Setting Tile/U.S. Army Training/Korea

C H A P T E R 05


(1963-1965)



After leaving the Navy in April of 1963, I returned home to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Dad was overseas in Formosa (now called Taiwan), the Free Republic of China. Mom was holding down the fort at 921 Harlie Avenue by herself. She was glad to have me home. I realize now that she must have been very lonely. My brother, Harold, was in Scotland with his new and burgeoning family.

I loafed around the house for a while then I got a cheap car, a 1949 Chevy, and a job I'd seen advertised in the paper. I worked out of an office located on Little Creek Boulevard. Every morning we would gather for a pep talk and demonstration of the various features of the product we would be selling, which was the Kirby vacuum cleaner. We were required to wear a shirt and tie always. Our sales demonstrations were arranged before hand, by telephone operators who promised the called parties that they would get hundreds of green stamps (the big craze then) for letting us put on a demonstration of our product in their home. The words, "vacuum cleaner," were avoided like the plague over the phone. If agreed, a date and time were arranged.



We were given very good classes on the demonstration method. The idea was first to sell yourself to the people as the boy they would want their daughter to date or marry, and then to sell the product by demonstrating its versatility and utility. It was a good machine, but very expensive.

Through the use of filter papers placed in the intake, large quantities of dirt could be trapped. These filters were changed often, and shown to the prospective buyer. The visit had to be while the husband was there; the wife might not have the power of attorney. They were made to feel that whatever method they were using to clean house, it just wasn't getting the job done. They needed the Kirby, couldn't they see that? It was pressure tactics, and not done very subtly.

Sometimes the people would agree to a demo, and when you arrived, gave them the green stamps, and started the demo, they would cut you off and kick you out. Our policy was to let them have the green stamps anyway. It made me mad sometimes, but what the hell, we were being devious too. I neglected to mention that all new salespeople were paired with an experienced man until the "newby" learned the pitch, and how to put on the demo. Then you were on your own.


We worked on commission only. If you sold a lot, you made a lot. I worked there for about a month and sold only one Kirby. My commission was good, and after I'd been trained, I probably could have done well at it, but I just couldn't picture selling myself to people, over and over, every day. I quit the job, but
I'm not sorry to have taken it, because they did teach me some-thing valuable, which I've been able to use throughout my life. They taught me self-respect, and how to sell myself to others.

My next job was at Economy Tile Company, Tidewater Drive, Virginia, as a tile-setter's apprentice.

I had worked with Ayers, Hagan, and Booth Construction Company in Argentia, Newfoundland, during my junior/senior hiatus at school. The experience setting tile with them is what landed me the job in Tidewater. The manager, Mr. Murphy, was a pretty shrewd judge of character. I had just got out of the Navy and was relatively soft (I didn't have one callus on my hands). But I sold myself, using the new techniques I had learned, and the limited experience I had laying asphalt tile.

Economy Tile put in everything. They worked with slate, quarry, asphalt, linoleum, vinyl, and ceramic. We tore out and
put in new tubs, tub doors, ceramic walls and floors, drywall, and mud; quarry porches, plain and broken, kitchen floors, backsplashes, and formica counter tops; old and new houses. You name it in tile, and we did it.

Murphy had five or six crews, each consisting of a senior mechanic, and two helpers, with varying degrees of experience. Each crew had their own vehicle and were given several jobs, repair or new, to do each day. On big jobs like hotels (we got some of that action also), several teams might go to the site.
Murphy also controlled the sales staff, which used to go out and drum up business, and the inventory and ordering of stock as it needed replenishment. Murphy's job is the job I would have liked to have, and in the end, I think he sensed that.

For the first few weeks, I didn't think I was going to make it. My whole body was one big ache. Not only did my hands have to toughen, but I was using muscles I hadn't used in years, or never used. I think the various crews were betting on how long I would last. Murphy was egging them on. Everyone was betting against me, but Murphy was a shrewd judge of character, like I said, and I think in the long run, I made him some money.

