Korea & Etc.

C H A P T E R II

(1966-1968)

I had a fifteen day leave, so when I returned stateside, I went home to Virginia Beach. When I got to my house, my neighbors told me that my mother was in the hospital. My brother and his wife and family lived a short distance away in Portsmouth, Virginia, so I called them and they came out to pick me up. I found out that my mother had suffered a nervous breakdown because of her divorce from my father; she was in a mental hospital.

My brother and I went to see her several times before I had to report for duty. She was in bad shape and there was nothing else I could do for her there. I was on orders for Fort Carson, Colorado, and I determined to try to get those orders changed so that I could be at a post closer to Virginia Beach. Maybe I could help my mother.

After reporting to my unit at Fort Carson, I contacted the post chaplin and explained my situation to him. He promised to intercede on my behalf to try and get me a compassionate transfer to Virginia. Meanwhile, I'd have to perform my duties in the new company until that came about.

I was a sergeant, E-5 radio teletypewriter operator in B company, 5th Signal Battalion. As such, I had four mobile
teletype rigs that had to be maintained and manned while in garrison and while on exercises in the field. When I first got there, we were in garrison. During the day, work consisted mainly of upkeep on the vehicles, radios, teletype machines, antennas and other associated equipment. Periodically, we would fire-up the equipment and run local practice messages and radio checks between rigs just to make sure that everything was working properly. The nights were ours to do with as we pleased. I would usually head for "The Golden Boot," our EM/NCO club. There was beer, pinball machines, and other diversions to take my mind off of my woes.

About three months into my assignment at Fort Carson, the battalion had a field exercise at "Red Devil Range." We lined up in convoy early one morning and began the trip out to the exercise area. I'd never been out west before, so I was unprepared for the vista's that opened to me. Distances are so deceptive in that kind or rolling terrain. I'd look out at a point and think we would reach it in about fifteen minutes, only to discover that it took the better part of an hour to get there. No matter where we went on the range, dominating the scenery were the magnificent Pike's Peak Mountain and NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain.

We were three days into that exercise when I got word to go in to garrison. My reassignment orders had been approved. When the orders were handed to me, I couldn't believe my eyes. They were sending me to Fort Knox, Kentucky. That would not aid me in helping my mother!

When I got to Fort Knox, I worked in the message center for the 33rd Armored Group Headquarters. I was the only O5C (radioteletype operator) assigned to the whole Group. They had one
M-577, radioteletype command-track vehicle, that had never been used. Nobody knew how to set it up! I got it working and from that day until I left, I'd copy some AP broadcast news on the teletype every day and take it to the colonel to read. He thought that was the greatest thing going since ice cream!

I was there about three months. Since I couldn't get reassigned closer to Virginia Beach, and since I wasn't doing my mother any good where I was, I decided to reenlist (I still had some time left on my original enlistment, but I had a shortage, or critical MOS [military occupational specialty]). I was allowed to take a short reenlistment for my choice of duty assignment. I also got a VRB (variable reenlistment bonus) of $6,000. Naturally, my choice was to go back to Korea. My brother would have to assist my mother on his own.

I had traveled to Korea by Military Sea Transport Service, or MSTS, the first time, but this time I flew out of Kentucky. There was a change over in O'Hare, a flight to Los Angeles, then Seattle/Tacoma, Anchorage, Tokyo, and finally Kimpo, Korea. From there, I went to a replacement company until they could determine where I was needed most. I was hoping I would get Camp Page again, but it wasn't to be. I came down on orders to the
Second Infantry Division, headquartered at Camp Howze. When I got there, they further assigned me to Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion of the 23rd Infantry, at Camp Young. It was located north of the Imjin River in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). As soon as I got there, I asked the commander for a week leave in country so that I could find my fiancé and continue processing the necessary paperwork for marriage. I didn't tell him that we were already married by the local church. He gave me leave, and I caught a ride going back across Libby Bridge (we were closer to it than to Freedom Bridge near Panmunjom), through the village of Chang Pa Ri, and to the town of Munson Ni, near RC#1, a recreation center. From there, I caught a military bus to Yongsan and made connections going to Chun Chon, near Camp Page.

