2ID Veterans Return to Korea to Remember Soldiers Lost in the “DMZ War”

It is good to see that 2ID is honoring the veterans that served during the period of what has since been known as the DMZ War which few Americans or even military servicemembers know about:

Bob Haynes expected to be sent to fight in the rapidly escalating war in Vietnam like other men his age in the mid-1960s. Instead, he was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division’s Camp Stanley, a world away from Southeast Asia’s steamy jungles.

“I looked at my orders and said, ‘Where the hell is Korea?’ ” said the McHenry, Ill., resident, now 67.

On Haynes’ first night at the Demilitarized Zone, North Korean forces launched a pre-dawn ambush on a 2ID patrol that killed six Americans and one South Korean soldier just a half-mile south of the heavily patrolled border. A seventh American was wounded.

When he learned of the skirmish, Haynes, then 19, was shocked.

“I turned to my buddy and said, ‘It’s too cold to be Vietnam here. What’s going on?’ ”

For Haynes and other 2ID soldiers, the November 1966 skirmish highlighted the ongoing danger of being stationed near the DMZ within close proximity of North Korean forces, even as the simmering conflict on the peninsula was overshadowed by the war in Vietnam.

Haynes returned along with 17 other 2ID veterans to mark the division’s 50th anniversary Wednesday. One of their first stops was a memorial at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan that lists the 130 U.S. and South Korean troops killed in combat since the 1953 armistice, including those who died in the 1966 ambush.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.