August 15, 1970: A Visit to the Buddhas at Yongmi-ri
	August 8, 1970: A Trip to Recreation Center #1
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Today, I have to make a trip up north to the installation at Blue Lancer Valley, about 40 miles north of Camp Howze. The Finance Office has had a Class B Agent there for a couple of months as the finance liaison with a number of units that are doing training in the area. (A Class B Agent is not a member of the Finance Corps, but rather an officer appointed to represent the Finance Office in an area where only a temporary presence is needed.)

Once again, PFC Kim will be driving me on our trip north. The units that have been training in the area around Blue Lancer Valley will be going back to their permanent bases soon, and the Class B Agent is winding up his duties.

Part of those duties involved our opening an "account" for him in Second Division Finance, and "depositing" some funds in it for him to use; that was just on paper, as we gave him actual cash. Now that his tenure is ending, I have to do an audit of his transactions and make sure that the funds we get back are correct. Then I can have LTC Fuentes issue a release of liability to the agent.

This shouldn't take very long, as the Agent reported that he had not been very busy during his 3-month tenure, so I am hoping that when we are through, PFC Kim can take me close to the DMZ, as I have not yet been there and would like to say I have been.

Between Camp Howze and Paju-ri, we drove through familiar countryside (although I'll admit that one rice paddy looks just like another). I say "familiar countryside" because we have driven this road before, heading north recently to RC#1. It was a beautiful morning, although the day promised to be very warm.

It is Summer, and warm. The railroad is the one that used to go to Paris.

The rice is tall and green; the countryside is certainly beautiful (at least on good days).

As usual, we went north around what is today Paju-ri; my narratives refer to the area as Munsan, or Munsan-ni, as this was the name it had during my tour of duty here.

This is the main street of Munsan, and as you can see, it rained last night (which is why the air is so clear this morning).

This is part of Munsan's central marketplace.

Munsan is today an administrative area in the larger city of Paju; when I was here, they were entirely separate. It lies on the south bank of the Imjin River, close to the edge of the Demilitarized Zone and near Panmunjom and the Joint Security Area. Munsan has a heavy military presence because of the proximity to the South Korean border with North Korea. At the time of the Korean War it was known as Munsan-ni. Most of the installations near Munsan and Paju, including Camp Howze, are now closed, and now Panmunjom/JSA is the major installation left.

Heading over to Blue Lancer Valley, I spent a couple of hours with the Class B Agent, winding up his affairs and gathering up all his documents and remaining MPC. Then, with some time remaining, I asked PFC Kim to drive us the couple of miles to Libby Bridge.

This is just south of the Imjin River. And yes, the cart's wheels are not vertical (why, I am not sure). It is certainly a nice day for a drive.

This is the small town of Jangpa, which is quite close to Libby Bridge and to the Imjin River.

Soon, we came out by the river and Libby Bridge.

Libby Bridge

Libby Bridge was constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1952, at the height of the Korean War. It was needed to allow US troops to get men and materiel across the Imjin River. Now, in 1970, it is one of three bridges across the Imjin that date from that period.

Inset Picture Description

Libby Bridge crosses into the DMZ; obviously, a company-grade officer in the Finance Corps doesn't have the authority to just drive across the bridge, so we could not cross it of course. I had PFC Kim park the Jeep at the south end of the bridge, just outside the MP control point, so I could get the photo of the bridge, above, and of Kim and our Jeep, at left.

PFC Kim is our regular driver, and the Jeep you see here is assigned to the Finance Office (although it is kept in the motor pool when we are not using it). Kim is a KATUSA- a Korean technically in his country's army, but physically under the control of ours. He is 21, and a former cab driver.

If you look closely at my picture of the bridge, you will see an official vehicle returning across the bridge. It is my understanding that the Korean and US military don't need to coordinate with North Korea to enter the DMZ, but to actually go right up to the border that runs down through the middle of the DMZ does require at least coordination. When there isn't any (something I witnessed later in my tour), it becomes an official "incident".

Note from the present:
I could not find much information on the bridge itself, but there was one website that had a description of it and what happened with it subsequent to my tour. Here is what that website noted:

"Libby Bridge, which was built during the Korean War, used to be a military road that also served as a travel path for farming residents in the north of the Civilian Control Line, and it was shut down for safety reasons in 2016. Taking National Route 37, you can see the overall view of the Libby Bridge on the way to the upper stream of Imjingang River. The City of Paju is currently working to have the Libby Bridge registered as the Modern Cultural Heritage and to develop the Bridge as a tourist site."

On the way back from our trip up to Blue Lancer Valley, I found two scenes playing out that were definitely worth taking pictures of. But I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression. In Seoul, and even in most of the smaller cities, day-to-day activities are carried out in much the same way, and with basically the same technology, as they might be in a lower-middle-class household. Washing clothes is an example. In Seoul, I have seen laundries, and I can only assume that at least some inviduals have washing machines; after all, Korea actually manufactures them. (The number of clothes I have seen drying on lines leads me to believe that clothes dryers are scarce outside large laundry establishents.

But like rural areas in America in the 1920s, rural areas in Korea today rely very little on mechanization and technology, and the two pictures I took on our way back illustrate this.

Driving back South, we passed this mother and her kids washing dishes. All along the road, where the rainwater flows, women can be found, using the "clean" water. At one place, a woman washed clothes downstream from a boy washing his dog.

Here are some Korean women doing their laundry. I suppose this is the Korean equivalent of the wringer washer on the back porch.

Once again, getting out of Camp Howze and into the Korean countryside was illuminating, and I hope I have more experiences like this during my thirteen-month tour.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	August 15, 1970: A Visit to the Buddhas at Yongmi-ri
	August 8, 1970: A Trip to Recreation Center #1
	Return to Index for 1970