When I got there, I went to the hootch where I expected to meet my wife. She was no longer there. Luckily, the mamasan who rented the apartments remembered me, and knew how to get in touch with my wife. She was in Seoul, supposedly, living with her family. I guess she caught a taxi from Seoul because she arrived about four hours later. We stayed overnight in a hotel in Chun Chon then went back to Seoul and filed some more paperwork with the American Embassy and some local Korean officials responsible for changing the family papers to reflect the marriage.

I told Chong Hui of my efforts to get stationed in the Yongsan area in Seoul but that I'd been assigned to the DMZ.
There is only the small village of Chang Pa Ri near Libby bridge. That was the closest place I could get for her to stay. We looked at several places and finally found one that could be made suitable with a little fixing up. I let her handle the arrangements with the mamasan of that apartment complex. Most of the inhabitants were prostitutes who worked the bars and pleasured the GI's who were stationed in the DMZ.

After taking care of those arrangements, we went back to Seoul where she had been staying. We stayed there for four more days. At the end of that time, I had to report back for duty. I told Chong Hui that I'd come and get her when the place was ready for us to move in.

It would be two months before she would come to stay at Chang Pa Ri. I would get off night duty and hitch a ride to Seoul to be with her for about seven hours than catch a bus at Yongsan going back to Munson Ni. A shuttle bus ran from there to the DMZ every night, but the last run was at 10 P.M. A curfew was in place from 12 midnight until 6 A.M. On weekends, when I didn't have any duty, I would stay in Seoul overnight Saturday and go back Sunday night. We weren't supposed to stay off an American compound at night, but my company commander knew I was trying to get married so didn't press the matter.

Every time I went to Seoul to be with Chong Hui, I'd argue with her about moving up to Chang Pa Ri so that I could see her more often. She always came up with some excuse not to move. The apartment had been fixed up and paid for. Occasionally, I stayed there by myself rather than stick around Camp Young during off duty hours. A duty truck from the DMZ would park in the village every night to pick up GI's and return them to their units across the river. We weren't allowed to stay overnight in Chang Pa Ri because of the proximity of the town to North Korea. There was always the danger of infiltrators from the north.

I became rather friendly with one of our neighbors in an adjacent apartment. Her name was Kim and she was quite pretty. Of course, she was a prostitute. At first there was no hanky-panky between us. She had met Chong Hui when we were looking for a place to stay, and I knew that sooner or later Chong Hui would be coming to live there, so I didn't want to horse around. When Chong Hui kept putting off moving to Chang Pa Ri, I did begin sleeping with Kim. She was reluctant at first, but I needed a woman and she needed the money. If she didn't go out to the bar to pick up a GI, I could usually persuade her to spend some time with me.

Chong Hui and I finally did get married at the U.S. Embassy, so our marriage became legal. I applied for and received permission to get her an ID card giving her access to the commissary,
Post Exchange (PX), theaters, etc.; privileges granted to all legal dependents. She then moved up to our apartment at Chang Pa
Ri, but those amenities were not available in our area. In order to take advantage of those privileges, she would shortly move back to Seoul.

I thought everything would be idyllic with her there in the village, but it was not to be. The village of Chang Pa Ri was small and mean; there weren't many things for a sophisticated woman like my wife to do. She would be with me in the evenings from 5 to 11 P.M. when I had to catch the truck back to my company. Remember, there was a 12 P.M. to 6 A.M. curfew. I guess staying around that village during the day, doing nothing, was pretty boring for her.

