What I learned from my service in Korea.
From November 2002 to April 2004, I was assigned as an M1A1 Abrams Tank Platoon Sergeant in Blackfoot Troop 4th Squadron 7th Cavalry at Camp Garry Owen near Munsan, Korea. Assigned to Camp Garry Owen, along the Imjin River, we were the most forward-deployed Cavalry squadron in the US Army.
On Christmas Eve night, 2002, we were visited by Ms. Soon Ok Lee. A very soft-spoken, dignified, and appreciative woman. She thanked us for our service on Christmas while far from our homes and families. In 1986, Soon Ok Lee, a supervisor of the material distribution center, was summoned outside to speak to the bureau chief but was quickly whisked away to the train station. She did not return to her family that night. Instead, she was taken to prison, where she endured six years of inhumane treatment.
While in prison, she witnessed the horrendous tortures and mass killings of Christians and could not understand why they stubbornly refused to bend to the government’s demands that they deny their faith. She authored the book “Eyes of Tailless Animals,” which documented her story, and spoke to the US Congress about her experience.
Listening to her harrowing story, I immediately understood why my fellow troopers and I were there on Christmas Eve. Not far from the gymnasium where she spoke was the border where a totalitarian regime had done that to her and countless others. Our now declassified combat mission was to enter the UN Joint Security Area and directly evacuate the UN negotiators as the rest of the 2d Division fell back toward the Hahn River.
Every doorway in the camp was painted with the question, ‘Are you ready to fight tonight?’ We understood that being assigned this close to the DMZ and with this unique mission made our time there not, nor would it ever be a pleasure tour.
The Troop leadership and I regularly attended secret briefings inside the Joint Security Area, where we coordinated and briefed our efforts with the leaders from the R.O.K. Army and US troops assigned to Camp Boniface.
Thankfully, we never had to activate the plan we discussed regularly and prepared for constantly. Had we had to do so, the eyes of the entire world would have been on us. Our life expectancy was short.
The mission was long and arduous, but at its conclusion, I knew what we had accomplished over my 16 months there truly mattered.
South Korea was free.
Cecil H. Greenwell III
(SFC, US Army. ret)
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