We went to the shop at about 7:30 a.m. and loaded the supplies we would need for the various jobs we had that day. Usually we would have two or three small jobs to start or finish-up each day. Occasionally, on big projects like hotels on Virginia Beach, several crews would be at that site on a daily basis until the job was done.

Mixing "mud" (cement) in a trough, with just the right amounts of sand, lime, and cement, to just the right consistency, or making a "dry" mixture of sand and cement for floors, requires knowledge of their properties. After it was mixed, it had to be hauled bucket by bucket to the head mechanic for spreading. Tile had to be off-loaded and soaked in tubs for a couple of hours if you were running a mud wall in a bath. The tile has lime in it and the mud has lime in it. The lime eats away at the fingers, and the tips are constantly sore.

I had to learn to use the tools of the trade: hoe, shovel, tile cutter, electric and mechanical, snips, various and sundry trowels, and a hod. I had to learn how to pick up a load of mud off the board onto a hod with the hod and trowel and spread it for a scratch or float coat. Grouting and striking the grout line properly to fill the joints was important. And cleaning up our mess was always the last thing before leaving for the day.
8
All these things, and more, I learned. I learned them so well that the head mechanic was entrusting more and more work to me, and eventually was letting me do complete jobs by myself, and he would just check behind me to make sure it was done right.
I began to fit in. I was part of the crew. So why was I getting restless?

I was working in new housing, putting in a tub and tile area, and a ceramic tile floor in the bath on 22 November, 1963. The head mechanic had already run, packed, and leveled the screed mud (moist cement and sand) on the floor of the bath. He was in the process of laying the ceramic tile and blocking it in.

When the cut ins had been made, I would sift and mix some pure cement with water, to a paste consistency, and that would be spread out on the floor and worked into the grout joints in the ceramic tile. Afterward, we would rub it down with excelsior (a
fancy name for wood shavings) to get the majority of cement residue up, and about three days later we would return and give the floor a light acid bath to get rid of the film. We were about three-quarters of the way through that job and had a small portable radio plugged in to an extension line running to a temporary utility pole in the yard. I was just outside the bathroom door, making some cut ins around the jamb.

The music on the radio stopped, and a voice came on to say President Kennedy had been shot. There were no details, except to say that the motorcade had been fired upon on a Dallas street and the President had been seen to be hit and was on his way to Parkland Hospital.

My head mechanic guffawed, and said it served him right. The other helper and I just looked at each other. I was stunned! Not so much by what my boss had said (I had no idea he was not a Kennedy man), but at the fact that a head of state should be assassinated in broad daylight in that day and age. The rest of that job was finished while I was in a funk. Gradually, the enormity of what had happened began to sink in, and even my boss became more subdued. Other workers at the site (some brick layers and some plasterers) seemed to move in slow motion, and so did we all, I think. Everyone was listening to radios, it seemed.

We went back to the shop on Tidewater Drive around 3:00 p.m. we had knocked off early, an uncommon practice for us), only to find out that other crews were coming in early also. Murphy closed the place down early that day, and it stayed closed for three days. They say you don't forget where you were or what you were doing, when something of this magnitude happens, and you don't!

I had been working almost a year at Economy Tile. I knew what to do on almost any job before the mechanic told me. He and I had apprenticed together under a good mechanic who had taught him "real good." Bo was only a young man, about four years younger than I was, but he was a school drop-out, and had been working with Economy Tile since the age of sixteen. He knew his craft, and had to, because he was married and had a kid to support.

It was a little embarrassing actually, more for him than it was for me, because most jobs we went to in private homes, the owners would ask me the questions and I would have to direct them to my boss who was a bit of a baby-faced youngster. The owners soon learned where the expertise lay, though. Bo was good at his craft and strong like an ox.

At this time, he was letting me do more and more of the detailed work and just checking when I had finished. Sometimes he would have to make corrections when I made a mistake, but that boy had a lot of patience with me. He was mature for his age and we made a good team. But I wasn't happy.