After about a month there, one night at about 9:30 P.M., while we were lying in bed, we heard a series of gun shots coming from the area of Libby Bridge (our hootch was only about an eighth of a mile from it). I quickly got dressed and made it back to the bridge in hopes of catching a ride back to my company. Many other GI's had the same thought when they heard the shooting. We learned that some North Korean infiltrators had been seen and fired upon along the bank of the Imjin River. All units were on alert and everyone was rounded up and returned to their companies.

Because of that incident, and because my wife was bored, she returned to Seoul to live. From then on, I had to commute to Seoul whenever I could in order to be with my wife. This gave her a whole lot of freedom to do whatever she wanted in my absence. It wasn't long before I suspected and confirmed she was black marketing items from the commissary and PX. That is to say, as the wife of a serviceman, she would legally buy items at those stores and sell them at an inflated price to local Koreans who weren't authorized to shop there. This is an action which is illegal, and punishable by the serviceman being reduced in rank, fined, imprisoned, or all three, depending upon the severity of the transgression. The spouse also lost her privileges.

I reported this activity to our post chaplin because I wanted him to intercede with my commander in trying to get me transferred to the Yongsan area in Seoul. I figured that if I were in Seoul, I could stop my wife's illegal activity. When I put in a DA form 1049 requesting transfer, I didn't state exactly why I wanted the change. Unfortunately, the commander refused the transfer.

About two weeks after my transfer was denied, the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) informed my commander that my wife had been caught black marketing in Seoul. The commander called me on the carpet to read me the riot act. I thought sure he was going to bust me back to private! I reminded him that I had tried to get a transfer and told him that this was why. He called the chaplin to verify that I had confided in him earlier. Because I had made the effort to stop my wife, the commander didn't bust me, but he didn't transfer me either. My wife just lost most of the privileges of a dependant. She was allowed to keep her ID card so that she could get medical attention if needed, but she could no longer abuse the shopping privileges. Any goodies she got after that came from me when I went to Seoul, and if I had the time. I made sure that I didn't buy anything she could sell behind my back.

Camp Young is located in a cul-de-sac off the MSR, or main supply route. That was the road that led from Libby Bridge, all through the DMZ, to the different companies along its path, and out the far end at Freedom Bridge, near Panmunjom. All the buildings on the compound were quonset huts, heated by kerosine stoves that looked like fifty-five gallon drums with smokestacks. That is, except the EM Club, which was an elaborate building built on a hill, overlooking the MSR. The orderly room, supply room, 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters building, battalion headquarters, message center, motor pool, and small hospital were located on the lower road along the inside perimeter of the compound. All the billets, latrines, and section shops were located along the hills surrounding the cul-de-sac. The whole compound was so small that you could walk around it in about fifteen minutes.

Most nights during the week were spent on the compound at the EM club. We had one-armed bandits (slot machines) that took most of my spending money. Between them, and the beer and whiskey I'd drink, my monthly bar bill was around eighty dollars. American currency wasn't used over there, but script was substituted and slugs were used for the machines. This too, was a means of preventing black marketing.

Most of the men from the surrounding compounds came to our enlisted club to party. They didn't have formal clubs on their compounds. Oh, some of them did, but they were the ones located nearer to Panmunjom. On our end of the MSR, our club was a haven for drinking, socializing, and playing the slots.

One night, while I was Sergeant-of-the-Guard, I heard a commotion up on the hill, and soon after that, the field phone rang. It was one of the guards I'd posted earlier. There was a race riot going on outside the club! I didn't know what to expect, but I quickly rounded up about six guards I had in the guard shack and issued them some live ammunition with instructions not to use it except as a last resort to save lives. We headed for the hill where the EM club was and the riot.

It was a madhouse outside the club! People were fighting all over the place. I didn't know what had started it but I was determined to stop it. I had a bull horn that I used to let everyone know who we were and that I wanted everyone to break it up. Most of them stopped when they saw my armed guards approaching. Many of them immediately headed down the hill and onto the
MSR towards their own compounds. There was one man who became very belligerent toward one of my guards and began trying to get his rifle away from him. The guard jacked a round into the chamber and told the man to stop. He kept coming towards the guard and nearly grabbed the rifle. The guard fired a round into the air! That stopped all fighting and must have shocked some sense back into the men because they quickly dispersed.

