Collins Meets with Maine Soldiers in North Korea

By Deirdre Fulton

WASHINGTON – The soldiers at Warrior Base, just a few miles from the Korean
demilitarized zone, keep watch near a barbed wire fence that separates North Korea from South Korea. A nearby field is littered with land mines. North Korean tunnels, discovered by the U.S. military, burrow under the border at key spots.

Sen. Susan Collins (R.-Me.) traveled to the DMZ this week as part of a four-country tour to assess America's dealings with North Korea, which recently restarted its primary nuclear plant. In a telephone interview Wednesday from South Korea, Collins said she welcomed the Bush administration's decision to send a U.S. representative to Beijing next week to open diplomatic talks with North Korea.

Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is one of eight senators spending the week in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China. The group has been meeting with diplomats as well as U.S. troops stationed in East Asia.

On Wednesday, Black Hawk helicopters carried the senators to Warrior Base and Osan Air Base, about 45 miles from the DMZ. At Osan, Collins met Maj. Sgt. Jay Mason of China, Me., who told her he was on his second tour in Korea, a "hardship post" that typically requires just one year of service. Collins said other soldiers told her their time in South Korea had been extended involuntarily because the war in Iraq had reduced the number of troops available to take their places.

"They weren't at all complaining, just informing," the senator said, adding that the soldiers were proud of the work of their colleagues in Iraq. "Morale is high."

Collins said was disturbed by the quality of housing on the bases, and that she intends to propose the federal government spend more money to improve existing housing and build more.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who headed the delegation to Asia, brought thousands of CDs to distribute to the troops, Collins said.

Collins also said she enjoyed spending time with the troops as they went about their daily routines.

"I had my first MRE," she said, referring to meals ready -to eat that are a regular part of each soldier's diet. "It was a very interesting day."

Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.