The Tree At Panmunjom Vividly Revisits 1976 Tensions

Miller, a Korea Times columnist who has been writing for the paper since 1999, has published about 15 novels so far, many inspired by his decades of living in Korea. This latest work does an admirable job of immersing readers so deeply that they swelter in the summer heat, jostle about in the two-and-a-half ton trucks as they carry soldiers over bumpy roads to the Joint Security Area and feel the sunshine as it passes between overhead clouds and dapples the mountains visible through the summer haze.

As Davis gradually becomes accustomed to the routines of guard duty in the JSA, a growing undercurrent of tension ebbs and flows until it finally explodes in violence. From that point, more than halfway through the novel, the scenes shift away from Davis to follow the thread of decision-making from the highest offices to the farthest-flung of military bases as a response is formulated and carried out. In this way it shifts from an intimate portrait of one man's service on the frontline to a larger Cold War geopolitical thriller before finally returning to Davis and revealing the lingering weight of these events upon him.

As Miller described it, he wanted the book to be“more than historical fiction” and to“feel authentic” in order to convey the“extraordinary burden carried by those who stood watch in one of the most dangerous places on Earth... knowing that a single misunderstanding could change history.”

The novel grew out of Miller's experience covering the 25th anniversary of the incident for The Korea Times in 2001. At that time, Lieutenant Colonel William Miller (no relation), commander of the Joint Security Area, invited him to attend the commemoration and arranged several special tours of the JSA, which allowed him“to walk the ground where these events unfolded” and“provided an invaluable understanding of Panmunjeom and its history.”

To write the nearly 3,000-word article, he interviewed a number of soldiers who witnessed events that The Tree at Panmunjom describes. Among them were Capt. Bonifas's driver and guard, Mark Luttrull, who“felt some degree of responsibility” for not being present when Bonifas was killed, and who“was probably the only person who volunteered” to be on the ground when the tree was finally cut down, an operation that carried such a potential for disaster that soldiers were ordered to prepare the nearby Camp Liberty Bell for destruction by rigging it with explosives so that it could be detonated if hostilities broke out.

One of the soldiers involved, Wayne Johnson, told the author that many in his unit thought“something might happen and there was about a 50-50 chance that we wouldn't make it out.”

According to Miller, Wayne Kirkbride's book DMZ: A Story of the Panmunjom Axe Murder was an important source of information, but“most of what I learned about the JSA was from Bill Ferguson,” a soldier who witnessed the Axe Murder Incident and gave him a firsthand account of life in the JSA. As Miller put it,“His recollections brought a human dimension to the history that no official report could ever capture.”

One cannot read Miller's descriptions of F-4 fighter jets taking off, with“heat blasting outward in shimmering sheets,” the sound“rattling hangar doors, driving through the body” without suspecting that he brought his own service in the US Air Force to bear upon the novel - something Miller confirmed.