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A DMZ 'gardening job' that almost sparked a war
- wongarsu 7y agoI don't think "army cuts down tree to provide sight line and protect own troops at border crossing" can be described as "gardening job".
- ceejayoz 7y agoI mean, it was a tree removal. They just don't typically involve B-52s, fighter cover, and an aircraft carrier battle group.
- smacktoward 7y agoWhat's the MOS for a tactical gardener?
- terravion 7y ago12B
- piptastic 7y agoAccording to the Wikipedia entry, in the initial incident they were just trimming the tree, not cutting it down.
- fragmede 7y agoTrimming the tree in one of the world's most fraught DMZ, is still going to affect sight lines, so framing it as an "innocent gardening job" elides the truth.
- openasocket 7y agoFun fact: the current South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, participated in Operation Paul Bunyan
- vilhelm_s 7y agoWhat did he do?
- jedimastert 7y agoAccroding to wikipedia, he was in South Korean Special Forces at the time. Here's what the wikipedia article about the south korean special forces involvement in the Korean axe murder incident > In addition, a 64-man task force of the South Korean Special Forces accompanied them, armed with clubs and trained in taekwondo, supposedly without firearms. However, once they parked their trucks near the Bridge of No Return, they started throwing out the sandbags that lined the truck bottoms, and handing out M16 rifles and M79 grenade launchers that had been concealed below.[3] Several of the commandos also had M18 Claymore mines strapped to their chests with the firing mechanism in their hands, and were shouting at the North Koreans to cross the bridge.[12][13]
- 420codebro 7y agoRofl. That’s ballsy.
- dba7dba 7y agoFun fact: Many many South Korean college students who actively agitated for democracy around that era were specifically sent to the very front area of the DMZ or tougher assignments. So Moon did not volunteer for the special forces, but was volunteered. The idea was to help educate the naive young kids about the realities of North Korea facing off with South Korea by stationing them right on the DMZ. Also, Moon was not one of the few dozen troops that were on scene with claymore mines. The entire armed forces of S Korea was put on alert at the time and he was in uniform at the time.
- gao8a 7y agoI recommend the DMZ tour as one of the touristy things to do in SK. Depending on your guide, you’ll hear about all the ridiculous times NK has broken the armistice agreement. Also blasting KPop lol
- dcolkitt 7y agoSecond this. I've been nearly a hundred countries, and the DMZ was one of the most interesting sites I've seen anywhere. It's pretty different than most sites a tourist can see, because it's an active militarized zone where history is still unfolding. Definitely recommend researching the best tour companies online, because it makes a big difference.
- CapricornNoble 7y agoAlso, the Korean War* Museum is AMAZING. *It's really more a full military history / history of Korea museum, not focused on JUST the 1950's war.
- jedimastert 7y agoThe wikipedia article for the "Korean axe murder incident"[0] is a pretty good read (and a fairly small article) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_axe_murder_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_axe_murder_incident
- Someone1234 7y agoIt is very strange that the article doesn't establish if "mutual consent" was needed to trim shrubs or not. Seems like a core element to contextualize the whole event. I did a little digging but even I cannot figure it out. The JSA was created via the Military Armistice Commission under the The Korean War Armistice Agreement. But I cannot find the documentation that actually establishes the JSA itself. PS - It is NOT this: https://peacemaker.un.org/koreadprk-militaryarmistice53 https://peacemaker.un.org/koreadprk-militaryarmistice53 that's just the Korean War Armistice which doesn't define the JSA.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AcerbicZero 7y agoThis article is a rather poor re-telling of the situation and glosses over contextual information. In addition to the wikipedia article on this specific incident (which is itself a much more accurate record of the event), here's a truncated list of other issues at the DMZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_and_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_invol...
- blackflame7000 7y ago"One of the South Korean soldiers who participated in Operation Paul Bunyan, Moon Jae-in, was elected President of South Korea in 2017."
- jkimmel 7y agoThe book "Pacific" by Simon Winchester has an educational description of this event, contextualized in the broader story of how the DMZ came to be.
- magashna 7y agoThis is such a bizarre dick measuring contest. Funny in retrospect, but I'd hate for a war to start over a pruning gone awry.
- crazygringo 7y agoNot at all. The line of sight is described as being required for legitimate military purposes. And in international relations, it's generally very much a case of give-an-inch-and-they'll-take-a-mile. Seemingly disproportionate importance must be given to the tiniest things, because the enemy will be constantly testing you looking for weakness. In a case like this, if the US and South Korea aren't hyper-vigilant about every single thing, it's an indication that political or popular support may be waning, and an indication to North Korea that it might be possible to reinvade and take over the entire peninsula. If you don't believe this, it's a big part of what allowed Germany to take over Europe in WWII -- that vigilance wasn't taken seriously. Germany pushed what was "acceptable" more and more until it was too late. It's not about the tree -- it's about fundamental legitimacy being upheld.
- Stunting 7y agoIt’s not about ::this relatively insignificant thing that can be logically addressed without violence:: —- it’s about ::a set of assumed moral values and forced respect to their integrity::: is how dumb wars get started and paper work sends a nations childrens off to die. It was a stupid dick measuring contest that got two people killed and almost much more.
