The Blue House Raid

The Blue House Raid is part of a lesser-known conflict of the Vietnam era that played out in Korea, testing American and South Korean resolve when North Korea launched a daring attack to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee in his residence near Seoul. However, this novel of the same name is more than a description of a failed incursion.

The author, a former U.S. Army soldier who spent 13 months on the DMZ, develops fictional characters who enable a grander weave of the relationships of the American and Korean soldiers along the DMZ, as well as the Korean people impacted by the soldiers’ presence, especially the working girls in the scattered villages nearby. Even the North Korean soldiers in the invasion are accounted for and brought to crisp clarity in The Blue House Raid, allowing a hint of empathy for these young men who were controlled by their propagandist government.

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Author Robert Perron culls from his vivid familiarity of the time and subject as well as those of his fellow South Korean friends to paint not only a gripping but sometimes tragic story, and in the process narrates a fascinating but forgotten military history of those forgotten times, which are as dire now as they were then.

Historical Background

Retrospective

excerpts from the novel

In Memoriam

Sergeant Paul W. Martin, 1st Battalion 23rd Infantry, killed in action near Pobwon-ni, Korea on January 24, 1968 at age 21.

Private Salvator T. Mojica, 72nd Armor, killed in action near Pobwon-ni, Korea on January 26, 1968 at age 18.