After work, I would go home and eat and take care of my hands (They always seemed to have sore spots at the tips of the fingers from the lime in the tile and cement eating away at them. it's what is called an occupational hazard). If I wasn't too tired, I would go out to a couple of nearby taverns and listen to Country Western, or play pool and drink beer.

The Chuckwagon Restaurant and Grill on Military Highway was a favorite of mine. The owner's name was Monk, and he was fun to talk with. He had a big Negress who used to cook in his kitchen. She made the most fabulous hamburgers I had ever tasted! I would never go in the place without having her fix me several burgers. One day I ate eight of those things, and they were hefty burgers, let me tell you!

Anyway, as I was saying, I wasn't happy. I would sit at the bar with my beer and think about my day. It was hard work setting tile! Did I really want to do this for the rest of my life? I would have to do this heavy work for the next forty years before I would be eligible for Social Security, and the shop where I worked was a non union shop that didn't have a retirement plan. Any monies set aside for retirement would have to come out of the sweat of my brow for the next forty years. It's true that the job paid well, especially if you became a master mechanic. How long would that take me?

On the other hand, if I swallowed my pride and went back into the Navy, it shouldn't take me too long to get my rank back. I would be eligible to retire from the service in another sixteen years, draw a military pension of 50 percent of whatever my base pay was at the time of retirement, and still be young enough (forty-one) to get an additional job until mandatory retirement age of sixty-five. It sounded good to me, but I had my pride to overcome. These thoughts gnawed at me, week after week, on and off the job.

All this time, I never gave much thought to my mother. I mean, she was there. She was my mom, she didn't bring her troubles to me for discussion. I didn't know she had any
troubles, because on the surface, everything seemed to be going smoothly for her. The house my father had bought for their
retirement home, was the first home we'd ever lived in, and we now had our own furniture and were living like people, in one place, with a lawn to mow, and shrubs to trim, etc. Why, we even had neighbors of long standing, and that was a first.

But my father, having returned from Formosa, and with orders to El Centro, California, couldn't get my mother to give up this permanent thing, this stability she had never had before. He went to El Centro alone, and my mother stayed with the house and me. I gave her part of my paycheck every week. I had always done that as a civilian and when in the military, had sent her an allotment or bond.

The catalyst that pushed me back into the service was a fistfight I had with another young mechanic who was working on a new home, with Bo and me, and our old mentor mechanic. We had been on site for about two hours, and most of us had been working our butts off. All, that is, except this third mechanic. I suppose he had a rough night, but when doing the type of work we did, you learn to shake it off and pull your share of the load. He wasn't doing that. I guess I blew up after seeing him laze around in the back of his pickup and joke and laugh while the rest of us were busting our tails. I had suggested several times that we had a lot of work to do and he was supposedly there to help. His laughter didn't help matters any.

Without volition or conscious effort on my part, I strode to his pick-up truck and knocked him head over heels off the end of the sideboard. He got up and came over the tailgate into the back of the truck where I met him with some straight jabs, and other punches that I never knew I possessed. He couldn't get in a hit on me, and finally I just grabbed him, and held him like a rag doll. I didn't want to hurt him any more.

As a matter of fact, my anger had cooled as soon as it had exploded. I felt bad about hitting the man in anger. I had never done that before. I held on until he, too, had cooled off some; then I let him go, turned my back on him, and walked off. The work progressed pretty smoothly after that, with all of us doing a fair share. I still felt bad about the incident, though

and attempted to apologize at one point. He would not accept my apology.

Things weren't the same at work after that. The other crews, and even Murphy, had got word of the incident, and some were afraid to work around me. Others praised what I had done. That young mechanic, and his helper, never spoke to me again, unless it was absolutely necessary. Bad vibes were all around.

I told Murphy that I thought I would go back into the service. Another worker, a former serviceman, about forty years old, had trained with Economy Tile under the GI bill, and so learned his trade that way. He recommended that I go back in the service also; said this work was too hard for him.

