Chuck Bryant

And a firefight started that resulted in the deaths of three North Koreans and one UN Command South Korean soldier.

And it was a huge, again, an international incident because some of the North Korean troops had run across the demarcation line to chase after the defector.

Yeah, for sure.

So everyone is like pretty happy and considered a success, except for Kissinger, of course.

The North Koreans backed down really quickly, so it really didn't give him any chance during this election year to kind of...

tout some big victory of America.

I mean, it was a victory, but I don't think it was like some huge international news thing.

He still wanted them to have blown up the barracks or to have taken out like a warship or two as a big show of force.

So everyone was pretty stoked, except for old Henry.

So they left that poplar tree there as a reminder, a monument of sorts, actually, until the 10th anniversary of the axe murder incident on August 18th, 1986.

They pulled the tree out, stump and all, roots and all, and replaced it with a memorial.

And there's a plaque on it that reads, on this spot was located the yellow poplar tree, which was the focal point of the axe murders of two United Nations command officers,

Kepna Arthur Boniface and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, who were attacked and killed by North Korean guards while supervising a work party trimming the tree on 18 August 1976.

And it's just so plainly put without any flowery language that it also just kind of gets across the horrible absurdity of the whole thing.

Yeah, for sure.

And just a few years ago in 2022, there was a sort of a joint show of not friendship, but like maybe we should kind of literally put this to rest by planting a tree.

I think the presidents of the two countries got together in the JSA to plant a pine tree of peace.

And they took turns shoveling soil from each side, watered it with rivers from each side.

And the pine tree of peace became, you know, and right now is sort of a big symbol of kind of what happened there.

And maybe let's try and just chill things out a little bit.