I went into the club and talked to the manager. It had been a riot started by some racial slurs and had gotten out of hand too rapidly for anyone to control. It was a precursor of things to come in the military. The damage inside the club was minimal, but I told them to close it up for the night anyway. I didn't want to take the chance of the fighting breaking out again. I rounded up my guards and returned to the guard shack.

The commanding officer called and wanted to know what the shot was about. I told him and he asked if everything had quieted down. When I told him it had, he said good night. The next day, though, he called me on the carpet again because of the rifle being fired. I managed to convince him, with the help of some other eye witnesses, that if the guard hadn't fired a round into the air, the drunk may have gotten his rifle and killed somebody that night.

The club was closed for two weeks after that, and then only one or two other compounds were allowed to use it. The men from the compounds that had started the rioting were not allowed to use it again.

The commo chief, mortar platoon sergeant, and I went out along the DMZ road one weekend, ostensible to check on the security of our sector. In actuality, we had brought along two shotguns and were planning on shooting a brace of pheasants for supper. It was forbidden to hunt in the DMZ because there were still mined areas that hadn't been cleared since the cessation of hostilities. It was so isolated that we thought we could get away with it. Many another such security patrol had done so.

I'd never hunted anything in my life! The wildlife in the DMZ was phenomenal; it was as if the animals knew they were safe from man while there. Every once in a while we would hear of a deer or wild pig tripping a mine, so we knew we had to be careful to shoot the bird while it was in safe territory and not out over no-man's-land. The commo sergeant got two birds and me and the mortar platoon sergeant both got one each. We brought them back to the compound, plucked and cleaned them, and cut them up into frying pan size pieces. After rolling them in flour and spices, they were cooked in a pan on top of the space heater in the mortar platoon hut. That was the best bird I ever tasted! I don't know if it was the thrill of eating a forbidden morsel or just the fact that we had caught them ourselves.

That same road we had traveled on that day, was later mined by infiltrators. Another security patrol making the rounds hit the mine and flipped over the 3/4 ton vehicle they were riding in, injuring the driver and three other people. When they managed to call for rescue, a tracked, M-113, medical vehicle was sent to the scene. After loading the wounded men, and while returning to the camp, it too, hit a mine, and all personnel had to be rescued. Three men were medevac'd to Seoul that night, and to the best of my recollection, one man died.

After that incident, we put up six rows of razor concertina wire around the whole compound. Every person on the compound assisted in the task and it took better than a week to get the job done. It was such a hilly area! In addition to that all persons, sergeant E-5 and above, had to continually wear a loaded 45 caliber pistol night and day. We were cautioned to sleep with it under our pillow and even to carry it to the latrine with us. Talk about jumpy nerves, we had them!

It is well we were so cautious. Even with those precautions being taken, three barracks in A Company, 1/23 Infantry, located near Libby Bridge, were satchel charged by infiltrators one night. We lost twenty-three men, wounded, or killed in that action. Even a couple of reconnaissance patrols, that were sent out to predetermined sites to lay in wait for infiltrators, were themselves ambushed. Things were beginning to get hot!

Shortly after this, I got my orders returning me to the states. I was to report back to the 5th Signal Battalion again, at Fort Carson, Colorado. I only had a couple of days to say my good byes to Chong Hui in Seoul. She wouldn't be coming with me because the paperwork for her passport and visa wasn't completed. We made arrangements to write through an interpreter and I promised her I'd send her enough money to live and try to expedite getting her back to the states with me. On a cold and rainy day in March, 1968, my plane left the tarmac at Kimpo, Airfield. I remember seeing her receding figure standing near the terminal as my plane taxied down the runway. Little did I know all that would transpire between us before we met again!