When I served as the Chief of the Armament Maintenance Branch for the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19th Support Command, Camp Henry, South Korea, my first major project was the fielding of the M1 tank for United States Forces Korea (USFK), Eighth United States Army (EUSA), and the 2nd infantry division. That project basically kept me on the road three weeks out of every four weeks. The site visits that I needed to conduct to coordinate and evaluate requirements related to facilities, equipment, personnel, and training. Fielding of the M1 tank would impact each and every one of those four categories of requirements. But my site visits weren’t always just about the business at hand. I am sure that you have heard the old adage, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” I took that mantra to heart. I may have mentioned once, or twice, that the assignments people at the Department of the Army originally told me that I was being assigned to Korea to work on the Olympics project in some capacity. Yeah. Right. That was good for a few chuckles. Cuz that sure as hell never happened. Not even close. However, the Olympics were indeed ramping up to start just as I arrived in country. And the competition was in full swing when I was starting to conduct my site visits. The Olympic village where all the athletes stayed was in one of the boroughs of Seoul. I didn’t run into any of the athletes while I was out and about getting jostled by the locals on the various trains and buses that I rode to get to the various sites where I conducted my site visits. However, a few times, I stayed in Seoul because I had site visits to conduct in Seoul. As a result, after duty hours, I tripped downtown to Itaewon-Dong through my old stomping grounds from my first tour in Korea. A lot had changed. But some things had never changed. For example, the King club was still exactly where it had always been. But it had gotten an extreme makeover. In fact, the whole damn Ville (short for village) of Itaewon-Dong had gotten an extreme makeover. I think that was due to the Olympics being in town. Cuz the place was crawling with athletes. And when I say it was crawling with athletes, it was like, wall-to-wall. The athletes outnumbered the GIs 50 to 1. And let me tell you, the soldiers weren’t exactly scarce. It wasn’t like they were going to run out of soldiers anytime soon. Oh, hell no. The soldiers were as thick as skeeters in a Florida swamp. If you’ve ever been to Florida in the summer, you know exactly what I mean. You would need a couple of gallons of DDT to douse yourself good before you went outside, or you just might be eaten alive. It also helped to chemically impregnate your clothing with Skeeter repellent to help get rid of those pesky little bastards. Now, I’m not saying that any of that shit actually worked, other than to cause cancer and other nasty diseases, but it just might have helped. By the way, DDT didn’t and still doesn’t work on those goddamn Croci-gators that they got down there. No Sir. Those ferocious bastards will literally tear your ass apart. That’s just in case you run into those bastards. Now you can’t say I didn’t warn you. And don’t forget about those goddamn Burmese pythons. Those goddamn bastards will eat all of your damn pets and your livestock and your children if you let them. But I digress. So, there I was in Itaewon-Dong, standing right in front of the King club debating about what I should do. Well, I think the only logical answer seems quite apparent. Of course, I went in and ordered a brewski. Well since I wasn’t exactly the most out of shape guy in the bar, a few of the Olympic athletes approached me. One of them asked me what country I was from and what sport I was participating in. I looked at him in amazement and asked, “Are you talking to me?” No. I did not do the Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver, quote. He replied simply, “Yeah.” “Well, I hate to break it to you, pal. But I’m actually not an athlete of any sort. I’m just here on assignment.” “Excuse me, you’re here on assignment?” “Yes. That’s right. You see, I’m a reporter for the Stars & Stripes.” “The Stars & Stripes. What is this, how you say, Stars and Stripes?” “Oh, the Stars & Stripes is a daily American military newspaper that covers stories and matters concerning members of the United States Armed Forces and their communities. We focus primarily on the Armed Forces that are operating and serving outside of the United States. Since the Olympics is occurring here in the Republic of Korea, and since a lot of U.S. military personnel are involved in logistics support surrounding the Olympics, my editor sent me over here to capture and write a few human-interest stories.” “I see. You are a reporter.” P. T. Barnum had said it perfectly, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And I was talking to one of his charter members, Gull E. Bull right now. He had to be one of the biggest suckers I knew. In fact, I would label him as the all-day variety. My cover story, as a reporter for the Stars & Stripes newspaper, worked very well for me while I was on my site visit. I can honestly say (well honesty is such an esoteric concept) that I was quite adept at keeping those Olympic athletes entertained while simultaneously avoiding exercises in futility.
by 
by 