Korea Stories

It had been more than ten days since I had a shower. It was a sweltering summer in South Korea. I worked the night shift, plotting points on maps and playing war games. During the day I sat at the gate and made sure that only the right people visited. The forest wasn’t too different than the ones I was used to in Montana. Some of the bugs were more like the ones I’d seen in Texas. When I wasn’t working, or on guard duty,...

I sat on a pillow on the floor in the tidy apartment. There was a short table loaded with big seedy grapes and tea. My pastor’s wife was from Korea, her husband was an American. She fascinated me. I could tell she was kind and warm, but her face had an expressionless strength. Her name was Rose, or Sami in Korean. I had told her about how I enjoyed the collective prayer room at church. Her face came to life and she told m...

I worked nights, so when I got a night off, I couldn’t sleep. I’d wander around the Ville, Anjeong-ri . I didn’t drink or party, so it was hard to find things to do, and friends. I’d eat at Dave’s Deaf Rest Stop and hang out with the deaf people until late. They could write notes to me in English, and I learned some sign language. I really liked their cucumber kimche, it was spicy, crunchy and chilled. After I ate, I wand...

It was growing light in a tiny valley a few miles from the Demilitarized Zone. This valley was the closest thing I had seen to a cemetery in Korea. Happy mounds encircled me on three sides and there was a misty, sacred feel to the place. It seems odd to call a grave a "happy mound," and a valley of graves a "happy valley," but they do. It was also a firing range. As we were unloading our M203A2 Grenade Launchers, I looked...

A bracket that holds the steering wheel to the dash came loose. The convoy of military vehicles pulled over and waited for a mechanic to come and fix the problem. We were parked on the side of a freeway in Korea, just before twenty little tollbooths, along the side of a tall cement wall. Everything was gray, the freeway with its buzzing gray cars, the wall, the sky. The trucks were technically green, but they seemed gray...