Punchbowl

Last week, on the front north of the Punchbowl, a whole battalion of marines—nearly 1,000 men—was moved to a mountainous front-line sector by helicopter, in the largest operation of its kind to date.

Hill 930 here, about 100 miles northeast of Seoul, just above the village of Wontong, towers over a region still called the Punchbowl because that is what it looked like to G.I.'s during the Korean War.[…] "The Korean War is to all accounts and purposes ignored," said Rudy Basurto of Lompoc, Calif., who was a medic with the 45th Division 33 years ago in the Punchbowl.

Naimo ran to their aid, exposing himself to withering enemy mortar, artillery and machine gun fire sweeping his company’s position: Hill 1052, near what would be called “The Punchbowl,” north of the 38th Parallel.

Our drive north brings us to Haean-myeon valley, a highland basin in the far northeast of South Korea, and which was nicknamed “the punchbowl” by American-led United Nations forces during the Korean war. Jung, KFS biologist Bak Gippeum and I stroll through the 375-acre National DMZ Botanical Garden, which opened four years ago.