71 Shocking Moments When Trusting Their Gut Literally Saved Lives—You Won’t Believe #37
Our last stop before entering the JSA was a gift shop. As we shuffled off the tour bus, a bunch of US military personnel came out of nowhere, holding their weapons, and ordered us to get back on the bus as quickly as possible.
Our tour bus made a bee-line out of the DMZ. It was clear that we won’t be going closer to the border.
After a brief stop at another point of interest (in a safer area), our tour bus high-tailed it back to Seoul. We left so quickly that we still had our UN-issued “visitor” badges with us. We returned them to the tour guide, who exchanged them for our waiver forms – they were never submitted to the US military because of what happened.
I still have that form today. It basically says “we’re not responsible if you get shot by the North Koreans or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” (it hadn’t been updated for a while).
So… what happened?
2 months before our tour, there was a South Korean naval ship that was mysteriously torpedoed near the inter-Korean maritime border.
South Korea wanted to blame North Korea, who denied involvement. So an investigation was launched. On the day of our tour, South Korea called a press conference to formally accuse North Korea of the sinking. Nobody seemed to know that was going to happen.
That press conference happened at the same time that we were at the DMZ. So we were immediately ordered away to avoid possible retaliation by the North Koreans – a tour group would be easy pickings.
I don’t know what the odds are for something like this. But I will forever have that story to tell – and can claim to have been ordered off a military base by soldiers near North Korea.
Post Comment