| Home Robert Benson member since 11/8/02 Speakers blare North Korean propaganda, uncharted minefields are steps away and a red phone rings as the trembling hand of Isaac Lopez reaches to answer it. "What have I gotten myself into," he might scribe in a diary that doesn't exist. "I can see movement in the gray buildings day and night, and they're armed North Koreans with binoculars. They watch me. They call out my name on the loudspeakers. From the gutted remains of a building at the end of the 'bridge of no return,' where even I can't go, they're watching. "Across the border, I can see a ghost town. Nobody lives there, but at night, lights come on in the windows ..." Once a VIP visited Lopez, a US Military member who is stationed at the DMZ, and told him he was courageous. This is a place Lopez knows well. Every week, he leaves the comfort of his barracks room in trendy Seoul, Korea, and travels one hour north. He arrives at the spookiest place on the face of the earth: the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. AKA, the DMZ. It's a heavily patrolled area, the only part between the two countries where there's no fence. The mine fields, hidden tunnels, checkpoints and areas with ominous names like "the bridge of no return," make up this uninviting landscape. "At the 'bridge of no return,' we sometimes go looking. We slowly walk halfway across, but no further. There's gutted out shacks on the other side, with armed North Koreans inside. They watch us. We move away, but don't turn our backs as we leave the bridge." Binoculars, bullhorns, walkie-talkies and armed escorts are forever by his side. | |
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