- vondur 7y agoIf this happened today, there would be war.
- proaralyst 7y agoWhat makes you say that? Tensions are pretty low at the moment.
- vondur 7y agoWell, with the current President and the unprovoked murder of two US service people, I doubt we’d see such restraint. Carter is much different than most other US Presidents.
- davidw 7y agoIt's difficult to speculate about someone who is mentally unwell. Who knows; he actually seems to like Kim Jong Un, and dislikes people like, say, the prime minister of Denmark, but by and large it's just talk and tweets and not much action either way. Advisers are all over the place too.
- war1025 7y agoWe aren't at war with Iran right now, which we very well could be if Trump had reacted differently to them shooting down our drone earlier this summer.
- opo 7y agoThis was 1976. Gerald Ford was president.
- vondur 7y agoOops, you are correct, Carter started the next year. I'm a bit too young to remember Ford, I do remember seeing Chevy Chase make fun of him once I got older.
- have_faith 7y ago
- Jefenry 7y agoI found a picture of that tree while going through my father's slides of his time in the Army. This was a few years before the axe incident. https://imgur.com/YRXYQ https://imgur.com/YRXYQ Edit: Actually, it was over a decade before. He was there in the early 60's. Here's some more pictures of that time: https://imgur.com/a/5mgrp https://imgur.com/a/5mgrp
- dev_dull 7y ago> Two US officers were bludgeoned to death with axes and clubs. It’s really amazing to me what North Korea “gets away with”. It reminds of that kid we all knew in school who gets into trouble so much that they simply stop punishing him in any material way.
- ethbro 7y ago2 is fewer than 178,000+.
- cheeze 7y agoIt's no different than the crazy person I walk by every morning on the way to work. They have nothing to lose. I have everything. It's not worth it for me to get involved.
- u10 7y agoNorth Korea not crazy, but incredibly intelligent and calculating. It's rather foolish and dangerous to think otherwise.
- murphy214 7y agoWhat was intelligent and calculated about the incident in question?
- monocasa 7y agoTheir demonstrated willingness to defend against even trivial encroachments.
- u10 7y agoAsserting their power projection over the DMZ, whether it is legitimate is irrelevant. It's the same with the development of nuclear weapons. There is a near-zero probability that North Korea will engage in a first strike with nuclear weapons, but a very rational way of self-preservation. The North Korean regime is reprehensible but their actions are rational, from a self-preservation perspective.
- lukewrites 7y agoThere's a pretty interesting account of this in the book The Long Grey Line, which is about the careers of the West Point class of '66. One of the men killed in this incident was a member of that class.
- godelmachine 7y agoHaving been on HackerNews for many years now and having got accustomed to strange headlines for Comp Sci stories, I was actually hoping this was about the Demilitarized Zone (Networking concept).
- salawat 7y agoYou aren't alone. I was thinking somebody went about pruning some server instances, and legal departments getting up in arms over SLA'sor something. Alas...
- henpa 7y ago> North Korea objected, claiming any landscaping work required permission from both parties. "NAH, LETS INTERVENE AND DO IT OUR WAY RIGHT NOW!!!!!"
- nwallin 7y agoReminds me of the Immovable Ladder. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Quo_(Jerusalem_and_Bethlehem)#Immovable_ladder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Quo_(Jerusalem_and_Be...
- hangonhn 7y ago"Several US soldiers remember they and the South Korean special forces who accompanied them had sneaked heavy weapons into the area under sandbags on the floor of their trucks. Some South Koreans even strapped claymore mines to their chests and held the detonators in their hands, goading the North Koreans to attack." The part about the claymore is so insane and just bad ass.
- refurb 7y agoIt's not common knowledge, but several other countries sent troops to fight in the Vietnam War - it wasn't just the US, but included Australia, New Zealand, Philippines and South Korea. From what I've read, the reputation of the SK troops was something else - they elicited real fear in the VC and NVA troops. The claymores don't really surprise me.
- dba7dba 7y agoSouth Korea rotated over 320,000 ground combat troops through Vietnam over 11+ year period, maintaining 2 Army Divisions and 1 Marine Brigade, to help US and South Vietnam. edit: 320,000 is not a typo. Well over a quarter of a million S. Korean troops served 1 year tour of duty in Vietnam. It means after end of WW2, S. Korea sent more combat troops abroad to help US in a semi-active/active armed conflict than any other allies such as UK, Australia, France etc. Kinda mind boggling. I recommend vietvet.co.kr for anyone interested in reading about stories/battles/personal-recollection related to South Korean troops. The site has Korean and English versions. The English version is not a direct mirror of the Korean version but largely same stories. You have to keep in mind the South Korean troops in Vietnam in 1960s - 1970 were very likely old enough to remember the Korean war, the war started by the communists of North Korea. Or they at least had immediate family members who experienced it and passed on the stories. So there was a personal hatred of anything related to communists.
- Apocryphon 7y agoI wonder if they gave out medals or mission patches as part of this operation