Armistice Day – 64 Years Later

After three years and one month, the guns stopped firing, the bombs stopped dropping, and the people stopped dying. The fighting was over. But the war wasn’t.

On July 27, 1953, now remembered as Armistice Day, an agreement was signed, bringing a ceasefire to the ravaged Korean peninsula. 

Wars end with a peace treaty, not just an armistice - a temporary halt to the fighting. In the case of Korea, however, the guns have been silent for 64 years, but North and South Korea are still technically at war. The huge military forces arrayed on both sides of the 38th parallel are testimony to the tension that exists between the two countries. Hostilities could resume at any moment.

Tensions are higher than ever (Courtesy of The Atlantic)

The “peace” between North and South Korea seems to be more tenuous than ever, and as General Vincent Brooks, the commander of United States Forces Korea, stated earlier this month, “Self-restraint, which is a choice, is all that separates armistice and war.”

But after three long years of fighting, why couldn’t the two Koreas agree to a peace treaty? Hadn’t the two sides and their allies suffered enough? Obviously not. In 1953, South and North Korea refused to make concessions with one another.

Syngman Rhee, the President of South Korea, rejected any overtures that might legitimize Kim Il-sung’s regime, and South Korea never signed the armistice agreement. The only reason North Korea’s Kim Il-sung had anything to do with the negotiations is that the two countries that had saved him from total defeat - China and the USSR - demanded he cooperate. Kim had no choice.

Not a good way to enter into an agreement for either side.

The armistice was actually intended to be only a temporary cessation of hostilities and was signed by representatives from the UN Command, North Korea, and China. Not South Korea. Recent offers by South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, to renegotiate a peace treaty have been scorned by Kim Jong-un, who only mocks the “puppet” pro-American leader and his government.

But tomorrow, regardless of what North Korea thinks or says, South Korea and countries around the world will commemorate July 27, 1953. They will honor the Koreans, Americans, and men and women of the 20 other countries of the UN Command in Korea from 1950-1953 who fought and sacrificed to help save the South from communism. It will be a day of remembrance and gratitude for millions of people.

With tensions on the peninsula higher than they’ve been since the signing of the armistice, it will also be a day to remember the importance of vigilance and self-restraint on the Korean peninsula. There’s too much at stake for a lapse of either.