Soldiers exchange gunfire across inter-Korean border

SEOUL (AFP) - South and North Korean soldiers exchanged gunfire across the heavily armed inter-Korean border, South Korean military authorities said.

The shootout erupted at 6:10 am (2110 GMT Wednesday) in the central part of the demilitarized zone which has divided the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War, the South's joint chiefs of staff (JCS) office said.

"North Korean soldiers opened fire, triggering an immediate counter action from our side," a JCS spokesman told AFP.

The shooting lasted for nearly one minute, causing slight damage to the wall of the South Korean guard post but no casaulties were reported, he said.

"They fired four rounds from a machine gun while our soldiers responded with 17 rounds," the spokesman said.

North Korean troops have not shown any particular movement, he said, adding the South's military had sent a team of investigators.


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Nothing new here. One of my newly commissioned buddies, back when I was still in college got himself posted to the ROK in 1978 and when he got to the DMZ discovered a series of firefight incidents were taking place in the American sector of the DMZ. On his first night patrol (the time when the zone becomes a free fire area) into the zone, he was wise enough to be the only man to draw a night vision device and then he plugs in a magazine of full tracer rounds as his primary M16 mag (no crew served weapons allowed). He then instructs his guys as part of his OPORD to simply wait for him to fire then focus their fires in a cone around his tracer stream.

So he sets up along a fenceline near the center of the sector and waits. Lo at around 0300 hrs, he spies a whole little group of commies sliding along through the area right into his field of fire. He cuts loose and a moment later the rest of his section cut loose for about 45 seconds non-stop.

He calls for the scouts to roll out and cover his withdrawal into friendly lines. They go back out at dawn and at the ambush site find about three huge puddles of blood and pieces of flesh, guts and brains scattered about near fresh drag marks into North Korea.

Stuff like this has been happening forever, but the public never hears about it because even South Korea is a near police state and the only folks who do get to talk are those soldiers rotating back from their tour of duty. And who do they talk to? Why, other soldiers, of course!

A buddy of mine had one confirmed and one probable from his tour on the Z. He also took an AK round through the flesh of his chest (didn't penetrate the ribcage). This was in the late Seventies sometime.

The confirmed was an interdiction on a 3 man spy team, and the probable was when he was on bridge guard with a 60 and a NOD, and a snorkel was seen in the river.

I spent a year in Korea from 1977-1978 as a helicopter pilot, with a special qualification to fly the border and instruct other pilots in navigating that unlovely piece of terrain. Shooting was a daily occurence there. During my tour there we had a CH-47 Chinook mistakenly fly across the border and was shot down with all killed except the co-pilot. It took some high-level negotiations to get him back. It wasn't highly covered in the news in the States, but we came very close to a war in that week. The day it was shot down I saw C-130's running on the ramp at Seoul AB with Korean paratroopers waiting to board. We loaded weapons and ammo on all of our Chinooks on the flightline, something that is normally never done. It was a scary time.

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