Air National Guard TDY to Osan AB, Korea
The following pictures catalog a part of my trip to Korea. Most of these are from my trip to the DMZ, and there are definitely some holes from the other parts of the month that I spent there. Most of the time I was working as a computer controller, but the entire building I was in is considered classified, so I obviously don't have any pictures of that part. The best way to describe it is a really large real-time computer war game simulating a war between North and South Korea, and my job was to input commands into the actual simulation, while the colonels and generals make all the decisions and strategies. We were working twelve hours on, twelve hours off so I didn't really do anything exciting during this time, and that covers about 3 of the 4 weeks I was there. The rest of the trip was pretty much a big shopping experience, with a little tourism in between. Korea has amazing deals on some stuff, and I spent way more money than I had originally intended, but I'm very happy with what I got for it. I did get to see some of the culture, and I got to eat a lot of beef bulgogi.
Traveling to Korea
Refueling an F-15 from our KC-135 on the way down to CA. We then flew to Anchorage, AK and then to Osan, Korea on a commercial charter plane.
Osan Air Base
We stayed at Osan Air Base, in Korea. Osan is about 45 minutes from Seoul and about 1.5 hours from the DMZ. This is the main gate onto the base.
This mall is located right out of the main gate. It caters to Americans staying on the base, so almost everybody speaks some English and all the prices are also listed in U. S. Dollars. You don't really even need to exchange your currency.
This is the initial view that greets you as you walk out the main gate. At first you should just look around and get used to the common items and prices that are similar in each of the stores, so you can know what is a good price and when you should try to bargain more. It's considered normal to barter a little bit, and if you're good at it, then you can save a lot of money. The other way is to meet a store owner and then have an established price for the stuff you buy there. One thing I really liked about the trip, is that towards the end of it I could walk down this mall and be greeted by three or four store owners and talk to them a bit even with some language barriers.
This is a picture down the main street in the outdoor shopping mall, and gives an idea of how close together the stores are. There is a lot of competition and a very low minimum wage, so you can get really good prices on suits, leather jackets, gortex coats, blankets, crystal pieces and other such stuff.
This is the Blue Opera Restaurant, where a lot of our people on our trip hung out and ate or drank some meals. Of the eight places that I had beef bulgogi, I think this was one of the best. Something else I really liked here was that all the tables had buttons on them to call for service, so when you were ready to order, or wanted to pay your bill, then you just press the button, and twenty seconds later a waiter is right there.
Here are of few of us eating bulgogi in a more traditional setting. The food is brought out and prepared in front of you and left on the grill in the center of the table to keep it nice and warm. There are also multitudes of plates with additional items to choose from.
These are all of the Daves that showed up to our barbecue towards the end of the trip. Six of them are from our group of 30 something from Fairchild. It's always nice when 20% of the deployment is named Dave! Also amazingly, 25% of us were from the ANG Band of the Northwest, and it looks like we can hold our own on computers too.
I had a nice picture of McDonald's when I went to Japan, so I figured I had better get one in Korea too. Some things don't change wherever you go, although this one recycled all the paper cups instead of just throwing them away afterwards.
This picture probably doesn't make any sense, but that's okay, because the alien looking down on the shopping mall didn't make any sense either. However, it does make a cool looking picture.
This is a picture of the hotel room. You can't really see everything, but those of us in the guard got to stay here, where there is TV with a DVD player, A/C, a nice bath room, iron board, refrigerator, microwave, DSN telephone, and plenty of room with no roommates. Meanwhile most of the people we were working with were sleeping on a cot in a 16 person tent, and although they did have some entertainment rooms and other facilities, I have to say that I'm very appreciative of the rooms we got.
So one thing that Korea has a lot of is spiders, there were two of these guys hanging on their webs on the other side of my window, so I thought I should get a picture of one. If you were on the night shift and were walking around at midnight, then I guess the really big spiders came out, where they would look like this one, but the actual body would be about the thickness of your thumb. It's not a pretty sight for anyone like me who doesn't like spiders, but I do have a weird fascination with them. I'm very glad this one was on the other side of my window.
P'aju
One of the best parts of the whole deployment was the tour of the DMZ, which is the De-Militarized Zone between North and South Korea. Most of my pictures are from this tour, so get used to them. This is where we first arrived at the DMZ, and it gives a general feeling to the area. It's mostly a ton of barbed wire fences and outposts with guards everywhere.
This is a view overlooking the DMZ, which is an area two kilometers wide on each side of the actual demarcation line, which runs across the entire peninsula. It's an environmental haven, because there is basically no human habitation in this area.
This shows a layout of the area we are currently in.
Freedom bridge is where the Korea POWs were allowed to return after the fighting had finally stopped.
This is a view of the bridge from above and shows the railroad track that leads into the DMZ, but is no longer used.
This is a picture down the bridge leading to the dead end.
At the end of the bridge there are messages of peace left in many languages.
This is a beautiful pond that is right below the bridge, so amidst all this barbed wire and armed guards, there is still some good culture.
This is a stone monument that I thought looked nice, although I have no idea what it actually says.
This is another view looking across the bridge into the DMZ.
Of course, I also had to get a close up picture of the no picture sign.
Tunnel III
This is the next part of our tour, where we went to the location of Tunnel III, which is the third tunnel that was found running between North and South Korea under the DMZ.
