Having spent some time in South Korea, up near the DMZ, I recall how totally unreal the situation was. The awareness that the situation could develop into shooting at any time made it an interesting year. And that was with Kim Jong-un’s relatively sane grandfather in charge.
I too spent some time in Korea when I was a youngster in Uncle Sam’s USAF. The impression I came away with was that if ever war breaks out on the peninsula it’ll be to the hilt…no quarter asked and none given.
Your forgetting how hard it was for Uncle Sam to keep Park Chung He from taking his army North! We had to keep him on a short leash to prevent all out war… It might not have been such a bad idea to turn him loose back then.