Murphy tried to get me to stay by offering me a bonus, and promised me that if I continued to learn at the rate I was learning, he would make me a mechanic with my own truck and helper inside of a year. The offer was tempting, but I already felt that there was bad blood developing between me and a couple of others. Besides, I think I had really made up my mind. Murphy said that he would always be happy to hire me back, even after I completed the service. I really believe he would have too. That man was genuinely fond of me. I said my good-byes, however.

The Naval Recruiting Station in downtown Norfolk, Virginia in 1964 was not very far from my house. I went down there about ten a.m. with the intention of reenlisting into the Navy. I knew I had been out of the service too long (90 days) to be able to get my old rank or pay grade (E 3) back. So in addition to having been busted from E 4 to E 3 just before I got out in 1963, I would have to take another automatic bust to pay grade E 2 upon enlistment. I had forgotten to bring my DD 214 (Record of Prior Service) with me, so the recruiter told me I'd have to get it and come back that afternoon.

My, how fate does work in strange ways! Upon my return that afternoon with my DD 214, I stopped in around the corner where they had an Army recruiting station. Just for the hell of it, I thought I would see what they had to offer; I had no intention of joining. I listened to the recruiter and he began painting his rosy pictures. Yeah, I would have to take basic training because Navy bootcamp was very different than Army basic. But look at all the schools I could qualify for. Airborne? "Why sure! The Army is looking for men just like you. When you finish basic, you will be given an airborne test and if you qualify, you'll be accepted. With your prior skills, you should make rank fast." To make a long story short, he sold me a bill of goods which I

bought, hook, line and sinker. I signed on the dotted line and was told I'd be notified when to report for training.

Basic training was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, a place of pines and sand. It was picturesque I'll say that much for it. In different circumstances, I might even have enjoyed it.

Like Navy bootcamp, Army recruits had to run everywhere also. That was the only similarity. Whereas the Navy had about 60 percent of their training as classroom work and 40 percent physical, the Army had about 80 percent physical and 20 percent classroom/lecture training. Almost all training took place outdoors every day, unless the weather was inclement.

Our day started much the same every morning. A 4:30 a.m. wake-up, SSS, and formation at 5 a.m. for physical training exercises. At the time of year we were going through basic (Aug Oct), the mornings were very cold and this exercise helped get the blood pumping and the body to warm up. I came to welcome this little ritual. After about a 30 minute warm up, we formed up in platoons, and with road guards in reflective vest and flashlight batons, started out on a run. At first we only started out at about a half mile run but, gradually the distance was increased on a daily basis, until we were running about 2 miles every morning before chow.
After the run, we were brought back to the barracks to change to dry clothes, and put the finishing touches on the clean up of the barracks. At about 06:30, we fell out on the double into formation and were marched to chow. Out side the mess hall, we were made to stand in line at parade rest, without talking, and advancing in stages of about five men at a time, to what became known, and dreaded by all, as the parallel bars. You've seen something similar to them in playgrounds, I'm sure. A recruit had to make it down and back, and down again, a certain number of bars, which would be increased with each day, before he was allowed to proceed into the messhall to eat. Once inside the food had to be wolfed down as quickly as possible because the whole platoon (about 50 men) only had about 45 minutes to eat. The messhall could seat about 30 people at one sitting, and there was no time for dawdling.

In addition to this good training, anytime a recruit made a mistake, he was told to "drop and give me ten" (me being the Drill Sergeant, or DI for short). The ten, referred to ten pushups and they had to be done correctly, and be counted off out loud.

From about 7 p.m. until lights out at 9 p.m., time was devoted to personal hygiene, meaning body, clothes, and living

spaces. Boots had to be shined and brass polished. The whole thing started again at 4:30 a.m.

