Hostilities long over, the war never ends

A camouflage helmet cover I use as a lampshade in my writing room is pretty much the only souvenir I have from the Korean War. Its colors are fading, and the twine that holds it together is beginning to fray from the heat of the light globe and from the passage of time itself, but there’s no doubt about what it once was.

The name “Burk” and two stripes of a corporal’s rank are still visible on its side, although growing more difficult to discern after half a century. I found the helmet on the slope of a hill another Marine company had taken at great cost. I never found out what happened to Burk. My own helmet had been blown away by the impact of a mortar shell that had landed nearby, so I took what was handy.

I think about that today because anniversaries always illuminate memories of the specific times they represent, and Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the fighting in Korea. It also established the demilitarized zone, roughly along the 38th parallel, from the Yellow Sea to the Sea of Japan.

I was going to say that Sunday marked the end of the war, but we all know it didn’t. The truce just meant that the shooting stopped. Animosities continue. I’ve been back to Korea twice to visit and to write about it, and on one occasion I went to Panmunjom, where details of the armistice were worked out. A North Korean sentry stood just outside a window, and for a moment, our gazes met and locked.

The expression of hatred in his eyes seemed to burn right out of his soul as we stared at each other, each refusing to be the first to break away. The stare-down ended when a superior officer said something to him, causing the man to leave the post, but not without a backward glance that continued to sizzle with hostility. That look became a metaphor for me for the psychological barrier that divides the two Koreas more severely than any line drawn through the mountains.

Millions of words have been written about that war, and I suspect that thousands more will be written in observance of the anniversary. I hesitated adding to the verbiage, but then decided I owed it to so many I knew during the war who were killed or hurt, physically or emotionally, by the fighting. And so I write.

As I thought about it, the memory of leaving Korea emerged from a morass of emotions. I spent about 15 months there, most of it in a line company, and was finally rotated out. The war itself went on for about another year, by which time I had already begun my career in newspapering, but even then the war was always on my mind.

I came home aboard the troopship William Weigel. We boarded at Inchon after turning in our weapons. I parted reluctantly with my M-1 rifle, still not sure that an army of Chinese wouldn’t come pouring over a distant ridge and we’d have to stand them off, as we’d done many times before.

Even aboard ship I didn’t feel entirely safe until it pulled away from the harbor. Only as the peninsula slipped from view, vanishing slowly into an ocean mist, was I able to relax a little. I said goodbye to Korea quietly, standing at the rail with a salt wind in my face. A rush of emotion filled me and I had to choke back a sob, not for me, because I was safe and physically whole, but for the land itself, for the people, for the dead, for those who remained and for what war had done to all of us. I was not quite 23, but I felt as old as the mountains that we had conquered in blood.

Once I let go of the combat mode that had kept us forever alert, I surrendered to a weariness deeper than I had ever known. I could trust the night again, so I gave in to it, and I could trust the open daylight again, so I slept in it. But always there was that moment in the deepest sleep when the eyes popped open, when the body tingled with wariness at a sound, maybe a whisper, that brought the terror back again.

The world has turned many times in the 50 years since the truce was signed. Hostilities between the two Koreas lessened for a while as talks were held between their leaders. Just last month, railroad tracks joined the north and south across the demilitarized zone. But now the north rattles nuclear sabers, and tensions remain.

I worry about that today as I look at the helmet cover in my writing room, and as I think back to the flammable, hate-filled stare of the North Korean sentry. The fighting may have stopped on that ragged peninsula, and there may be birds singing over the old battlegrounds, but the war isn’t over yet. And I’m not sure it ever will be.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.