After my time in Fort Benning, I had been reassigned to South Korea at my request. Yay, I think. Had I screwed up monumentally? Only time would tell, but all of my friends at Fort Benning said Korea was the place to be. ‘Pack your bags and move to Beverly … Hills that is.’ Yeah. You know the line, right? No? Okay, I’ll tell you. It came from an old TV show theme song, but the logic is the same. Getting the hell out of Dodge (Fort Benning in this case) and moving to greener pastures. I took a 30-day leave before traveling to Korea to report for my new assignment. I got so busy doing nothing during that 30 days that I didn’t get a haircut, among other things. What the hell was I thinking? When I landed in San Francisco, I finally got around to thinking about it. I was in the john and glanced in the mirror and thought, ‘Holy shit, I need a goddamn haircut. I look like a damn hippie.’ So, I started to look around the airport for a barbershop. Guess what? You can’t find shit when you need it right now. No sir. Ain’t happening. I went into full panic mode. What the hell was I going to do? I went into one of those overpriced airport kiosk stores and bought a small scissors. It was all they had in the way of hair grooming products besides combs, so it would have to do. I went back into the john and started to hack my hair to a reasonable length when this other soldier happened along. He said, “What are you trying to do, cut your own hair?” That guy was a regular rocket scientist the way he figured that out all by himself. I said, “Yeah. I couldn’t find a barbershop.” “Here. Let me help you with that otherwise you’ll just end up butchering your hair. As it is, you have already started to take some serious chunks of hair out that I don’t think I can fix or hide.” The soldier took the scissors and did the best job he could trimming my hair and then he said, “There. I think that will tide you over until you get to where you are going, then you can get a real haircut to fix that mangled mop. Make sure to get it cut short to clean up the gouges you created. Right now, you look like a half-skinned critter that got caught under a lawn mower. Sorry, but you really did a shitty job trying to cut it yourself. Where are you going?” “I’m headed to Korea.” “Me too. Where are you going to be stationed?” “I don’t have a clue. My orders just say 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Casey. What about you?” “I’m going to the 121st Evacuation Hospital in Seoul. They’ll tell you where you’re going when you get to the Turtle Farm at Camp Coiner in Seoul.” With that, we parted ways. I didn’t see that guy again because he was flying on a chartered flight, and I was flying on a MAC (Military Airlift Command) flight out of Travis Air Force Base. I almost missed the bus that was shuttling me and a bunch of other soldiers over to Travis to catch the MAC flight. When I stepped off the plane at Osan Air Force Base, South Korea, the first thing I noticed was the pungent smell of shit in the air. The reason for that was that all of the rice paddies were flooded with water and had been fertilized with shit. The second thing that I noticed was that it seemed as if I had stepped off of the plane and into another world. Not a world of sight and sound, so much. Well, yeah, that too. But a world of mind, substance, and shadows. Yeah. The ‘Twilight Zone.’ That’s it. I thought, ‘This might take some getting used to.’ After we went through customs, we were loaded onto buses to go to the Turtle Farm. Along the way, one guy stood up and said, “Look you all. I’ve been stationed here before. I’m going to have the aujasshi (mister/in this case bus-driver) stop up ahead so we can get some snacks.” When he had the bus-driver stop, he got off and bought a bottle of Soju (an alcoholic beverage) and something he called yakimondu. I had no idea what the yakimondu was. But it smelled good and I was hungry. I said, “We can’t drink while on duty.” But the other soldier quickly replied, “I’m not on duty yet. I haven’t been assigned to any unit. No unit, no duty.” That sounded logical to me so I got the Soju as well. I bought food the other guy bought on blind faith. He looked at me and said, “You should try the kimche too.” I replied, “Why, is it good?” “Do you like sauerkraut?” “Yeah.” “You’ll love this shit. Try some.” So, I got the kimche as well. I discovered that I liked Korean food. That shit was really good, and you could get seriously drunk from the Soju. We had just taken off again when the bus stopped rather abruptly. What the hell?!? My new-found friend yelled out, “An RPAV crashed with a honey-wagon.” That’s when it hit me. The god-awful smell of shit. I replied, “Holy bejesus, that smells bad! Speak English, dude.” “RPAV. That’s a Rice Paddy Assault Vehicle. And a Honey-wagon is like one of those septic tank pumping trucks back in the World. It hauls shit pumped out of toilets. You know. Shit. Honey. Get it?” “Yeah, I got it. That’s just wrong.” “Well, the honey-wagon was probably making a fertilizer delivery to a rice paddy. Only, it ain’t making that delivery any more. The shit is spilled all over the goddamn road.” “Damn. No way.” “Way.” When the accident finally got cleared, we got underway again, and we got to the Turtle Farm without further incident. The personnel people separated all of the people going to the 2nd Infantry Division from the rest of the soldiers, but my name wasn’t called. The whole day went by without my name being called. I thought, ‘This is really strange. I know I gave them a copy of my orders.’ The personnel sergeant came out and announced that all soldiers with no assignments would stay the night and be assigned duty. However, two of us were not on the duty list. The guy who had stopped the bus earlier in the day and me. He said, “Hey, what’s your name?” I replied, “Wright Masters.” “Hey, Wright, I’m Earl. Do you want to go down to the ‘ville?” “The ‘ville?” “Yeah. You know. Itaewon-Dong. We can use our ID cards to get out of the gate. Nobody will check. We just gotta be back by midnight.” “Are you sure?” “Of course, I’m sure. I’ve been here before. I told you on the bus. I know this shit.” So, we took off down to Itaewon-Dong clubbing my first night in Korea. And if daylight seemed like the Twilight Zone, nighttime seemed like life on another planet. I walked up to the personnel sergeant the next day and said, “Hey sarge, I’m Wright Masters.” “He replied, “Who?” “I’m Wright Masters. I was supposed to go to the division.” “Wait a minute. Let me check on something.” He disappeared and never came back. I saw him again the next day and approached him again. I said, “Hey sarge, I’m Wright Masters.” “He replied, “Who?” “I’m Wright Masters. I talked to you yesterday. I was supposed to go to the division.” “You talked to me yesterday? Are you sure? Wait a minute. Let me check on you.” He disappeared and never came back. Life went on for a week like that. During the day, I hung out at the Turtle Farm waiting for the personnel people to call my name. At night, I headed for the ‘ville because I think they forgot that I was even at the Turtle Farm. But going to the ‘ville had its own problems (having to dodge all of the women that wanted to ‘love me long time.’ I had a pretty good idea what that meant but didn’t even want to know how much that would cost). My time at the Turtle Farm proved to be an exercise in futility.
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