Is the bugle still calling, or have its echoes begun to fade?

SEOUL, Republic of Korea – It’s not strange, I believe, to be writing about the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon from South Korea – thousands of miles away from those scenes of awful carnage and terrible loss.

Exactly a year ago, a date trivialized by tag-writers into "9-11" (making the horrible event sound like a crap or computer game), New York City and Washington, DC suddenly and unexpectedly became America’s "front line" in a battle that, I suspect, will continue to be waged even after the Bush presidency.

Over here, the DMZ and the 38th Parallel have been America’s front line for almost half a century, since the end of brutal three-year Korean War in 1953 – the psychological scars of which still remain among the elderly in this "Land of the Morning Calm."

A sign of America’s long-lasting preparedness at this hoary line of defense – some sneer at it as a "relic of the Cold War", while Dubya last January dubbed threatening North Korea a nexus of "The Axis of Evil" – is the presence of 37,000 US troops and airmen all over the southern part of this Peninsula. There’s Yongsan Army Garrison in the heart of Seoul. Then Camp Casey (Tongduch ‘On); Camp Red Cloud (Uijongbu); Osan Air Base (Songt’an); Camp Humphrey’s (Pyongt’aek); Kunsan Air Base (Kunsan); Camps Walker, Henry and George (Taegu); Camp Hialeah (Pusan), which Koreans frequently spell Busan; and other smaller installations.

Why? At any minute, despite the persistence of President Kim Dae-Jung’s "Sunshine Policy", the unpredictable North Korean "Great Leader" Kim Jong-Il – a recluse and xenophobic who’s travelled only by ail to China and Russia (and has no first hand knowledge of the rest of the rest of the planet) – might send his 1.1 million man army barreling south. All that separates that half-starved "power" up north from Seoul (just an hour by slow car from the border) is the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom. But, as one American grunt remarked some years ago, "There ain’t no D in the DMZ." There they are – armed to the teeth – the front elements of those one million North Koreans versus 660,000 South Korean troops and 37,000 yanks, some of the latter not fully sure what they’re doing there.

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For all the residual "threat" of attack – very few here really think about it any more (which is dangerous) – Seoul is booming. The Koreans – tough, tenacious and patriotic, have recovered from the recession – if not exactly bounced back. They’re on the move.

My last visit to Seoul was about six years ago, in the course of which I had an audience with former President Kim Young-Sam in the Blue House (their Malacañang). Last Tuesday, our group of visiting editors and publishers met with President Kim Dae-jung in another wing of that huge palace, called the "Blue House" because of its massive roof of shining blue tiles.

In yesterday’s column, I made the mistake of saying that President Kim’s term would end this December. The fact, is that his successor, who’ll be elected in December, will take over the presidency in February, not January.

Yesterday, in turn, we interviewed the dynamic Rep. Chung Mong-joon, the opinion-poll favorite for next December’s presidential elections. This member of the Korean National Assembly prefers to style himself "Dr. Chung Mong-joon", perhaps to emphasize that he’s not just a jock.

Indeed, Dr. Chung has a B.A. in economics and an M.A. in international economics from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. He then went on to study at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) – my alma mater, too – in Washington, DC, receiving a further Master’s in 1993. He then received an honorary Doctorate from the Baruch College, University of Maryland, as well as Ph.D.s from the Myung Ji University and National University, and another doctorate from the Korean National University, this time in Physical Education.

His wife, with whom he has four children, is also a political asset. Young Myoung Kim, graduated from Wellesley College, has an M.A. in Fine Arts from American University. She is also the daughter of Dong Jo-kim, a former minister of foreign affairs.

Chung, who’s serving his fourth term in the National Assembly, started out in politics in 1988 at the age of 36. He’s been accused, of course, of being buddy-buddy with big business, coming as he does from the family which built up the powerful Hyundai conglomerate (chaebol?) and having served as chairman of Hyundai Heavy Industries, the largest shipbuilders in the world. (He remains an "adviser" to the company).

His greatest claim to popularity and fame, on the other hand, is that he is president of FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), president of KFA (Korea Football Association), and co-chairman of KOWOC — the Korean Organizing Committee that mobilized the amazing 2002 FIFA World Cup finals which saw Korea’s fighting "Red Devils" almost reach the finals, the first and only Asian team to have done so in the history of football.

Will this fame be enough for Chung to be "kicked" into the goal of victory? At this moment, apparently, he’s on a roll.

Chung yesterday, though, asked us not to announce he’s a candidate for president yet – which sounds funny since every newspaper has been saying he is. There was even an item yesterday morning about his having met in a "secret meeting" last Sunday with Kim Jong-pil, leader of the Conservative United Liberal Democrats (ULD) which holds 14 seats in the 272-member National Assembly. It’s clear the meeting was really no secret and that Chung is recruiting allies.

