I enlisted in the Army in Sept 1967 after graduation from UNC. I had completed basic training in November or December and I was a slick sleeved private in advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, NJ in January 1968 when the North Koreans sent a 31 man commando team through the American 2nd Infantry Division's lines in the Korean DMZ to try to kill the South Korean president. This was called "The Blue House Raid". They were intercepted most were killed and one captured. Several days later the USS Pueblo was captured by the North Koreans, who killed one U.S.sailor (Duane Hodges)and took the other 83 or 84 sailors as prisoners (where they were kept for 10 months) and towed the US ship to North Korea, where it sits today in Wonson harbor as a North Korean monument to their superior military skills or a tourist attraction.

We were on the brink of war with North Korea. At the same time all hell was breaking loose in Vietnam with the Tet offensive. All of the soldiers in my training unit were sent to Korea, after only 5 weeks of the 8 week advance infantry training being completed. Most of us, including me, were assigned to infantry units as riflemen. My company had just returned from 4 months up on the DMZ and was rotated 3-4 miles south for 4 months of training. We rotated back and forth to the DMZ every 4 months. The DMZ was very dangerous then. In the summer of 1968 6 members of my company (5 of whom were from my platoon of less than 30 men) were shot in 3 separate firefights with North Koreans in the DMZ. 2 of my 6 friends who were shot died.

The History Channel flew 5 vets to Korea for the filming of a documentary about the DMZ in 2003. I was fortunate enough to be one of those vets. "Running the DMZ" has been shown on the History Channel several times and is available for purchase from The History Channel's website. I was interviewed about several different events. One of the reinactments in the documantary was of one of my platoon's ambushes, when my buddy Michael Rymarczuk was killed and Earl Jeffery, Cleveland Davis and a South Korean soldier in our unit were wounded. The reinactment was filmed in California with actors and they had my buddy, Lloyd King, who was on the patrol, tell about it. He told them Shane Norton was wounded...but Shane was not. Lloyd was mistaken. Shane only had his canteen shot off his hip. Shane had taken my place on that patrol. Lloyd can be forgiven for his mistake. He saved the wounded from being over run and killed that night. It was July 30, 1968.

The biggest loss of life my battalion experienced while I was there was when a medic from another company was killed and several riflemen were wounded in a firefight with the North Koreans on March 15, 1969 in the DMZ. After the firefight stopped, a medevac landed. It took off with the wounded and the weather was awful, sleet and snow. It was right at the barrier fence, which is at the DMZ. The helicopter went up and then straight down, exploding into flames, killing all on board, pilot, co-pilot, doctor, medic and wounded. I extended in Korea and actually stayed 16 months there. We drew $65 per month hostile fire pay, if we were north of the Imjin River 5 or more days in any one month.

In 1995 I learned that Agent Orange had been sprayed around our positions along the DMZ in 1968 & 1969. I remembered men hand spraying defoliant while I was there, but never thought it might be AO, nor were we ever told what the hell it was. At the time, I was just glad to have the bushes and grass killed so the North Koreans could not sneak up on me as easily. In the late 1990's and early 2000, I was able to persuade the VA to change its regulations and allow agent orange registrations, exams and treatment for Korean DMZ vets of 1968 & 1969. That was a hard struggle.

The Charlotte Observer gave me a "Hero of Democracy" award several years ago for my efforts with the VA. I don't have any agent orange related problems, but some of my buddies have had them. In fact, a friend, Ulysses Biggins from Miami, died this month from complications of his diabetes, which is an agent orange related disease. He had helped save the patrol when Michael was killed. I remember one long night when a North Korean did sneak up and tried to dig a hole under the fence in front of my position. He was not successful. I did not kill him, but my rifle fire sure stopped his digging. My children used to enjoy hearing me tell the story about the night I was in a foxhole and I looked to my rear to see a dag-gum wildcat was crouched on the edge on my foxhole looking at me at my eye level.

I came home in June 1969 and went to Law School at UNC on the GI Bill. I did not often think about my buddies until the early 1990's when I started trying to find them. I formed a 750 member group called DMZ Vets and we've had 4 reunions. At the first reunion in 1994 in Statesville, NC, I invited Michael Rymarczuck's mother to come to Statesville and she did. I had found her in Philly. We gave her a clock and we lied and told her her son didn't suffer when he died in the DMZ.

I later found Michael's daughter in Philly (she had not kept in touch with her father's side of the family after Michael's death. I put an ad in the Philadelphia paper "Micki Rymarczuk, I knew your dad in the Army. Call me at 704-871-9000. David Benbow". She called. We talked on the phone and exchanged Christmas cards over the years. I finally met her several years ago at a reunion at the Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC. I had lunch with Micki and her husband and two other buddies who had know here dad and were with him when he died. He had never seen his baby girl, who was born after he went to Korea in 1968.

My experiences in Korea were unique in that they happened during the Vietnam War. I realized that few people have ever heard of what had gone on in Korea while I was there. But now with the History Channel's verification of what happened and some books about what happened which have been written by other vets who were also in the DMZ of Korea in the late 1960's and especially a great little book entitled, "Low Intensity Conflict In Korea: Scenes from an Unfinished War, 1966-1969" I feel our Korean DMZ military service has been recognized. It has now been 10 years or more since I had the dream which I would have once or twice a year that the patrol was going out and I couldn't find my boots or my ammo and they would leave me. Those dreams stopped when I began finding my buddies in the late 1990's and the following years.

I feel proud of what we did in Korea. We helped keep the peace. I feel a kindred spirit with Korea and her people and I look forward to the day that the two Koreas will peacefully unify. In fact I spoke in New York at a DMZ Forum several years ago about the possibility of the DMZ and all of its wildlife (including the wildcats and tiny Asian deer and rare white cranes) being transformed into a world peace park. It could be an eco-tourist attraction if all the mines could be removed. Humans have had little contact with that 2 and a half mile wide strip of land which divides the two Koreas. The DMZ Forum has this as its goal. It would be a fitting tribute to those who served there and to those died there, North and South Korean and American soldiers.

Submitted by former Sgt. David Benbow, Company C, 3/23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division, Korea 1968 & 1969.