MORNING CALM TALES How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Kimpo International Airport (now Gimpo), published in The Korea Times Dec. 7, 1994 / Korea Times Archive

In the spring of 1994, a crisis erupted when a North Korean official declared, during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at Panmunjeom, “Seoul is not far from here. If there is a war, it will become a sea of fire.”

Ah, diplomacy. Always so subtle.

It was a chilling statement, especially for those of us living just 35 miles south of the DMZ, going about our daily lives with more concern for lesson plans and lunch menus than worrying about North Korea. For me, the remark barely registered at first. If ignorance is bliss, I must have been somewhere between blissfully unaware and just plain uninformed about the threat posed by North Korea.

North Korea had, for the most part, been off my radar. Aside from the night I arrived in Seoul in 1990 and witnessed armed soldiers patrolling the airport, the North Korean threat only crossed my mind during military checkpoints for visits to Ganghwa Island and Mount Seorak and during the monthly civil defense drills. If I had been more informed about modern Korean history, I might have been surprised at the extent of the threat posed by North Korea.

Since the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, North Korea had tested the patience of the international community again and again. The border war along the DMZ between 1966 and 1969 — sometimes referred to as the "Second Korean War" — was marked by skirmishes and infiltrations that resulted in hundreds of casualties. This period coincided with South Korea’s military involvement in Vietnam, during which both the White Horse and Tiger divisions were deployed. North Korea, perhaps seeing a divided ally, took the opportunity to stoke tensions and test boundaries, possibly hoping to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States.

And it didn’t stop there. In January 1968, North Korean commandos brazenly attempted to assassinate President Park Chung-hee in an operation straight out of a Cold War thriller. Just days later, they seized the USS Pueblo, capturing its crew and igniting an international crisis that would drag on for the remainder of the year.

A map showing where the events of the Blue House raid unfolded, published in The Korea Times Jan. 23, 1968. Korea Times Archive

As a side note, I’ve often wondered — if the North’s goal was to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea — did those two events, coming just days before North Vietnam's Tet Offensive, serve as a kind of opening act for what was to come at the end of the month? A way to catch the U.S. off guard, maybe even shift its attention back toward the Korean Peninsula? Was it all just a coincidence? Or something more deliberate — a quiet understanding between Kim Il-sung and Ho Chi Minh to stretch America’s resolve across two volatile fronts? Pure speculation, of course. But the timing was uncanny, and the dots — well, they practically beg to be connected.

Whether coordinated or not, the North wasn’t finished. In April 1969, North Korea escalated tensions again by shooting down a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane over the East Sea, killing all 31 crew members — the largest single loss of life aboard an American aircraft during the Cold War. That same year, President Richard Nixon announced the Guam Doctrine, signaling a shift in U.S. foreign policy and a gradual drawdown of ground forces abroad, including the withdrawal of the 7th Infantry Division from South Korea.

But if the U.S. was stepping back, North Korea was stepping forward — with shovels. In the 1970s, South Korean forces discovered three infiltration tunnels running beneath the DMZ. Each was large enough to move thousands of troops per hour — proof that if diplomacy didn’t pan out, the North had a more direct route in mind. A fourth tunnel was discovered in 1990, just a few years before the events of this story.

Then came the infamous axe murder incident of 1976, when two U.S. Army officers were killed while trimming a tree in the Joint Security Area. A tree.

The weapons used in the 1976 axe murder incident are displayed in a building on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area, in September 2018. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

That moment marked a turning point. Afterward, North Korea began shifting tactics — from direct confrontation to state-sponsored terrorism. The list is grim and deliberate: a failed assassination attempt on President Chun Doo-hwan in Myanmar in 1983, a bombing at Kimpo International Airport (now Gimpo) in 1986 and the downing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987 — a calculated, brutal attempt to derail the Seoul Olympics before the torch was ever lit.

The objective remained unchanged through it all: reunification of the Korean Peninsula — by force if necessary — and with subtlety employed only when absolutely unavoidable.

Had I absorbed even a fraction of this history at the time, I might have thought twice about coming to South Korea at all. And yet, like so many of my peers, I took comfort in the belief that war was unlikely. The Cold War had ended without catastrophe, and the U.S. still maintained a formidable military presence on the peninsula. More than 37,000 American troops were stationed here, and the Second Infantry Division sat just south of the DMZ — serving as what some strategically (and somewhat grimly) referred to as a "tripwire."

The thinking went that if the North attacked, incurring American casualties, the U.S. would have no choice but to respond. That was the logic of deterrence — reassuring from a distance, but considerably less so if you were the tripwire.

Which brings us back to where my narrative began: the spring of 1994.

Patriot missiles arrive in South Korea following a comment by a North Korean delegate that Seoul could become a "sea of fire" in the event of war, published in The Korea Times April 19, 1994. Korea Times Archive

Back then, our access to news wasn’t anything like it is today. There were no push notifications, no doomscrolling, no frantic real-time social media threads. We relied on The Korea Times and The Korea Herald, or the occasional copy of USA Today or the International Herald Tribune (if you got to the kiosk before someone else beat you to it). CNN’s Headline News broadcast, courtesy of AFKN, rounded out our diet of world affairs.

And what a diet it was. The headlines that spring were heavy on acronyms and short on reassurance. North Korea had withdrawn from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), refused access to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and generally behaved like a country trying out for a James Bond villain audition. NPT and IAEA — quite the alphabet soup for an average English teacher more accustomed to parsing the nuances of present tense and present progressive. Little did we know that the distinctions in tenses would soon be overshadowed by more pressing global concerns.

