United Nations Command Security Forces

The soldiers who serve in the UNCSB-JSA are truly stationed on Freedom's Frontier and stand face-to-face with Communism on a daily basis. It is because of this, that only the highest trained and disciplined soldiers from both armies are assigned to the battalion and proudly wear the blue and white scroll of the battalion.

Early in 1952, in anticipation of the end of the Korean Conflict, the United Nations Command outlined to the Eighth United States Army, Korea, responsibilities in connection with the establishment of the Military Armistice Commission. To comply with this directive, it was necessary to establish a unit which was to provide the necessary facilities and logistical support to the Military Armistice Commission and others engaged in the execution of the Armistice Agreement.

On 5 May, 1952, the United Nations Command, Military Armistice Commission Support Group (Provisional) was organized with an authorized strength of five officers and ten enlisted men. The United Nations Command Advance Camp was established in the vicinity of Munsan ne [UNC Headquarters were actually located east of Munsan at what was later to be known as Camp Pelham.  General Mark W. Clark's office was located in a Quonset hut where he sat at his own desk, which became a museum piece and was toured around the country and displayed at various places up to as late as the 70's.  The building was later designated 'Armistice Hall' and had a sign erected on it.  Courtesy of Ken Leighty, 5 May 2009]. The Support Group provided all necessary logistical support for the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission (UNCMAC), the United Nations sponsored delegations to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) - Switzerland and Sweden, the Custodial Forces, India (CFI), the Non-repatriated Prisoners of War of the Chinese People's Volunteer and the North Korean's People's Army (CPV/KPA), the Delegates of the Preliminary Conferences for Political Conferences (US Department Officials), and the CPV/KPA sponsored delegates of the NNSC (Czechoslovakia and Poland) for transportation and security when traveling south of the Military Demarcation Line. During peak operations from November 1953 to January 1954, the Group required a gross strength of 1,900 personnel for the support of approximately 32,000 people.

By February of 1954, the only remaining elements of the original Group were the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission and the NNSC. The unit was known at the United Nations Command Security Group. Their missions were: To provide for the security of Panmunjom. The command provided 24 hour security for all meetings as well as United Nations Command personnel and their guests within the Joint Security Area. They also controlled the entry into and exit from the Joint Security Area and Military Armistice Commission Headquarters Area. To provide for the Civil Affairs and Security of Tae Song Dong. To operate and maintain the Panmunjom tour program. This included up to 18 tours a day, 6 days a week. To provide logistical support for the NNSC and UNCMAC-related activities. To provide for the security and day-to-day operations of the United Nations Command Advance Camp (Camp Kitty Hawk).

In 1991, major changes took place with the removal of the 2d Infantry Division from the DMZ patrol mission. An additional mission was added: To provide for security patrols within its area of responsibility in the DMZ. The name of Camp Kitty Hawk was changed to Camp Bonifas and Camp Liberty Bell (formerly the 2d ID camp) was annexed and named East Bonifas. The United Nations Command Security Battalion now conducts up to 12 tours per day, 6 days a week. There are an average of 150,000 visitors to the JSA and Panmunjom per year.

Camp Bonifas
Preface by saying that Camp Bonifas, Camp Kitty Hawk and Advance Camp are all one in the same.  They had different names at different times.

Camp Bonifas is the base camp for the United Nations Command Security Force--Joint Security Area. It is located 400 meters south of the southern boundary of the Demilitarized Zone. Camp Bonifas is home to the soldiers who support the Military Armistice Commission at the JSA. In 1991, major changes took place with the removal of the 2d Infantry Division from the DMZ patrol mission. An additional mission was added -- to provide for security patrols within its area of responsibility in the DMZ. The name of Camp Kitty Hawk was changed to Camp Bonifas and Camp Liberty Bell (formerly the 2d ID camp) was annexed and named East Bonifas.

