DUANE ‘BANJO’ DAVIS: North Korean belligerence is nothing new

In 1967, I was assigned to an aviation company in South Korea. I had a mission once to fly the senior member of the United Nations Command to a meeting at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom, the place where negotiations began in 1952 to end the war there.

The first meeting resulted in the North Koreans having a flag larger than the flag of the United Nations. The next day, the UN flag was larger. Negotiations began to reach a uniform flag size and staff length. Finally both sides agreed on flag size and staff length. The height of the base was not discussed, so the North Koreans to this day have 2-inch-tall base and the UN has a 1-inch base, thus the North Korean flag reaches higher than the UN flag.

My mission that day was for the senior member of the UN command, a U.S. Army major general, to discuss with the North Koreans the fact that a Quonset hut with South Korean soldiers was the victim of a bombing by North Koreans who infiltrated the so-called Demilitarized Zone.

My helicopter crew was briefed on “how to behave.” We were told that North Korean soldiers would spend time walking the sidewalks and any person who did not give way to them would be subjected to pushing and shoving that could result in an international incident. We avoided the sidewalks. Sure enough, there were North Korean soldiers walking them, daring anyone to get in their path. The buildings that house North Korean support staff are taller than buildings that house UN support staff, by about 10 feet.

The U.S. Army major general and the North Korean general faced each other across the negotiation table over the flags, and the U.S. major general said, “It has been determined that a squad of North Korean soldiers infiltrated and destroyed a Quonset hut and killed two South Korean soldiers while they slept.”

The North Korean replied, “Yes, we heard about that almost as soon as it happened, and we had a roll call of our soldiers and they all were present, so it could not have been our soldiers who were responsible for that tragic incident.”

Tempers flared and the meeting was over. For over 60 years the North Koreans have been overbearing and belligerent, and it seems that they get even more so as time marches on.

DUANE “BANJO” DAVIS

Pelham