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What the DMZ meant to me (part 3 of 3)

© Athan Rodostianos

"That down there, that little bridge, well, that's the Bridge of No Return. Yep, that's it, that's the bridge."

I got the idea. Politely, I made my way to the front of the crowd and looked down. I knew that the bridge was where the prisoners of war had been released following the signing of the truce. They had been given the option of going either way, north or south, but once they crossed there was no going back.

At the south end of the bridge stood the now disused UN 'Checkpoint 4' while the north end was adorned by the dreary gray North Korean checkpoint. Incongruously a permanent concrete wall blocked off the northern access to the little bridge that spans the MDL.

As I idly tossed around the contradiction of the 'Bridge of No Return' only having one end open, someone handed me a pair of field glasses and motioned me to look at the guard post on the far bank.

Eagerly I brought the little building into focus only to be confronted by a pair of binoculars pointed straight back at me.

With surprising speed and clarity I recalled the 'Mexican stand off scene' I'd viewed in so many of the old westerns I used to watch as a kid, and wondered whether John Wayne had ever felt the same chill that had just run through me.

Nervously, deliberately, I broke the visual contact and moved my field of view to the three Koreans working on the ditch just a few meters south of the out of bounds markers.

As they went about their business they seemed oblivious to the fact that they were as close as any living person on this planet to the last vestige of the Cold War. Perhaps, like us, they had been warned not to make any gestures or movements that may later be used as propaganda by the North Koreans.

Their movements, as they went about their daily business, however, belied no concern that those men in the drab olive uniforms across the border were painstakingly monitoring them. Nor did they pay much attention to another busload of tourists who'd come to gawk at the sideshow.

They most likely didn't notice us being ushered off to board the bus for the final short leg back to Camp Bonifas, where the souvenir shop and lunch waited.

As I solemnly turned to turned to leave, my irreverence somewhat subdued, I chanced a glance over my shoulder, wanting one last glimpse of the place I had come to see. Rose still stood there, alone, her gaze locked onto the bridge below.