Camps Bonifas and Liberty Bell are two of the forty-two camps north of Seoul authorized Hardship Duty Pay of $150 per month as of 01 January 2001. The Hardship Duty Pay is paid to troops who are permanently assigned to areas where it is authorized or who serve 30 consecutive days of temporary duty in those areas. Several factors are considered in determining whether a location qualified for the pay: climate, physical and social isolation, sanitation, disease, medical facilities, housing, food, recreational and community facilities, political violence, harassment and crime. The extra pay provides meaningful financial recognition to troops assigned in areas where living conditions are substantially below US standards.

The United Nations Command Security Battalion-Joint Security Area (UNCSB-JSA) was established during the Korean War to provide security and logistical support to the United Nation Command elements involved in the ongoing armistice negotiations. The unit was founded on 5 May 1952 and has been stationed at Panmunjom since that date.

Two UNCSB-JSA officers were killed and eight soldiers wounded on 18 August 1976, during the infamous Ax Murderer Incident at Panmunjom when a numerically superior north Korean force attacked the United Nations Command soldiers guarding a civilian work detail trimming a tree inside the Joint Security Area. Previously Camp Kitty Hawk, Camp Bonifas was re-designated on August 18, 1986, ten years after a JSA officer, Captain Arthur G. Bonifas, was slain by North Korean KPA guards wielding pick handles, knives, clubs and axes on August 18, 1976, when they attempted to prune a tree blocking the view between two outposts near the Bridge of No Return. The event is commonly known as "The Ax Murder Incident." A UNC security officer, 1Lt. Mark T. Barrett, was also killed during the clash.

The camp's personnel provide 24-hour security of United Nations Command personnel and their guests within the JSA, and control entry into and exit from the JSA. They also provide security to the villagers of Tae Song Dong and supervision of civil affairs within the village. The soldiers also provide tours to the JSA, usually referred to as Panmunjom. Since the ROK government began allowing civilians to visit, more than 100,000 people tour the JSA each year. Briefings are available in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

The UNC Security Force--JSA is tasked to provide all logistical support and security to all United Nations Command personnel working in the JSA. Members of the camp have been involved in many actions, to include OPERATION BREECHES BUOY, return of the crew of the US S. Pueblo on Dec. 23, 1968; repatriation of 39 South Korean National civilians passengers of the hijacked Korean Air Lines aircraft on Feb. 14, 1970 and OPERATION PAUL BUNYAN which cut down the tree that figured prominently in the "Ax Murder Incident." Their motto, "In Front of Them All," is a reflection of the commitment to helping maintain the peace in a divided country.

For over 45 years, the men of the United Nations Command Security Battalion-Joint Security Area have stood at the front line of freedom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As the most forward-deployed unit on the Peninsula as well as among all the US Armed Forces around the world, the UNCSB-JSA proudly stands face-to-face with aggressive forces to preserve the Armistice and help bring about the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. to stop patrols after 50 years, give more duties to S. Koreans
By Jeremy Kirk, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, April 13, 2004

PANMUNJOM, Korea - From a United Nations conference building along the Koreas' border, Spc. Craig Lau and Pvt. Jorge Fernandez looked out a window at two North Korean soldiers just a few feet away.

For U.S. and North Korean soldiers to be so close is relatively uncommon but the two U.S. soldiers' job, guiding tours in the Joint Security Area, sometimes puts them in such proximity. It's not tense; everyone looks a bit bored - another day on the job on what's termed the world's most dangerous border.

But many American faces soon will disappear from this front line under a plan to give the South Korean military more leverage over its own defense. Already, just a handful of U.S. soldiers still put on camouflage face paint, load live rounds into rifles and take positions within eyesight - and gunshot range - of North Korean soldiers. But later this year, no U.S. troops will patrol the Demilitarized Zone.

Outpost Ouellette, the last U.S.-staffed outpost - it's about 75 feet from North Korea's border - also will be relinquished. The most strategic spot along the DMZ, it commands a panoramic view of barren North Korean hillsides and, on a clear day, Kaesong - closest North Korean city and site of a joint North-South Korean industrial complex.