His formal "announcement", he announced to us, will be on September 17. When a Japanese correspondent pointed out that from the viewpoint of capturing front page space this would be a "bad day", since it coincided with the Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s very high-profile first visit to Pyongyang and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Il, Dr. Chung smiles and said that this was the "only date" in which he could get a slot for his announcement in the Assembly – "and if I changed the date (he grinned), people mighty say I was wishy-washy." (He meant, obviously, urong-sulong.)

Chung told our group of editors at the Asia-Europe Press Forum 2002 (in his Emerald Room press conference) that he anted to be "a different kind of candidate – and to make a difference." Naturally, that’s what they say both here and in the Philippines. He pledged to stay within the campaign "expense" limit of US$30 million (wow), although, he alleged, most candidates used to spend ten or even 15 times that amount to win the presidency.

"I want to be a fair winner," he asserted, "and, if I lose, I want to be a good loser."

When it was pointed out that his base of support seemed to be the young, and, "as everyone says, the young people in Korea don’t bother to vote," Chung cheerfully retorted: "The youth didn’t go to the polls in the past because they felt they didn’t have a candidate who mirrored their desires and ideals: This time, hopefully, I’ll ask them to show up."

When he was on the way out, I shook his hand and wished him luck. He held out his hand for my card, smiling broadly: "I hope to invite you to my inauguration."

I won’t hold my breath about the prospect of Chung inviting me, but as for his winning – his prospects look good.

But there’s many a slip, as Bill Shakes (or was it Shakespeare?) once said, twixt cup and lip.

Another impressive candidate for the presidency we had a session with yesterday was Roh Moo-Hyun of President Kim’s Millennium Democratic Party. He had been personally hand-picked by the Chief Executive, but faces a mini-revolt within his own MDP, since some leaders like former Prime Minister Lee Hand-dong and his supporters are maneuvering to take over the nomination, and some are even proposing another alternative, the Grand National Party’s Lee Hoi-chang.

Ay, politics! South Korea’s no exception when it’s ambition that’s bugging one.

I found Roh brilliant, candid, and articulate. In a future column, as the campaign – which kicks off this week – heats up, I’ll retail some of his views.

At this stage, though, he’s running behind.

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Where was I when the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack took place?

I was in my hotel room in the Hyatt Union Square in San Francisco watching the cartoon-movie Shrek on my in-house television set. Yep, that early in the morning. My secretary Tess rang me up from her room three floors below: "Sir, sir! Switch to Fox News, or CNN fast! They’re attacking the Twin Towers in New York!"

"Who’s they?" I asked, irritated at the interruption.

Tess replied: "I don’t know. But one of the Twin Towers is on fire – and the TV news says it had been hit by a passenger airplane!"

"Aw," I retorted, "that’s just a Hollywood movie. They must be kidding." Like a good Ilocano, reluctant to switch, since SHREK was costing my roombill ten dollars, I had decided the "news" was nonsense, an old movie re-run.

Two minutes later, thinking it over I changed channels to CNN. I was just in time to see a film, taken by a passer-by, of the second jet crashing into Tower Two. In the minutes then hours that followed, we were all glued to our television sets, unable to take our eyes off that macabre "movie".

We had been booked on United Airlines Flight 95 the following morning, to Newark Airport in New Jersey. To our horror, we learned that UA 93 (from Newark) had been the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after brave passengers tried to wrestle control of the hijacked airplane from the terrorists. Who knows? If they hadn’t done so, the target struck might have been the White House.

UA 93 was also our scheduled flight. It had been scheduled to land in San Francisco that afternoon, then return to Newark early Wednesday morning as UA 95. We didn’t get to New York till five days later, after the airport closed-down was lifted. Sus, Ground Zero was a terrible sight – and smell. And it was still smouldering.

On the first anniversary today of that tragedy, in which 3,000 perished, America must be bracing for another terrorist attack. What’s more, America must be raring for a counter-attack. Right now, for all their daring operations, and their 40,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, many Americans must feel they’ve been punching at shadows. They haven’t gotten Osama bin Laden, or any of the major al-Qaeda leaders. But they’ll persist. George "Dubya" Bush may have his faults, and a hatful of current troubles (like the faltering economy), but backing down just isn’t the Texas way.

He’s sounded the bugle. Are the bugle call’s echoes still strong, or are they fading away. Let’s see.

One thing is sure: Neither us, who weren’t there, nor the rest of the world will understand the very personal sense of "invasion" and heart-rending loss Americans, on that tragic day, felt, when they saw those two towers crumble and thousands – including firefighters, policemen, and rescue workers – go to a painful and inexplicable death. That’s why when they sing, "God bless America", the unsaid prayer is "God destroy the evil men who made this happen." When America’s God commands, it is with the same force with that with which Allah, who’s God by another name, commands.