Lessons Learned Visiting the DMZ

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other. ~Charles Shurz-General in the American Civil War~

Tyler and I were fortunate enough to get on a USO tour of the DMZ. It is a neutral area between North and South Korea about two miles wide that splits the country in half. It felt anything but neutral. The ground in the DMZ has not had a human set foot on it for over 50 years now. Plants and animal life are left to grow as mother nature intended.
South Korea is protected and supported by the countries represented on these flags. They told us that they use to fly the flags until once during some negotiations they caught NK soldiers blowing their noses and spitting on two of the flags, so they took them down and just display them in this case.


Pres. Bush made a visit in 2002. Celebrating a railroad that was built connecting the two counties so that South Koreans could visit family members in NK and work in some of the factories there.


ROK soldiers guarding at one of the three stops we made on our tour.



Behind this building we were allowed to look through telescopes into North Korea. But we were not allowed to take pictures of North Korea here.


Camp Kim is where the USO in Seoul is located and where we loaded the bus to begin our tour.


Another stop on our tour we were able to descend 350meters to check out the tunnel the NKoreans spent 4 long years digging to try and sneak into SK. It went quite a distance and they almost made it before being discovered in the 70's. We were again not allowed to take pictures in the tunnel, but the next 5 pictures are of the park the South Koreans built where the tunnel is located. Always tall fences with barbed wire in the background. (Click on the pictures to enlarge.)