The Winter Olympics have brought a welcomed respite from the bellicose exchanges in recent months between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the tone of which has led to concern another could break out on the peninsula. But the countries marched in the opening ceremonies under one flag and in recent days Kim praised the climate of reconciliation the Games have fostered, while South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Pyeongchang had helped lower tensions in the region and he hoped that could lead to renewed talks between the North and the Americans.



For Lalonde, all the machinations over the past year remind him of the politics that led him to enlist to serve in the Korean War.



“That was the thing to do back then. Everybody of age was volunteering,” he says, recalling how he and three other Hamilton boys went to sign up. Three of them were accepted, and one of them, Doug Spence, didn’t come back. “We were in some pretty heavy battles, hand-to-hand combat even at times. They’d try to over-run you.”



Korea, which had been under Japanese control during the Second World War, was split afterwards, the communist Soviet Union occupying the North and the United States setting up in the South. Eventually they left, leaving two different regimes on opposite sides of the 38th parallel, but the Soviets, as well as China, didn’t like that the Americans had a foothold so close to their borders.

North Korea, under Kim Il Sung, the grandfather to Jong Un, sought to reunify Korea when he launched the war, and his forces quickly overran the South, capturing Seoul and a vast majority of the country. A U.S.-led counter-offensive recaptured the country and quickly drove North Korean forces back across the border and well toward China, where the Chinese intervened and helped push the UN forces back.