Some of the classes we had were Escape and Evasion classes; hand to hand combat, weapons identification, disassembly and assembly, and cleaning of the M-14 rifle; land navigation, using map and compass; terrain identification; weapons qualification and Chemical, Biological, and Radiological warfare training (surviving the gas chamber).

Naturally, marching, or drill and ceremony as it was called, played a large part in our everyday movements. Eventually, we got good and we graduated.

I still had AIT (advanced individual training) to complete in order to get a MOS (military occupational skill), another fancy way of saying "job." Actually, the basic training graduation had given everyone an infantry skill MOS of 11B. If test scores had indicated that a person was trainable at a different skill, upon graduation from basic, he got orders for further training (AIT) elsewhere.

I was assigned to the radio school at Fort Jackson, ostensibly to become a radio operator (O5B), but since I was already an experienced communicator, they really were sending me so that I could learn to use the different equipment. When my classmates were struggling to learn the code, it was I who was assisting the instructor in running the tapes at the various speeds, at different consoles. I also graded the test papers.

The most memorable thing I can recall during this time period is the old WW II wooden barracks we stayed at. They were heated by old coal-burning boilers in each barracks, and for that purpose, a cement bin had been made outside each barracks, into which, dump trucks would heap huge piles of coal, which they replenished on a weekly basis.

The fires would be banked in the morning, and a barracks orderly would stay behind during the day to touch up the barracks cleanliness, and keep a fire watch. Heaven help him if he got caught sitting down during the day. This task was shared by all, and usually each student pulled this duty only two or three times while going to school. At night, though, each barracks had rotating fire guards, inside and outside, to attend the fire and keep watch. Woe unto him who let a fire die-out or get too low!

My next assignment was at Fort Gordon, Georgia, to attend the O5C (radio teletypewriter operator) course. This was an eleven-week course, which I finished in seven, because of my prior training. I had to learn the new equipment, though, and tactical communications in the field environment; all that was new to me. If I knew the subject being taught, I assisted the instructors wherever I could, if they wanted me to help them. All this special attention I was getting, because of my prior experience, was leading to resentment among some of my classmates. I didn't know this at the time, but will relate an incident later, that will point out this difficulty.

I played a scrimmage football game one night after school with some of the guys. Two days later, I was told to report to the PT field; they were going to give me an Airborne Qualification PT test. Hell, I was stiff as a board from the previous football scrimmage, and I ached all over. Needless to say, I didn't pass the test. I couldn't even do three chin-ups! I was told I could reapply again in six months. During that interim, and because of subsequent events, I had better thoughts about going airborne. I mean, after all, what kind of fool jumps out of a perfectly good flying machine, right?

Our final weeks of training involved simulated field communications techniques. This was where we had to operate a static radio set (in actuality, the set would be mounted in a van on the back of a vehicle, but here the van was on the ground) at a place called Mobile. We were to operate day and night, sending and receiving simulated traffic and keeping the proper logs and maintaining the equipment. We operated in teams of three or four men to each rig.

This was where the resentment against me, by some of my classmates, came to the fore. I tried to tell a young man he was handling a message wrong. He exploded and assaulted me pretty badly. I wanted to press charges, and had good grounds, but the instructors talked me out of it. I kept my opinions to myself after that.

After graduation from the radio teletypewriter operator course (O5C), at Fort Gordon, Georgia in 1965, I was on orders to the Republic of South Korea. I took a plane to the West Coast and boarded a ship in San Francisco, a MSTS (Military Sea Transportation Service) for the voyage by sea. I had already had experience at sea, you will recall, so the trip didn't bother me at all. There were a lot of troops aboard the ship, heading for such places as Hawaii, Okinawa, Japan, and Korea. Some civilian dependents were aboard also, going to live with their husbands or fathers.

The duties for the military passengers aboard ship were, for the most part, light. The berthing area had to be kept clean; some men were detailed to help the ships cook in the galley, and some were given various cleaning duties throughout the ship. I was detailed as a guard at the passageway leading to the ship's movie theater and the chapel. The men ate in shifts because the mess hall couldn't fit everybody at once and because the civilian populace aboard ship ate at a different time. The powers that be wanted to keep as much distance as possible between the civilian dependents and the military. We were cautioned more than once to watch our language.

