The DMZ/Colorado Exploits/The NCO Academy

C H A P T E R 08


(1968-1969)




When I left Korea the second time, and before reporting to Fort Carson, I took a thirty-day leave and went to Massachusetts to see my mom. She had recovered from the breakdown, sold the house in Virginia, and moved to Massachusetts to be near some of her sisters. She was living in a third floor walk-up in North Attleboro. One sister and her family lived diagonally across the street from her, another lived just five houses down the block, and three nephews lived within walking distance from her apartment. She now had some family around her to offer some support.

My mother had taken a job in a jewelry making firm at minimum wage. It wasn't much money, but it was within walking distance of where she lived (she didn't drive), and she made enough money to live on during the month. The owner had let her have the apartment for only $60 a month, although it was a three bedroom apartment. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't luxurious! The building was very old and in need of repair in many places. Still, it was a comfortable place for her. Most important, she had family to support her. My father had cut her off completely after thirty years of marriage and my brother and I were both in the service, with our own families now.


A most memorable event of that hiatus, I shall never forget.
We went to see the movie "The Night of the Living Dead" at a theater not too far from her house. That was a most dreadful movie! The gruesome details of it shall remain with me all my days. Why we didn't get up and walk out, I'll never know.

When we left, we stopped by a bar to play some shuffleboard and have a few beers. Then we bought some beer at a liquor store on the way home. We had quite a nice chat over a few beers that night. My mom and I both liked beer and our nightly chats became a regular feature during my stay there. I think we became closer then than we had been since my teen years.

I told her all about my wife and the difficulty I'd had in marrying her; how I planned to get her to the states when I got to Colorado, and visit her later with Chong Hui. I'd sent her a wedding picture of when we'd had the civilian wedding, so she knew what Chong Hui looked like. I made all kinds of plans that I confided to my mother. Little did I know that they would all come to nought.

When I reported to the 5th Signal Battalion at Fort Carson, they told me that there was no vacancy for my MOS. A few calls were made and a slot was found for me in another unit on post. It was Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 4th Squadron, 12th Cavalry. This was a mechanized cavalry unit, meaning that instead of horses, tracked vehicles were used. These were APC's, or armored personnel carriers, such as the M-113 and M-114 for carrying troops and the M-577 command track. This latter had the radio teletype equipment in it and acted as the command track for the commanding officer while in the field. It was my baby! There were four of them in my troop and I was responsible for making sure they were properly maintained and in working order. I had eight enlisted men to help me do the job.

I was the commander on one track, that is, I controlled the movement of the vehicle in the field. As such, I had to know its capabilities. I didn't even know how to drive one! That was soon remedied, though, and I found that manipulating right and left lateral control arms, and a foot pedal for feeding the diesel fuel to the engine, was easier than driving the old stick shift back home! As commander of the vehicle, I wasn't supposed to drive it; we had an assigned driver for that task, but everyone had to learn how to drive it in case the driver became incapacitated.

In addition to these duties, I was also sent to a school on post for CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) training. When I completed it, I became the unit CBR NCO, responsible for maintaining the whole troop's protective masks, the spare parts for said masks, and atropine and decontaminates with associated equipment. All this equipment was kept in a separate room behind the orderly room. All the masks were numbered and controlled so that each member of the troop always got the same mask. This way I could spot check the masks for proper maintenance, and when found to be wanting, I could identify the individual owner of the mask. I was also responsible for giving classes and drills to the whole squadron. Being in the Headquarters unit, it was also incumbent upon me to perform inspections on the line units such as A, B, C, and D troops.

A goodly part of my time was spent in that CBR room, working on the mask, ordering parts or accessories. I must confess though, there are some mornings I spent locked away in that back room trying to recuperate from a big night at the Golden Boot NCO Club or in downtown Colorado Springs.

I had bought myself a second hand jalopy at this time, a Ford Falcon 500, and was trying to familiarize myself with the area. I'd discovered that the housing off-post was too expensive for me, so I put my name on the housing list for on-post housing. It was one of the few times that I found the housing list to be so short. A unit became available to me within two weeks.


A friend, Roy Flegle, helped me to do some shopping for furniture; a bed, dinette set, couch, easy chair, television, pots and pans, utensils, etc. and I moved into on-post housing. Roy was planning on getting married later that year so he was interested in seeing what the housing looked like. It was a nice two bedroom apartment. I only needed one bedroom, but no houses on post are built with only one bedroom. The rules for living on-post were pretty strict. The lawn had to be mowed and the yard kept free of trash. In the winter, snow had to be shoveled from the steps and sidewalks. The inside had to be kept bug free (exterminators had to be called regularly), and floors polished as needed. When departing the unit, the oven and stove had to be meticulously cleaned and the whole house made spotless. The house would be inspected before you were allowed to leave post.

