Visiting Korean DMZ, Riordan Recalls War

YONGSAN ARMY GARRISON, South Korea —  Forty-five years after concluding his U.S. Army tour in the Korean War, Mayor Richard Riordan returned for the first time Saturday to the stark stretch of no-man’s land that marks the brutal and still-unresolved conflict.

Traveling with his wife and a few top Los Angeles officials, Riordan was escorted through the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea--a strange and bleak place where opposing soldiers face off within easy sight of each other, waiting for any sign of danger.

For most of the length of the zone, the soldiers peer through binoculars across a four-kilometer span. But at one spot just north of Seoul, they share a small enclave of buildings, tiptoeing on either side of the border, which runs through the compound marked by a strip of concrete.

Neither side crosses the border except inside a single building, set up to hold talks between the two sides and now the only place where Westerners can readily cross into North Korea, if only by a few feet.

Saturday, cold gray skies provided a backdrop to the guard towers and curious North Korean soldiers who peered inside the windows of the unheated building that straddles the border. Inside, Riordan, moving awkwardly beneath the stares of the soldiers, strode across the border that he never crossed as a soldier. Outside, two North Korean officers gazed unsmilingly at the mayor and the other officials, then walked back to the North Korean buildings a few yards away.

The visit was Riordan’s first trip back to the area where he served for 10 months in 1952 and 1953 as the war was winding down. The mayor studied maps provided by the local military command and pointed to the ridge where, as a 23-year-old first lieutenant, he commanded 210 men in an observation battalion assigned to locate enemy troops by tracking their weapon fire.

The war experience was nerve-racking but also maturing for Riordan, who rarely waxes nostalgic but who reflected on his military service with his escorts Saturday. The mayor shared with them some of the fighting songs from his and other units, and reflected on his combat service. He described details of terrain he had not seen for 50 years, and shared recollections of nuances such as the reluctance of the North Koreans to engage Turkish and Ethiopian troops. The reason, said Riordan: Those soldiers took human souvenirs from opposing soldiers whom they killed.

Listening to Riordan, Lt. Col. Jim Laufenburg, who now commands the battalion at the border, shook his head in admiration.

“I can’t even imagine,” he said.

“At that time, it was pretty easy,” the mayor responded. “I got here too late for the hard part.”

In fact, Riordan said he has generally fond memories of his role in the conflict, though many of his officer-school classmates were captured by the North Koreans in one of the war’s final confrontations. Those officers, part of a unit known as the Triple Nickel, were later returned to the United States.

By contrast, Riordan’s wartime experiences were mostly administrative, even though they took place just a mile or two from a mass of Chinese and North Korean units.

“It gave me a lot of confidence,” the mayor said. “I learned that I was a good problem solver.”

As he toured the area Saturday, Riordan was particularly drawn to the bizarre propaganda displays on the other side of the border. One sign, which an Army guide compared to the Hollywood sign, says: “Self-Reliance Is Our Life.” Another derides America and a third proclaims: “Our System Is Best.”

At night, huge speakers play music from the North Korean side. Most of it, the guide said, are classical numbers with Korean lyrics added.

Most strange of all is a village within the demilitarized zone but on the North Korean side of the border. From a distance, it seems a tidy collection of high-rises and public works strewn beneath a massive flag hung from a 160-foot tower. In fact, military officials said, the place is utterly silent: The village is unoccupied, there solely to act as a lure to South Koreans who visit the border.

If some of the propaganda seemed harmless, other details clearly bothered the mayor. One soldier described a bloody 1976 confrontation in which two American officers were axed to death by North Koreans while trying to supervise a crew trimming a poplar tree in the Joint Security Area inside the demilitarized zone. Just outside the area is the North Korean Peace Museum, which the mayor’s tour guide noted features the axes used to kill those two Americans. “How can they do that?” Riordan muttered to himself.

Along with other members of his group, the mayor was visibly struck by the proximity of the fortifications to South Korea’s largest city, Seoul.

“The Blue House [South Korea’s presidential residence] is closer to the North Korean army than the White House is to Dulles airport,” said Maj. Gen. Michael V. Hayden.

He added that with such a short distance, American and other forces would not have the luxury of falling back to regroup if the North Koreans should suddenly attack. Instead, they must rely on intense readiness and unusual fortifications.

Special billboards cross the highway that links the border to the capital. Behind the advertisements are huge blocks of cement that can be dropped on the road to slow an enemy advance.

Among the soldiers handpicked for duty in the Joint Security Area, there is an evident sense of pride and preparation. Two weeks ago, when a North Korean border guard became the first ever to defect in the area, the American and Korean soldiers he approached handled the potentially volatile situation without incident. And when a North Korean unit recently captured two South Korean villagers who wandered near or over the border, an armed face-off with American military was defused even after one of the North Koreans accidentally fired a shot.

“Our job here is to deter war,” Hayden said. “We don’t get to pick the day and time that it starts, so we’re ready every day.”

The tour of the demilitarized zone capped a lightning-fast mayoral visit to South Korea, Riordan’s second to the country in three days. After a one-day trip to attend the inauguration of President Kim Dae Jong, the mayor returned to the country Friday for a visit that featured travel to sister city Pusan, a dinner with current and potential customers of the Los Angeles Port, and a meeting with Kim.

That session was off limits to reporters. But Riordan and others who attended said it involved a wide-ranging discussion that touched on the mayor’s war service and the challenges facing the president, who landed South Korea’s highest office after four tries, only to find its economy in tatters.

Despite his domestic problems, Kim expressed interest in South Koreans living in Los Angeles. Those residents, he said, contribute mightily to the South Korean domestic economy. Afterward, an aide to Kim said that the president is hoping to allow Korean Americans to hold dual citizenship, and that he intends to establish a new office for assisting Koreans who live abroad. More Koreans live in Los Angeles than in any other city outside South Korea.

Riordan was not the only Los Angeles official in South Korea this week. City Councilman Nate Holden, whose district is home to many Korean residents, attended the inauguration and said he held meetings with government and business leaders in an attempt to lure business to his district. Interviewed in Seoul on Saturday, he said he believes he has succeeded in persuading at least one major company to open operations in his district, which would mean more jobs for city residents.

His business done, Holden is headed back to Los Angeles. Riordan flies on to Beijing, where he will be joined by a group of Los Angeles executives and tourism officials trying to bring Asian business and visitors to the city.