SEOUL — The USS George Washington aircraft carrier was steaming through troubled waters Monday, leading a joint U.S.-South Korean naval exercise in the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.

This just days after the North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island last week, which left 4 dead, 18  injured and massive destruction.

The North’s message from that? According to North Korea expert Andrei Lankov: “We are perfectly capable of making trouble for you…and you,” he said.

During our time on the island we caught up with “Mr.Lee,” who was a construction worker there and saw the attack.   He was leaving.

“Right now I’m confused,” he told me. “I feel insecure.”

He has reason to feel insecure. Sunday there was another alert  on the island.   Shots were heard and flashes seen seven miles away on the North Korean coast.

As it turned out no shells have landed on the island since the original incident.

But that didn’t satisfy a group of veterans in Seoul, burning effigies of North Korean leaders and talking tough.

“We should be prepared to retaliate and be strong enough to occupy Pyongyang,” veteran Byung Ki Kim told us.

Even among the general public there’s dissatisfaction with the South Korean government.

After the South Korean military announced another round of artillery drills on the island, it cancelled them.

Businessman Suk Yong Yoon told us, “…this government is very poor in handling North Korea.”

And so South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, in a  TV address, accepted responsibility and said he’ll do more next time.

Some say the crisis is favoring North Korea, with superpowers, like the U.S., left with few options.

“There’s no way out,” expert Lankov concluded.

And “no way out” for those caught in the cross fire of this conflict…like the evacuated citizens of Yeonpyeong Island.