Column: As a Korean War correspondent, I am hopeful that this story will finally end

News alert! This just in:

“It appears that the Korean War, which has been contested for the past 68 years, may, in fact, be on the verge of coming to a close.

“The war has been drawing inexorably closer in duration to the notorious Hundred Years’ War (which was more like 116 years; fought from 1337 to 1453), between two royal dynasties, the Plantagenets of England and the Valois of France.

“Jim Carnett who, as a U.S. Army correspondent, covered activities on the peninsula from June 1965 to December 1966, is here to offer his perspective on the Korean War. Jim.”

Thanks, silver-maned anchorperson:

At dawn on Sunday, June 25, 1950, North Korean troops poured south across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the two Koreas. The North was under the leadership of Communist dictator Kim Il Sung, grandfather to today’s “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong Un. During the three-year war, more than 1 million soldiers and civilians died.

A cease-fire was negotiated in 1953, and an armistice signed. But there was no official peace treaty. Technically, the war hasn’t ended.

Fifty-three years ago, I and 4,000 other American GIs steamed out of San Francisco Bay and across the Pacific aboard the 11,500-ton troopship, USNS Gordon, bound for Incheon, South Korea. The Gordon, a slightly weary World War II transport, served as our home for 23 days.

We were packed aboard like sardines.

We entered Incheon Harbor on a sparkling June morning. By the time we disembarked that afternoon it was oppressively hot and humid. The city fringing the bay was squalid and depressing, the air pungent with the odor of summer rice planting.

I arrived in Korea in time for the 15th anniversary observance of the invasion. I remained in country for 18 months and spent my time as a writer for the 8th Army Support Command newspaper and Pacific Stars and Stripes. I grew to love the Korean people.

At that time, the only thing I knew about Incheon was that it’d been the site of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s brilliant 1950 amphibious invasion behind enemy lines, giving the United Nations command a decisive victory.

Pure genius.

A staff sergeant in my company was a Korean War vet with lots of fascinating stories. He was captured by the communists near Seoul in 1950 and held as a POW in North Korea. We drove by Jeep to the very spot where he’d been captured. It was a solemn moment.

The 38th parallel was 30 miles from my Seoul office. Many times over, commanders reminded us: “We’re still at war.” That fact was never lost on me. I spent considerable time covering stories at U.S. facilities along the DMZ.

I had occasion to visit the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone. Panmunjom straddles the border between North and South Korea. Complex and often heated negotiations have been conducted there since the armistice was ratified.

United Nations and North Korean troops guard the Joint Security Area. If you walk into the northern half of the compound you’re on North Korean soil. Young testosterone-fueled GIs, in my day, were instructed not to provoke North Korean guards or even make eye contact.

Over the years, there’ve been innumerable clashes between soldiers stationed on both sides of the DMZ.

On the evening of Nov. 2, 1966, a patrol of U.S. soldiers was ambushed south of the DMZ by North Koreans. Six U.S. soldiers and a South Korean were killed. A seventh American was left for dead.

At the time, I managed the Public Information Office at Ascom City, a U.S. post. We had the only Army morgue in the country, so the bodies were brought to us to be prepared for return home.

GIs felt deep resentment. Their brothers had been assassinated.

In January of 1968 the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence ship, was boarded in international waters by North Korean commandos and captured. The Pueblo was taken to the port of Wonsan and the 82 crew members placed in POW camps.

The crew was released 11 months later.

It seems now that the U.S. and North Korea may be embarked upon a path toward peace.

That gives us all reason for hope.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.