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In Rob Springs' home office is a display case containing two bronze stars with valor, a row of battle citations, and three purple hearts -- earned with wounds from a bayonet in close quarters combat, gunshot, and grenade -- medals awarded his father, Robert Springs Sr., during the Korean War.

On June 25, 1950, Corporal Springs sat in an airport in Japan, discharge papers in hand, waiting for the flight back home.

On June 25, 1950, the North Korean Army rolled across South Korea.

The U.S. Army tore up Springs Sr.'s discharge papers -- literally -- and he and his unit were sent to Pusan, South Korea, to help repel the North Korean invasion. As an Army Air Corps forward observer, Springs Sr. went north with his unit all the way to the Chinese border, watched the Chinese Peoples Volunteers cross the Yalu River in support of the North Korean Army, and, under the Chinese onslaught, cut off from his unit and alone, made his way back down the Korean Peninsula to rejoin the U.N. forces.

Thirty years later, when the South Korean government invited him back to commemorate his sacrifice and contributions, the father said to his 20-year- old son, Rob, "I don't ever want to see the place again. You go."

Rob Springs had aspired to wrestle in the 1980 Olympics. An injury ended those hopes, and he was struggling. Robert Springs Sr. thought the trip to Korea might do his son some good. As it turned out, Rob Springs loved Korea and wound up staying a decade, learning the language, and later earning a doctorate in traditional Korean culture.

Springs often thinks of his father's hope -- after his bitter experience during the Korean War -- that the U.S. and North would reconcile in his lifetime.

On a wall of Springs' bedroom is a painting of Don Quixote, a nod to the mission to which the Arizona rancher has committed himself.

Some experts on the DPRK commend NGOs such as GRS for the help they've provided individuals and communities, but question whether those efforts could be a significant factor in changing the U.S.-DPRK relationship.

Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar on North Korea at the American Enterprise Institute, has supported technical assistance for the North in areas GRS works in such as education, agriculture, and health. But he said belief that NGO activities with the North could encourage reconciliation at the national level reflects "a certain naiveté." The problem, Eberstadt told me, "is that while the NGOs may have limited success in interactions with individual North Koreans, they operate under formidable constraints. And globally, U.S. assistance programs generally haven't changed opinions of the U.S. So the NGOs should keep their expectations low. They must be open to declaring their initiatives a failure."

Others aren't so sure. Dr. Norman Neureiter, vice president of Texas Instruments Asia and head of the international security program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has visited North Korea three times. Neureiter says, "What Springs has done over the last 15 years challenges the view most of us have about North Korea. Springs speaks Korean. He travels all over North Korea. He brings other Americans there. When he can get the visas, he brings North Koreans here. They don't hide the poverty from him. The people he works with, at least a lot of them, seem to be well-trained and hard-working. What I've seen of his work there leads me to conclude it is in our own interest to rethink our assumptions, what we think we know, about the place."