Imjin Scouts DMZ Korea 2nd Infantry Division Embroidered Patch

A soldier became an Imjin Scout by walking 20 or more missions in the American sector of the Demilitarized Zone. The patrols belonged to the 2nd Infantry Division, the Indianhead Division, and ran from 1965 until the mission passed to the Republic of Korea Army in October 1991. Teams of ten went up for three months at a time and were relieved by the next team, so the DMZ never went a season without them. Their job was to watch for infiltration and signs of aggression and to react fast when the North pushed. The name came from the Imjin River, which flows south out of North Korea across that ground.

The late 1960s were the hardest years, a stretch some American analysts later called a low-intensity conflict and that Daniel P. Bolger covered for 1966 to 1969 in Scenes from an Unfinished War. In 1968, 31 North Korean commandos crossed into the South to assassinate President Park Chung-hee; 29 were killed and only one, Kim Shin-jo, was captured alive. About nine in ten Imjin Scouts were American, and the rest were KATUSA soldiers serving with the division. Retired Sergeant Mark Heathco walked 385 DMZ patrols and wrote about them in Call Sign Purple Three. The final team went out in the summer of 1991, and Moon Kwan-hyun, the only Korean on it, ran about 30 patrols between June and August.

The patch measures 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall and is cut to a curved, freeform outline, black all the way around. IMJIN SCOUTS runs across the top in red lettering and DMZ sits at the bottom in gold. In the middle a silver arrowhead points up, carrying the Indianhead in a blue feathered war bonnet, with a thin gold shaft crossing behind it. Red fills the upper part of the field and blue the lower, the two colors wrapping around the arrowhead. It has an iron-on backing and can be sewn on for a permanent hold.

Imjin Scout duty was a real mission in a war that ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and the teams on the DMZ were the Americans standing closest to that line. The title was earned mission by mission and carried home quietly. KATUSA soldiers walked beside the Americans on every team, and that partnership is part of the story. For the men who walked the zone between 1965 and 1991, Imjin Scout still says more than any ribbon.

It mounts well in a shadow box with a 2nd Infantry Division patch, a Korea Defense Service medal and photos from the camps north of the river. It belongs on the vest you wear to a division reunion, and it is a good gift for a son or daughter who wants to honor where their father served. Red, blue and gold on black, and two words that say it.