I agree with you. Some people here seem to think our military in Korea are a bunch of pussies who will just allow the North to surround them, anniliate them, or push over them. Ain't gonna happen. 39,000 Americans versus a million North Koreans? Hardly. Don't forget the almost million South Korean military plus the 39,000 USA troops. And an attacker, especially using old WWII type mass attack tactics needs a 4:1 ration in forces. The defenders have interior lines of resupply and communications. The attackers must move thru, not wait and ambush. Don't be surprised if the defenders put up a very good and stiff resistance while WE punish the mass of forces waiting behind the point of embarkation.
The whole plan of the North is the old Soviet plan of invasion of Europe our Army trained for for over 40 years Germany. Our response had that happened was to hit the resupply and mass of troops behind the spearheads. I would not want to be a North Korean grunt waiting to jump off when all hell falls on them from the sky. Remember what we did to the Iraqis fleeing Kuwait on the road to Baghdad. It would be a turkey shoot. The North still has to get thier armies into the South. It's not like the whole million-man army steps left foot first across the DMZ all at once. They have areas they'll concentrate at, and it is there they'll die.
Anyone who served in Korea and knew the score knows that the situation isn't as rosy as some like to think. There's no way that the North Koreans could actually win, but the actual fighting would cause tens of thousands of casualties. Neither we nor the ROK army are pushovers, but the effect of 10,000 hardened artillery sites firing several times a minute for hours or days on end would knock any miliary on its rear at first. Given the attention that the American troops and barracks would recieve (not like the North doesn't know where all of our stuff is), we would be looking at devastaing casualties.
Sure, we'd come back and stomp them like cockroaches. But their sucker punch is a daisy, and America needs to be ready to look at 20,000 casualties and not be suprised.