Page 11 - Joint Security Force News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The American and South Korean soldiers went off to chop down a poplar tree. Instead, they were chopped into pieces by ax-wielding North Korean soldiers. And what should have been a case of routine landscaping nearly triggered a second Korean War. Thousands of lives could have been lost, and the Korean peninsula devastated as it had been in 1950. All because of a tree, a hot-tempered North Korean lieutenant, and the most heavily armed border zone on Earth. The tale begins on the morning of August 18, 1976, when a United Nations Command work party entered the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Their mission was to trim the branches of a poplar tree that was obscuring the view of UNC observers monitoring the Joint Security Area.

North koreaRepublic ofP yongyang siUnited statesSouth koreaNorth koreansNorth koreanSouth koreanSouth koreansGerald fordPaul bunyanMark barrettUs armyUnited nationsKorean service corpsWhat you need