Spending time in South Korea is great, all the shopping, all the hand tailored clothes and shoes, it is a shopper's "wet dream", so to speak. But for the Men and Women stationed at the DMZ, that's the De-Militarized Zone, for you non-military types or the 38th parallel for us older guys, all the perks that come with living in South Korea are fleeting thoughts as these soldiers train for the unthinkable ... another war with North Korea.

North and South Korea have not known peace since June 25, 1950, the beginning of the Korean War, where North Korea dreamt of a unified Korea and decided to place that dream in to motion, the Korean War has been in armistice since November 1954.  Notice I said nothing about the war being over, they simply decided, after the United States pushed the communist Korean forces back to the 38 parallel. 

Each year since, there have been scheduled and unscheduled tests of the South Korean’s resolve and military might along side their American counterparts.  These exercises are extremely intense.  Having played both sides of the exercises, as a participant, sleeping in a General Purpose (gp) tent with a heater in the middle of a blizzard, and then as a photojournalist living in the same conditions (yea love those conditions), it is with them men and women, two countries, one goal, Freedom.