Tomb Raider on the 38th Parallel

It's Angelina Jolie's fault I became interested in the Korean War.

A few years ago while filming a movie somewhere in South East Asia she encountered a lot of adults and children with missing limbs. They had been victims of landmines.
She made it her mission to spread the news about the dangers of landmines and urge all countries, the US specifically, to sign a landmine ban- to keep this weapon of war from being used again in the future. She was quoted as saying,

"The most upsetting thing is that the US is a leader in the world, and if they don't sign, then how do you expect to convince Russian and China and Iran, Pakistan, all these other countries, to sign? They simply won't. (The US government) feels it's against their constitutional right to bear arms, or they've said that it's needed in North and South Korea, on the border. I don't think any of these are good enough excuses for the damage."

Being a fan of Miss Jolie and of little kids all over the world, I figured I must also took a look into the landmine situation in Korea.

My inital questions were simple, "Why are there still landmines in Korea?"

My 2nd question was, "If the landmines have been there since the 40's and 50's, aren't people aware of them and keep their kids out of harms way?"


Well...not everything in life is as simple as my little mind would like things to be. Here is what I discovered...




In the late 1940's Communisim was all the rage in Russia, and the Russians had been expanding their territory as best they could. Sometime during the mid- 1940's the Russians had wiggled their way down into N. Korea...see the map below and the little strip of land that connects the 2 countries:



I had always thought it was the communist Chinese who had been perverting the poor North Koreans, but I was wrong! At this point in time the Chinese were not offically a Communist country. American troops went into the southern part of Korea to keep the Soviets at bay. Unlike the sweet baby that was spared by King Solomon, the appendage country of China was split in the middle, right along the 38th parallel. The 2 forces went at it for 4 years. Tired, battle weary, and neither side making any progress, both the Soviets and the US withdrew their men.
Poor Korea, like a pitiful, innocent bit of a girl--had been used and abused and then abandoned by the 2 great men who fought over her. The country was terribly divided, vunerable, and at the mercy of whatever, or whoever might take the lead in the next dance. It was assumed that the "division" of the country would dissolve with the US and the Russians out of the picture, but that did not prove to be the case. A communist leader named Kim Il-Sung took a postion in the North, and the less developed south was led by a man named Syngman Rhee. Rhee was not in a postion of strength.

Sometime between 1947 and 1949 all of China became a Communist country. The Nationalist Chinese leader, Chaing Kai-shek, was defeated by communist Mao-Tse-tung. Chaing fled to Formosa in 1949 and established the government known today as
Taiwan.

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Reader comments*** Blah--Blah--Blah...

****Landmines, I thought this was about landmines!!!! I'm so bored with this I'm ready to step on a landmine!!!! More pics of Angelina? How about another pic of me????














Whew! Glad that is over! Obviously I'm no Angelina Jolie :) But, I had loads of fun trying to take the pic! LOL! Anyway...who can you email? Angelia, or me???
Me of course!
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OK...Back to the landmines...and who planted them along the 38th parallel? The Americans, or the Koreans, or the Soviets?

On June 25th, 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea.

More soon...