That was a cease fire.
Technically, we are still at war with them.
Correct.
But, let me get this straight...
George W. Bush "WANTS PEACE TALKS WITH N KOREA"?
Commies!?
What are we going to do? Trade with them?
Oh, wait...
This is correct. We've had more than a couple run-ins since 1953. From PBS.org:
Clashes in the DMZ
While the DMZ sits at the eye of the storm in the conflict between North and South Korea, it has also incited violence between the United States and North Korea. Ten years after the DMZ was created, North Korean ground gunners forced a U.S. helicopter from the sky when it crossed into North Korean territory. North Korean officials held the two pilots for a year until the U.S. admitted it had violated the 1953 agreement by crossing the line. Another U.S. helicopter was shot down in 1969, but the crew was released after 109 days in North Korean custody after the U.S. again confessed to violating the truce.
One of the zone's most violent clashes came in 1976, when North Korean troops bludgeoned to death two U.S. military officers who had been trimming branches from a tree in the DMZ to improve their view of the North. Five South Koreans and four other U.S. servicemen were killed in the skirmish. According to U.S. accounts, North Korean soldiers initially agreed to the tree pruning but grew violent as the work went on and attacked. The North Koreans said U.S. troops had attacked their soldiers, sparking the battle.
The incident sparked an angry response from President Gerald Ford, who accused North Korea of "murder" and warned that Pyongyang would bear full responsibility "for the consequences." The U.S. raised the readiness level of its forces in Korea and sent a team of soldiers to cut the tree down three days later. According to U.S. officials, North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung issued a statement calling the deaths "regrettable."
However, not all conflicts in the DMZ have occurred above ground. Tunnels dug under the DMZ have caused repeated diplomatic flares between the two countries. A South Korean patrol group spotted the first of four confirmed tunnels from North Korea in 1974. The group saw steam rising from the ground and thought they saw a hot spring, but instead discovered a tunnel only a foot underground, the Associated Press reports. A second tunnel was discovered in 1975.
In 1978, United Nations Command troops discovered a tunnel that North Korea had dug under the border and into South Korean territory near Panmunjom. The tunnel started at the back slope of a hill on the North Korean side of the DMZ and stretched some 246 feet below the surface for nearly a mile, according to a U.S. News and World Report story. The tunnel, discovered by a South Korean counter-tunneling operation after border guards detected underground explosions, was the deepest and largest of those discovered, large enough to drive a jeep through, U.S. officials said. Although the tunnel is now blocked by a reinforced steel door at the North-South border, the South Korean end now serves as a popular tourist attraction, the Korea Herald reports.
A fourth tunnel was discovered in 1990, crossing some 1,000 yards into the eastern end of the DMZ. U.S. and South Korean officials have denounced all four tunnels as violations of the 1953 truce. North Korea has repeatedly denied accusations they dug the tunnels.
The zone has remained a touchy political subject in democratic South Korea as well. In 1988, South Korean riot police barred the path of a group of 10,000 South Korean students approaching the DMZ from Seoul planning to call for reunification. Some 50 students and policemen were injured in the ensuing clash, while the South Korean government and all three opposition parties urged the students to call off their march, The Economist reported.
In that case, let's defeat them.
Technically, we are still at war with them.
What a novel concept, eh?
"That was a cease fire.
Technically, we are still at war with them. "
I bet more Korean vets are dying of old age than were dying during the war.
Technically, we are still in a UN police action with them.