Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, August 1960: Soldiers of the 1st Republic of Korea Division keep their machine gun ready for any threats against their outpost on the Demilitarized Zone. The ROK division soldiers man the DMZ year round and dread the annual summer deluge of rain when mud makes the narrow roads that lead to their position impassible even for emergency use. Stocked up with a month-worth of food, the soldiers wait out the rain, with helicopters standing by for aid in case of severe floods on other emergencies.

Check out additional reporting on the rainy season on the DMZ here.

Pictured here is a scan of the original 1960 print created by Stars and Stripes Pacific’s photo department to run in the print newspaper. The red marks indicate the crop lines. Only the middle part of the image would appear in the newspaper. As the vast majority of pre-1964 Stars and Stripes Pacific negatives and slides were unwittingly destroyed by poor temporary storage in 1963, the prints developed from the late 1940s through 1963 are the only images left of Stripes’ news photography from those decades — with the exception the negatives of some 190 pre-1964 photo assignment found recently. Stars and Stripes’ archives team is scanning these prints and negatives to ensure their preservation.