Security· Korean War
DMZ Establishment
With the signing of the armistice, the shooting war gave way to the careful, tense work of disengagement.
The 1st Marine Division pulled back from its hard-held positions along the Jamestown Line and established its portion of the Demilitarized Zone, the buffer strip drawn along the final battle line that separated the opposing armies. The Marines withdrew from their forward outposts and main line of resistance, dismantled or abandoned the fortifications they had bled to hold, and took up new positions behind the southern boundary of the zone. They organized to police the demilitarized strip and guard against violations of the fragile truce, a mission that demanded vigilance without provocation. The establishment of the DMZ marked the transition from active combat to armed watchfulness, the institutional foundation of the long armistice that would follow. For the Marines who had fought the outpost war, it was the strange quiet of a war stopped rather than won.
Record no. 645