Our intermediary stops were singularly uneventful and not worth repeating here. Days later, we arrived at Inchon Harbor, ROK (Republic of Korea). We could tell we had arrived while we were miles out at sea. The effluvium from the harbor announced that! Except for the strongly populated cities, most of the country was agrarian. They cultivated their fields using night soil, the natural excretions of the human body. It had been done for centuries that way in this "Land of the Morning Calm," which is what Korea means.

Our forefathers all, at one time or another, practiced this ancient form of fertilization. One of the nasty habits we Westerners have, that the Koreans and most Orientals frown upon, is carrying our body secretions around in a piece of cloth in our back pocket. That's right I'm talking about the handkerchief. Think about it!

We took a bus from Inchon to the replacement center, where we would have a layover for a few days, while it was decided where, in country, the powers that be, needed us most.

The bus ride through the city of Inchon and the suburbs was a real eye-opener. The sight of the people, their dress, mode of transport (bicycle, taxi, or overflowing bus with an occasional cart pulled by a bullock or water buffalo), and the huge "A" frames strapped to backs, and piled higher than a man's head with all manner of things. All these things began to register the fact that I was in a new and fascinating country.

Days later, my fate had been decided. I was to go to the Forth Missile Command (Honest John), in Camp Page, Korea. This area can be found on the map by looking for the town of Chun Chon, for it was in the middle of that city that Camp Page was located. We traveled by bus, and except for the environs around big cities, all roads were dirt or gravel roads.

Only twelve years had passed since the cessation of hostilities. South Korea was in the process of rebuilding itself from a war-torn economy. It was not an industrial nation (the industry had been up North, and that was now sealed by the thirty-eighth parallel), but an agrarian one. The per-capita income was less than two hundred dollars per annum. It was a poor country, and one that the U.S. was obligated to help get on its feet.

Chun Chon has some of the loveliest countryside in the world. It is mountainous, forested, and has many rivers and waterfalls of breathtaking beauty. It is in the foothills of a mountain range that stretches northward into North Korea and Manchuria. In the vales between the mountains, the people still practice their agrarian existence, and supply their neighbors with the necessary crops for daily life. Rice paddies are terraced throughout the mountains, and have been worked by the farmer and his family for literally thousands of years, being handed down from father to son for millennia.

Camp Page fired the Honest John Rocket, which was a rocket about twenty-two feet long, and slightly bigger around than a telephone pole. It could be fitted with a nuclear warhead. Above us in the mountains, were Hawkeye Missile sites. Camp Page, I think, was our most northern site to have an airfield. It was a small dirt field and we were in the process of making it longer and strengthening it to take in larger aircraft.

In the country, when we went on a field trip in the spring, we could see the rice farmers, both men and women, planting rice sprigs in the flooded paddies. They would be up to their knees in water all day long. It is interesting to know how the paddies were prepared for planting the rice.

The paddies are drained and allowed to dry out in late summer, and when dry, the farmer cuts the rice stalks off at about three inches above the ground. This stubble is allowed to dry during the Fall and Winter. In spring the paddies are plowed under, flooded, and new grain is planted in sections of the flooded paddy. When these sprouts are about four to eight inches long, they are gathered.

Meanwhile the farmer has turned over the soil in his paddies with his plow and oxen, flooded them, and fertilized them with nightsoil (most use commercial fertilizers today) collected in nearby villages or houses. Most homes did not have indoor plumbing then, so collection, though arduous, was necessary.

It was quite common to see a farmer with a long poll across his shoulders, and two buckets dangling from the ends, walking up and down his paddies, fertilizing as he walked. The term "honey bucket," comes from this practice.

