Whether you’re a long-term expat or a first-time visitor to Korea, sooner or later someone will say, “You should really see the DMZ.” It’s spoken the way people recommend a temple stay or a hike up Mount Bukhan — half tourism suggestion, half rite of passage. Bill Clinton famously called the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas “the scariest place on Earth” during a visit in 1993. That alone is usually enough to seal the deal. I had been in Korea a little over six years when a buddy and I finally decided to see for ourselves just how scary the scariest place on Earth actually was. We signed up for a tour operated by the United Service Organizations (USO), the most straightforward and cheapest way back then. Along with a busload of other curious souls — military personnel, dependents and a handful of wide-eyed tourists — we headed north on New Year’s Eve, 1996. I hadn’t given much thought to the date when we made our reservations. New Year’s Eve in the DMZ. It sounded less like a sightseeing excursion and more like the opening chapter of a Cold War thriller.