THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 28, 1995 TAG: 9510270058
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
I DIDN'T MAKE the reunion of Korean War vets in Virginia Beach last weekend, even though I'm listed in Army records as a veteran of that war.
Truth is, I never saw or heard a shot fired in anger. I simply arrived in that ancient country shortly before the armistice between North and South Korea became official.
I was a clerk typist and a librarian. Try telling that to a grizzled and decorated veteran over a beer. No way, Jose.
But I still have vivid memories of South Korea in the mid-'50s. Memories that haven't faded. I was stationed in an Army compound hugging a hill near Chunchon - the first town to fall when the North Koreans invaded their brothers and sisters to the south.
So many mental snapshots. Rice paddies becoming ice paddies when the bitter cold blew down from Siberia. Korean children using trays from our mess hall to scoot over the flat channels of ice, stark against the snow in their black clothing and black rubber shoes. A frolicking Christmas card scene.
I remember the pappasans taking the winding roads down from the bare mountains on a market day in summer, entering Chunchon with their white clothing, long beards and black stovepipe hats. . . . I remember the smell of spicy incense in a Catholic church on Christmas Eve and hundreds of Koreans going through the worship service on their knees, all dressed in white, moonlight streaming through the windows.
I remember the portable field phones with cranks on the side. Before phoning, you twirled the crank. It was believed that Koreans couldn't pronounce the letter ``r,'' so the exchanges all had names like Tornado, Rainbow and Rocky.
GIs in Korea took their vacations, dubbed ``rest and relaxation'' (R and R) in Japan. Prostitutes managed to strike up an acquaintance with nearly all of them.
Knowing the GIs would return for at least one more R and R, the women wrote letters expressing abiding love for each. Lonely and naive, the young men were much taken by the letters and invariably returned to visit the sender and lavish money upon her.
The letters were always poetic, written in English: ``When the moon slides behind the clouds I think how you have slipped away from me. I will be so happy when your smile, like a moonbeam, glows in my presence, dear Joe.''
My scariest moment during my tour came during a train ride to Seoul from our compound at Chunchon. I shared an empty boxcar with a pair of young GIs who served as train guards. They wore filthy fatigues and carried M-1 rifles slung over their shoulders. They were unshaven, with coal dust in their hair and dirt under the nails.
Those train guards used the filthiest language I ever heard from soldiers. They ate canned rations with their fingers like animals. They had been doing the same job for over a year and liked it because there was no dress code or boss. They spent the time en route to Seoul shooting at rocks and tree limbs and into the rivers snaking through valleys a thousand feet below the tracks.
The guards boasted of having shot women and children who walked along the railroad tracks collecting crumbs of coal spilled from the coal car. ``I hate gooks. They are all alike,'' one of them said. I wonder what penitentiary they are in now.
Master Sgt. Callis, our enlisted leader at the compound, was a great bear of a man who loved the Army. A West Virginian, he grew up during the Depression. Callis claimed the Army gave him the only regular food and good clothing he'd ever had.
He told me that when he was a young man, he had seen a scarecrow in a farmer's field. ``The scarecrow was wearing better overalls than I was, so I just changed clothes with it,'' he confided. We shared a room in the library Quonset hut for about a year. There was no running water in our compound. We shaved in metal basins, walking outside to dump the used water in temperatures sometimes a dozen degrees below zero.
Before leaving our compound to return to the States, Callis presented me with a gift. It was a GI-issue metal basin with a hole in the center. A hose extended from the hole down through the floor, ending outside, several feet from the Quonset.
I watched as he poured water into the basin from a can. When he removed the basin plug, water flowed down the drain and disappeared. Amazing. Just like stateside plumbing. No more trips outside in the bitter cold. In my lifetime, I've received many presents, but none more useful than that rigged basin. I'll never forget Callis' kindness. Wonder if he's alive? by CNB