I don't usually talk about my army years, because a) I don't like 'men talks' (in South Korea, a two-year service is mandatory for men, while women can choose to be officers, which is still quite rare), and b) I don't consider it something to boast about (no matter what they actually do, the bottom line is that military exists to kill). But, still, there's no doubt that it was a very peculiar experience.
The KATUSA soldiers are under two chains of command, obviously. They are almost the same with the U.S. soldiers in terms of whose orders they follow, with whom they do most of their work, the kind of uniform they wear, the rules they have to obey such as curfew, etc., except they get promoted, paid, and discharged by the army of their own country.
So, some interesting bits of those days:
* There are American holidays and Korean holidays. On the former, we got days off. But on the latter, it sometimes got a bit 'political'. As I belonged to a support battalion, and our job was to maintain, to keep the machine running, it was almost always busy around the year. So, if we went too aggressive about getting our leaves on Korean holidays, although it was our legitimate right, it could always lead to situations where Korean soldiers as a whole loose their favor with their American bosses, so to speak. Of course there were good ones, too. But the thing was that, every one of us had to keep us as a group look good.
* On weekends, I would wake up at about 4:30 in the morning (one can be so diligent when he is off duty), dress up as quickly as possible, and embark on my way home, which took about two hours, I think. The gate opened at 5, and in winter, it was darn cold. The worst part was when I got to the subway station, after about 20-minute bus ride from my camp. The way the metropolitan subway lines were built in and around Seoul was that the outer part of the lines (in areas not as densely populated as the central city zone) were built on the ground level, and the same goes for the respective stations. The station where I took my train was just like that, and as it was the very first station of the line, the doors of the train would left open until it finally started to move (the wait took about five minutes), and all the while freezing wind would blow into the train. What made it even worse was that, for an unconceivable reason, the city decided to replace the old seats covered with cloths with metal seats.
* Since the U.S. soliders changed their station every year or so, and officers were often transferred to other units even during one year, while I with other KATUSA soldiers stayed in the same positions for two years, I worked for about four or five officers during my time. All captains, one African American woman, one African American man, two white men, and one Puerto Rican man. I think I spent the longest time with the last one, the Puerto Rican, who would order pizza for two of us every time we had to work late (like I said, we were always busy, and it was especially so for me and my captain). My English was just enough to make everyday conversations sound fluent, including the usual work talks, but not enough to discuss, say, politics, which was a shame, as a chance to have serious conversations with the U.S. Army officers would probably never come again in my life. Still, it was then I learned a little bit about the peculiar relationship between the U.S. and his country, and he was the only one, including soldiers in my own rank, that I took to the city and did a little tour together; old palaces, traditional markets, Korean restaurants, those kind of usual suspects.
More on tomorrow.
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