect on Asia as the reunification of Germany did for Europe. To have this holdover from the World War II/Cold War era finally come to an end would be something we would all love to see. We can hope and pray that South Korean President Moon Jae-In and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un will be able to come to some sort of understanding and reunify the peninsula.

From the time I stepped near that 38th Parallel itself to the time I said goodbye to the Peninsula in 2011, I was in awe of the people and the nation as a whole. I, for one, want the peace process to happen. It’s long overdue. I want the South Koreans to keep rising and thriving. I want the North Koreans to emerge from Communism and join the rest of the world in the 21st century, so they can evolve into a productive, vibrant people, as well.

Peace in our time is a possibility: What better place for it to start than on the Korean Peninsula?

RESOURCES

www.toptenz.net/10-worst-countries-human-trafficking.php

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/History-of-Korea