I wrote to Chong Hui and told her I had a place and was furnishing it for her arrival. I told her to let me know whenever she was ready to come, and I would send the ticket for her.

We wrote back and forth many times, always through an interpreter, but I could never get a commitment from her on when she would be able to come. I lived in that house for almost three months by myself. I was beginning to get strange looks from the neighbors. Well, who could blame them! That housing was for families and there was a waiting list for all apartments. Finally, I gave up hoping she would come to the states. I gave the furniture, and other household goods I'd accumulated, to the American Legion and moved back into the barracks in my troop.

At about this time, my first sergeant decided to send me to the NCO Academy at Fort Riley, Kansas. I'd been a NCO since 1966, but had no formal training. I was in for quite a surprise!

I arrived at Fort Riley in mid-summer with about forty other people from various post throughout the mid-west. From day-one we were treated as if we were back in basic. We weren't allowed to walk anywhere, but had to run; everything had to be spit and polish from our shoes, to our brass and to the floors we walked on. It was "yes drill sergeant" this and "yes drill sergeant" that, and there was no such thing as an excuse. Our uniforms had to be changed twice daily (sweat from our morning activities would soil our uniforms), in order to keep a clean, starched appearance at all times. Failure in any of these areas would result in getting demerits. If you got too many demerits, you risked being recycled or dropped from the course.

In addition to the daily calisthenics and road run that started our day, we had to attend classes on leadership, weapons familiarity, terrain features, map reading, hand-to-hand combat, and drill and ceremony. This was practical application of these subjects too. For example, not only were we taught how to conduct drill and ceremony, but we had to all take turns marching the group through the different commands. The way in which the command was given as well as the pertinence of such a command was weighed against us also. We were graded on every aspect of the training by our drill sergeants.

The leadership positions within the company, such as squad leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader, first sergeant, and company commander, were all rotated on a weekly basis to the persons who the drill sergeant thought were best suited to that position, according to his progress in the course. If a designa-ted person failed to perform the duty commensurate with his position, he was replaced on the spot. Since the course was only twelve weeks, not everyone got a chance to fill these positions. Enough was learned by participating in such formations, that you would know the duties and commands of each person within the company hierarchy.

My most favorite subject (and the most feared) was the map reading course. That lasted a full week and consisted of classroom work on orientation of the map with surroundings; reading the coordinates properly; reading the symbols on a military map; and map scales. We were broken down into four man teams and given coordinates to first one location, and then at that location, we found the coordinates to another location, and so on, until five locations were found. We did this during the day for two days. It was impossible to cheat because at each coordinate, a word had to be copied to prove the spot had been located. Only the DIs knew the word at the coordinates.

The course was set up so that each team would occasionally run across each other while searching, but all had different coordinates. There was no time limit, per se, but it was a matter of pride among the teams to see which team could locate all five points and return to base camp before the others arrived. During our search on the second day, my team was hot and thirsty and tired. We passed a pond along the route that, while the water was muddy, was too tempting to pass up. Another man and me, stripped, and went for a swim to cool off. We only stayed in the water for about five minutes. Another team passed nearby and spotted us in the water. We were afraid they'd say something to the DIs when we got back, but they didn't. I suspect the DIs knew about that water hole though!

The fearful part of the map reading course came next. We had to locate another five coordinates in the dark! We had been taught how to count our individual paces to reach a thousand yards, and to mentally apply that yardage to the map, thus figuring out the location on the map. Matching terrain features during the day was fairly easy, but at night, became very difficult. You had to rely on the pace method. The only thing wrong with that though, is that the terrain wasn't flat. It went up and down and over cliffs. You had to walk a straight line while pacing or if you made a detour, you had to calculate the change on the map. We had flashlights with red lenses, but they were only to be used to read the map and coordinate markings.

Of the ten teams we had that night, not one team found all the coordinates. My team had found the most, four, but since the exercise had not gone as well as expected, the DIs graded it on a curve. Thank God that there wasn't time for them to put us through the course again at night!

Another bit of night training we had was trying to hit targets with live ammunition from a prone position. They'd given us classes on how to use our peripheral vision to locate a target at night. The instructions were to aim low because of a tendency to shoot high at night. Still, I did very poorly at this, knocking down less than a third of the targets. Throughout my military career, I'd always fired expert on the rifle range, but that was in the daylight. I wouldn't even want to take my chances with an enemy in the dark!


Two friends who went through the academy with me, I would run into again. Dick was a nice, soft-spoken, southern boy from Alabama, who always carried a single-bladed knife, about five inches long, in his back pocket. I ran into him at a club in Long Binh, Vietnam in 1970. He was flying with the First Cavalry helicopter crews on some of their missions. He'd been putting that knife to grisly use, and had the ears to show for it! The other one, Bob, was working in the O5C course at Fort Gordon, Georgia when I got there in 1973. He retired here in Augusta and lives about four miles from me.