When the paddy is ready, all farmers help each other planting the new sprouts at about eight-inch intervals throughout the paddy. Men, women, and children work side by side. It will be
fertilized a couple of times and sprayed for insect control before it ripens. In late summer, it all starts over again.

Some of the paddies are thousands of years old and have been farmed the same way all those years.

The view from the top of a yama (mountain) in Korea at sunrise can be breathtaking. At least it was the first time I had that experience.

The afternoon before, we (a driver/guard and another radioteletype operator and I) had driven our three-quarter ton truck, with its radio teletypewriter van (RATT) on the back, as far up the mountain as the road/trail would take us. At a good location, with a commanding view at the top, we set up the rig, tuned in to our assigned frequency, made contact, authenticated our identity, and logged into the proper RATT net. From now until the mission was completed, we would maintain a twenty-four-hour vigil on the RATT frequency (the driver/guard was not an operator, so we had to split the watch two ways).

What was the mission? We were a relay and backup point midway between the firepoint (where the Honest John rocket was fired) and splashdown (where the rocket would land). It was our job to listen for the firing on the radio and watch for and report splashdown. If something went wrong in between, and the rocket didn't come down where it was supposed to, or civilians were on the range, we were supposed to report that too.

The afternoon was uneventful and fairly soon darkness began to settle in. Now I was the newby on this team, the other two having been in-country longer than I had. After dark, some young Korean peasant girls materialized out of nowhere on top of our mountain. It was dark and I heard a lot of giggling going on outside the van, but I was naive enough to think that all was innocent foreplay and nothing would come of it.

I found out differently in the morning, though. Those poor girls had sold their favors cheap. Luxuries were so hard to come by, so they had accepted some towels, and bar soap, and a few candy bars, for servicing a couple of horny GIs. My mates had known this would happen and prepared for it by bringing extra stuff to trade. I was to find out that this was not an isolated incident, but happened quite frequently on field trips to outlying areas.

Getting back to the sunrise that morning, after I had been relieved on watch, I got out my helmet liner, filled it with cold water, and performed my morning ablutions. Having done this, I had time to look around the area. The sun was just coming up and beginning to fill the valley below. The air was brisk and still cool on the skin.

It seemed I could hear everything that was happening for miles around. Someone was chopping wood someplace, a cow or oxen was lowing in the background, and I could see this farmer with
his oxen and cart, way below me on a rice paddy dike. He had started some small fires around the periphery of his paddy, and was in the process of lighting another one. I could see the smoke lazily curling skyward. Later I learned that in the spring it is customary to build little fires to the gods, and burn in them, papers upon which prayers for a successful crop are written. The words are carried heavenward on the smoke for the gods to hearken to.

It was a lovely scene that, one that has stayed in my memories all these years. One of serenity and tranquillity, which is automatically called to mind when I hear the words, "The
Land of the Morning Calm," for such is Korea.

It can have its violent moments also. Later, in late spring, we were on a training exercise about twelve miles outside of Chun Chon, and spread out along a dry riverbed. We had stopped and deployed tactically, put up our antenna, and settled in for a day of practice exercises. We were supposed to return to post later that afternoon. That is why we hadn't gone too far from the camp. It started to rain. At first nobody took particular notice of it. The monsoon rains would start soon in June, but this was early May and a few early showers were to be expected.
About an hour later, I began to be concerned. The water in the riverbed seemed to be climbing awfully fast. I voiced my concern to some others, and found out that the rise of the river bed had become a real topic of concern with the company commander, and the camp commander back at Camp Page. Finally word came to strike camp and head for the high ground. One five-ton truck tried to make it out of the riverbed and back to Camp Page on the road, but it got bogged down in the river. We made it to the highest point of land we could. A lot of Korean civilians joined us there to wait out the storm also. Finally, at about 6:00 p.m., when the water was over the tires of the trucks, and threatening to sweep us away, we were evacuated by helicopter. We locked the equipment as best we could and left it there. As many of the civilian populace as could be evacuated, were.