Soldiers, veterans and officials gathered in the Korean Demilitarized Zone Aug. 18, to honor two U.S. Army officers killed in one of the most infamous incidents of the Cold War.
The ceremony marked the 49th anniversary of the 1976 “axe murder incident,” when Capt. Arthur Bonifas and 1st Lt. Mark Barrett were attacked by North Korean soldiers while leading a work party to trim a poplar tree that blocked visibility between United Nations Command checkpoints.
Gen. Xavier T. Brunson, Commander of United Nations Command, U.S. Forces Korea and Combined Forces Command said what began as a simple mission to trim a tree turned violent.
“The attack that took Arthur and Mark from us was unprovoked, brutal and deliberate,” Brunson said. “They were murdered while performing a routine task in the name of peace and stability,”
“But their deaths were not in vain. Major Bonifas and Lieutenant Barrett stood at the most forward edge of freedom, and today, nearly five decades later, soldiers of the United Nations Command Security Battalion do the same, serving in the same place with the same courage under the same flag.”
Following the deaths of Bonifas and Barrett, the U.S. and Republic of Korea launched Operation Paul Bunyan, the largest demonstration of force since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953.
While all forces in and around South Korea were on a full combat alert, another detail returned to the site of the axe murder and reduced the poplar tree to a stump.
In 1987 the stump was removed and replaced with a bronze plaque dedicated to the slain U.S. officers.