Upon completion of the NCO Academy, I returned to my unit at Fort Carson. I was now the sharpest sergeant E-5 in the troop. The first sergeant promptly made me the platoon sergeant of the commo platoon. Of course, I resumed my other duties as CBR NCO, and commander of the M-577 track.

Roy Flegle wanted to get married but he didn't have enough money. I was planning on taking leave and going back to Korea to get Chong Hui. I'd saved enough money for that and then some. I told Roy if he'd be able to return the money to me when I came back, I'd let him borrow six hundred dollars. He agreed to that, so I wished him luck, and departed for Korea.


After arriving at Kimpo Airport, I took a taxi to the U.S.O. in downtown Seoul. It was a common point that Chong Hui and I had both been to and I knew she would be able to find it. I had her address and a picture of her, but the address was in Korean. It would have been impossible for me to locate her by myself. I checked into the U.S.O. and went to get something to eat.

Most Westerners are besieged by kids ranging in age from six to sixteen, as soon as they show their face on a public street. Most are looking for handouts or a chance to make off with something without being caught. A group of these boys surrounded me when I went outside. A young boy of about fourteen seemed to be the most proficient in English. I showed him the picture of Chong Hui and her address and asked if he could find it. He said he could, but wanted three thousand won (about eight dollars at the time) to do the job. I agreed, only on condition that he could bring me proof that he had found her. I gave him enough money for expenses while looking.

About three hours later, when I was thinking I'd been had, the boy showed up. He had located a hut in the hills in Seoul, where an old lady was staying. It was the address I'd given him. When he'd shown her the picture of my wife, she got real excited. The woman was my mother-in-law, my wife was not there. She told

him that she would bring my wife to me at the U.S.O. the next day. I thanked the boy and gave him his well earned money.

The next day, just after lunch, my wife and her mother showed up. Gee, it was great to see her! I hugged her and kissed her and tried to tell her so many things all at once. I didn't press the issue of her not coming to Fort Carson right away. I wanted to wait until we were alone to find out why she hadn't come. I was to learn that she had a very good reason!

After treating them both to a meal, we caught a taxi to a little place near Itaewan, just outside of Yongsan in Seoul. From what I could make out, the place was the home of my wife's friend. It was a very nice, two floor apartment, but I had the feeling that arrangements had been made rather hastily for us to stay there during my leave time.

It was at this time too, that I learned that I was a father! Chong Hui had given birth to a baby boy about eight months after I'd left Korea (at least that's what she said). Looking at the child, he didn't appear to have any caucasian features. Most Amerasian kids that I have seen, take on some of the features of their Western parent, although the dominant features are asian.
But this boy looked 100% Korean! I couldn't believe the kid was mine, but didn't want to call my wife a liar. She even made it a point to show me the stretch marks still visible on her stomach (they would have been present no matter who fathered the child, but I didn't press it).

If you'll recall, due to the hazardous duty of my last assignment in the Second Infantry Division, most of my last tour had been spent with me being in the DMZ and my wife living in Seoul. It began to look as if she had found herself a Korean boyfriend to occupy her time when I wasn't present! Since the child was so young, I thought it possible that any western features he had might not show up yet. I decided to give Chong Hui the benefit of the doubt for now.

I had about a three week stay before I would have to return to Colorado. We stayed in the apartment most of the time we were there. That was mostly because it was the monsoon season and it rained most of the time. It was peaceful to lie in bed during the day, and look out over the city while the rains came down in torrents, making music on the tin roof of our house. Then too, our love-making took on an urgency of it's own . . .at least on my part. Chong Hui seemed to be more reserved than I'd remembered her being before.

We went to the NCO Club near Yongsan for a day, just before my departure. That was nice after being cooped up all day for
almost three weeks. We had a nice meal and some drinks and we danced. We even played the one-armed bandits a little, but didn't win big. Finally, it was time to go back to the apartment for the last night. It was a sad leave taking I made the next morning. We hadn't settled anything about our living arrangements. I told her that I'd try to get back to Korea but didn't know when, meanwhile, I would continue to send her an allotment. She wouldn't commit to coming to the States.

When my return flight stopped in Seattle, I made the mistake of getting too drunk at a bar in the airport. By the time I'd sobered-up enough to know what was going on, I had lost or spent any money I'd had. Luckily, I still had my round-trip ticket stub with me. I was able to catch another flight making connections into Colorado Springs. When I got there though, I had no money. I called Roy Flegle, who had returned from his honeymoon, and he came out to get me. He also returned the $600 he had borrowed to get married. Thank God that I had lent him that money, it sure came in handy!