Villains played by Will Yun Lee, left, and Rick Yune, center, interact with James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) in "Die Another Day" (2002). Korea Times file

Beyond the linguistic intricacies, the crux of the matter lay in North Korea’s hesitancy, signaling a reluctance to permit IAEA inspectors into areas they considered restricted. Tensions heightened as North Korea issued threats against the South, injecting a new layer of complexity into an already delicate situation.

And that’s when the narrative took a fascinating turn.

Around the water cooler and the staff room in the mornings, the question wasn’t if something would happen, but when. Should we stay? Should we go? It wasn’t panic, exactly — more of a quiet unease that settled over us like Seoul's yellow dust. Everyone had an opinion, and no one had enough facts. There was no fake news, just a surplus of hearsay, speculation and the occasional embassy rumor passed along like folklore.

At Yonsei’s Foreign Language Institute, our contracts included a clause about “school closure” in the event of an “incident.” Comforting, in a legalistic sort of way. However, as the situation escalated, the big question was whether the U.S. Embassy would issue an evacuation order. And if they did, what about the Canadians? Australians? Brits? Would their embassies follow suit, or would they be left flipping coins and checking airline prices?

Our head of studies called an emergency staff meeting. She calmly informed us that the institute would close if the U.S. Embassy advised American citizens to evacuate. Cue the uneasy glances from the non-Americans in the room.

Despite the tension, no one was packing their bags just yet. The $64,000 question was this: if you left, and the crisis blew over, would you be welcomed back? Or would you be labeled a flight risk the next time Pyongyang rattled its saber?

The atmosphere crackled with the weight of choices — some immediate, others with long shadows. The high-stakes game of chicken rolled on, only now it felt personal. Each of us was left to chart our own uncertain course, hoping the crisis would fizzle out before we were forced to make the kind of decision that could change everything.

Some people did leave. A friend from the Netherlands, who was studying Korean at Yonsei, was told by her embassy to return home. One of our instructors, married to a nuclear engineer, said her husband’s company advised families to leave while they could. Flights out of Kimpo were reportedly packed. Rumors swirled of people hoarding batteries, bottled water and instant noodles—the Holy Trinity of Korean emergency preparedness.

People line up inside the departure terminal of Kimpo International Airport (now Gimpo), published in The Korea Times Oct. 31, 1989. Korea Times Archive

In the face of rising anxiety, one of my colleagues coped the only way he knew how — with cardboard, scissors and a twisted sense of humor. He created what he proudly dubbed the 'Kim Il Sung Nuclear Armageddon Meter,' complete with a magazine cutout of the Dear Leader’s head and movable arms that pointed to various threat levels, ranging from “All Clear” to “Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.” Each morning, he’d solemnly adjust the arms based on whatever sliver of news or rumor he’d overheard. It was gallows humor at its finest, and while a few of us appreciated the absurdity, others weren’t exactly laughing.

One June night, as tensions simmered, a small group of us gathered at a local pub near Yonsei University. The mood was strange — part reflection, part denial, part OB Lager. We passed around bowls of shrimp crackers and shared the same unspoken thought: could this really be it?

Talk turned to evacuations, to war stories, to comparisons with Kuwait and Iraq. Would we become ESL martyrs, remembered in future editions of Time and Newsweek? Would anyone back home understand how surreal it all felt?

One teacher raised a glass and declared that if war broke out, he’d climb to the roof with a bottle of wine and enjoy the fireworks. It sounded defiant at the time, but in hindsight, it probably owed more to beer than bravery.

Another older expat brought us back down to earth. “If the missiles start flying,” he said quietly, “you’ll be lucky to have time to kiss your ass goodbye.”

He wasn’t wrong. North Korea had artillery — a lot of it — just beyond the DMZ, positioned with grim precision and capable of turning Seoul into rubble within minutes. Those of us imagining last-minute escapes to the airport weren’t thinking about the bridges — how they’d likely be among the first targets. If the crisis deepened, what would the U.S. do? Would there be a strike on the South's nuclear reactors? Would there be time for anything at all? We didn’t talk about it openly, not really. But beneath the surface, past the jokes and the routines we clung to, there was fear. Quiet, persistent and very real.

It wasn’t until 1997, when I read Don Oberdorfer’s "The Two Koreas," that I realized just how close the U.S. had come to launching a strike on the North’s nuclear facilities. That alone was sobering. But what truly unsettled me was learning that North Korea had artillery pieces tucked into mountain tunnels, mounted on rails — ready to fire thousands of shells into the South within the first 24 hours. If we’d known then what we know now, I imagine our bravado would have worn thinner. We might’ve been less cavalier. Or far more panicked. Or both, depending on the hour.

Fortunately, the spring term was winding down, and many of us had vacation plans. Leaving Korea didn’t feel like fleeing — it felt like a well-timed getaway with plausible deniability. Still, I updated my CV before heading off to Thailand — just in case the situation escalated while I was poolside.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, front row right, and then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, front row center, talk together in Pyongyang June 16, 1994, for talks resulting in an eight-year freeze of the country's nuclear weapons program. The Carter Center-Yonhap

Then came a flicker of hope. On June 16, former President Jimmy Carter strolled across the border at Panmunjeom, met with Kim Il-sung, talked diplomacy and somehow accomplished what decades of saber-rattling had failed to do. He de-escalated the crisis.

The very next day, all the Foreign Language Institute teachers lined up for a commemorative photo in front of the FLI building, celebrating the 100th graduation. It felt weirdly out of step with reality — like grinning for a yearbook photo in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The following day, I boarded a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok.

The crisis was over.

This time.

Teachers from Yonsei Foreign Language Institute pose for a group photo in front of their building on the university's Seoul campus June 17, 1994. Courtesy of Jeffrey Miller

Jeffrey Miller is the author of several novels including "War Remains," a story about the early days of the Korean War, and "No Way Out," a thriller set in Seoul in 1990.