The missions will be turned over as part of a reorganization of U.S. forces in South Korea, including returning smaller bases to the South Korean government. It marks U.S. forces' gradual pullback from the DMZ, a move partly inspired by high-tech, long-range weapons that make distance less important during a fight, U.S. officials have said.

It's also a nod to the South Korean military's increased ability, U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Leon J. LaPorte told Congress recently. A small U.S. contingent will remain as part of the U.N. Command's Joint Security Battalion, with a U.S. officer in charge, he said.

U.S. Forces Korea could provide no time line for the duty transfer.

The current battalion - 60 percent South Korean, 40 percent American - posts guards in the Joint Security Area - tall South Korean soldiers wearing mirrored sunglasses and standing in modified tae kwon do (martial arts) stances.

As Lau told a tourist last week, the sunglasses hide guards' eye movements. North Korean soldiers who don't wear them, he contended, look undisciplined when their eyes move.

The U.N. Command is a U.S.-led, 15-nation consortium which monitors the Armistice Agreement that ended Korean War fighting in July 1953. The DMZ may appear tranquil but the command investigated 22 armistice infractions over the past year and reported 13 major violations, LaPorte said. Those incidents have included firing weapons and illegal crossings of the Military Demarcation Line, the official border that splits the DMZ, he said.

In July 2003, North and South Korean troops exchanged fire between guard posts. But no Americans have been injured for years, officials said. Since the war's end, though, at least 89 Americans have died from ambushes, downed aircraft, land mines and other actions, military records show.

Those deaths peaked in the late 1960s but the incidents at that time often went un-remarked because dozens of Americans then were dying weekly in Vietnam, said William Hollinger, an operations officer with 7th Infantry Division in Korea in 1968-69. As he wrote in his book, "The Fence Walker": "If we're killed on a patrol or a guard post, crushed in a jeep accident or shot by a nervous GI on the fence, no one will ever write about us in the Times or erect a monument or read a Gettysburg Address over our graves. There's too much going on elsewhere; what we're doing is trivial in comparison. We'll never be part of the national memory." Hollinger wrote that the DMZ then was a wasteland of artillery craters, barbed wire, minefields, graveyards and skeletons of villages. U.S. and South Korean forces recorded hundreds of nighttime firefights with North Koreans.

In 1967 and 1968, with U.S. attention on Vietnam, North Korea waged an aggressive campaign of infiltration and provocations against South Korea, according to both military records and soldiers' recollections.

For instance, Don M. Lopez was a 20-year-old private when he served as an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment along the DMZ in 1969. "We'd get shot at occasionally. They weren't pitched battles or any serious firefights but they'd snipe at us," said Lopez, a software engineer now living in Pocatello, Idaho.

Lopez runs www.imjinscout.com, a site with photos and recollections of U.S. soldiers who worked along the DMZ when 2nd Infantry Division troops wore an "Imjin Scouts - DMZ" patch.

Lopez said DMZ duty generally was unpleasant: nights in foxholes with sleepy GIs as North Koreans cut the fence lines to infiltrate the south. He remembers North Korean propaganda blared over loudspeakers, such as, "GI go home before we slit your throat!"

By 1971, the U.S. had transferred jurisdiction of an 18.5-mile sector of the DMZ from the 2nd Infantry Division to the 1st Republic of Korea Army Division. A month later, the 7th ID - around 18,000 troops - was pulled out of South Korea after 24 years of service.

In 1991, the U.S. military relinquished its last full sector of the DMZ. Now it only conducts patrols around Tae Sung Dong, the DMZ's only inhabited village, and Outpost Ouellette.

If conflict were to erupt, officials have said, the U.N. Command - led by LaPorte - would head an international force working with the Combined Forces Command, the U.S.-South Korean integrated war-fighting headquarters also led by LaPorte.

"Today the members of the United Nations Command coalition in Korea remain vigilant in an uneasy peace," LaPorte said.

Article courtesy of www.imjinscout.com