This is the entrance to the tunnel, but for some strange reason, we were not allowed to take pictures in the actual tunnel, although all they would show is a steep entrance of about a quarter mile to get down to the actual tunnel, and then another quarter mile walk to the concrete barricade. The actual tunnel keeps going for another two miles before it gets into North Korea. The tunnel itself is only about 5.5 feet high, so everyone has to wear hard hats, which is a good thing, because you will often hear people walking along, and then hear a thud as someone hits an outcropping of rock. The tunnel was blasted out, and has not been smoothed to anything pretty, but is capable of moving a whole bunch of North Korean soldiers through quickly. So if they did attack through the tunnels, they would be able to hit pretty hard.
This is a monument showing the two parts of Korea, which hopefully will have people pushing them back together in the near future. It also makes a nice spot for a photograph. This is Steve Churchwell and me trying to squash Shannon Yellin, but we didn't quite get the monument to move.
This is a picture of Jerry standing in front of the DMZ Theater, which had an awesome surround sound system and three projectors for a huge wide screen experience. All to watch propaganda about the DMZ instead of a good movie, so it sure seems like a waste to me.
Here I am standing behind a mine field sign. Most of the fields are no longer kept up, but some of them are, so it's not a good place to go wandering around.
Panmunjon, inside of the DMZ
The next part of the trip we went to a lookout over the DMZ, but it was really stupid because you had to stand behind a line to take photos, and the whole experience was lame. However after that we went on a military tour of Panmunjon, which is the neutral conference area used for any talks between the tour countries, and this part of the tour was absolutely awesome, and is the reason why I enjoyed the whole day so much. This building was not made until right before the big negotiations and was consequently built in 48 hours.
This is a picture of one of the North Korean tours, however it is no longed manned, because it was just a little too close, and anyone wanting to defect had a pretty easy time to get across.
This is a close up view near the tower that shows one of the white posts put about every 100 meters along the demarcation line.
This is one of the South Korean soldiers, known as the RoK (Republic of Korea) soldiers, who is responsible for guarding us against any hostilities from the other side.
These are the buildings actually put across the line, where the big 16 inch cement block runs through them. The blue buildings are controlled by the South Koreans, and the silver buildings by the North Koreans.
This is another picture of the buildings with the main North Korean building in the background. You can see the soldiers guarding us in the foreground and one of the North Korean soldiers by their building in the background.
Here is a close-up of the North Koreans watching us through binoculars when we first arrived. It's not that often we you get to do something that other countries want intelligence on.
Here is a picture of Shannon and me actually in the main conference building and standing on the North Korean side. It might sound strange, but we were really excited to stand in North Korea for about 2 minutes.
Here is a picture of another RoK soldier guarding us, along with one of the people along for the tour, although I don't know who he is. The table with the flag on it is where the actual leaders of the countries would sit for the negotiations.
Here are two more soldiers guarding the door to North Korea to make sure no one goes in or out of it.
Panmunjon, at the most forward South Korean lookout tower
The last part of the tour we got to go to a South Korean outpost that is situated on a corner of the DMZ, so it is essentially surrounded on three sides by North Korea, consequently it's a daunting place to be. This is a picture of a memorial to the actual Armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.
This is a picture of the signs put up about every half kilometer or so along the demarcation line, they are mostly faded now, but say something about being the division between the North and South. The ones facing south are in Korean and English, and the ones facing north are in Korean and Chinese.
This is a picture of part of the DMZ, where pretty much no one goes any more.
This is a real nice shot of propaganda village, which gets its name from all the propaganda that it plays over loud speakers to try and convince people to defect over to North Korea. However, when we went on this tour, it was not playing, and recently there has been a move to no longer allow it to target military forces or U. S. citizens, but only the South Koreans.
Here I am with propaganda village to my back. Most of the buildings in this village are empty two dimensional fakes just made to make the North Koreans look good. The flag pole that they have is about 160 meters or 500 feet tall, and the dry weight of the flag is about 600 pounds. It's quite a gargantuan attempt to make them look good. However you can also sometimes see the antenna towers along North Korea, which are used to block any television or radio signals into the country to prevent the North Koreans from believing just how much better South Korea is actually doing.
The tower is one of the North Koreans outposts, and it also had soldiers looking at us through binoculars.
This is a picture with our guide, who did an absolutely fabulous job explaining everything to us, and in the background is one of the South Korean towers that is no longer manned. There used to be a huge tree that was blocking some of the view to the tour, and when the South Koreans went to cut it down, the North Koreans attacked them and killed two of the officers with their own axes.
This is a picture of a monument to the fallen soldiers doing their job, and the circular concrete ring shows the size of the tree that was standing there. The South Koreans later went back with many more people and air support in case anything else happened, but this time the North Koreans left them alone.
This is a picture taken out of the tour bus as we are leaving, of the Bridge of No Return. It was named this because when hostilities were ended people were placed on this bridge with the choice of going north or south, but knowing that they could never cross it again, even if part of their family was on the other side.
This was the end of the tour, and afterwards I went back to my job for another week, then bought a couple last minute items, and then came back home. The trip home was basically a reversal of the trip to Osan, although we had to spend a night at March Air Reserve Base in CA, and being on a reserve base on a Monday, which also happens to be a holiday is not a good idea. We dubbed it the base of Murphy's Law because everything that could go wrong did. I'll not tarnish the rest of the trip by talking about everything that happened, but it was a horrible 24 hours, and everyone was extremely happy when we were back on our KC-135 from Fairchild.
