While I served as the Chief of the Armament Maintenance Branch for the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19th Support Command at Camp Henry, Korea, I lived in an apartment at the Sue Song Heights housing complex in Taegu. Usually, life at that apartment complex was rather laid-back and pretty routine. But occasionally, things could get rather interesting. That was especially true whenever children were involved in the equation. You know the old saying, “Kids will be kids.” That old adage is even more true when it comes to boys. I’m sure that you’ve heard the old adage, “Boys will be boys.” Wait-a-minute. I heard someone say that they’ve never heard that before. Say it isn’t so. I know you had to have heard that before. You know how it is. Boys are out back, behind the apartments playing on a nice sunny afternoon getting into their usual mischief as boys usually do. Nobody pays any attention to them because that’s what boys usually do. As long as they’re not beating each other up too severely, everything is copacetic. What is the definition of too severely? That’s an interesting question. Different people will give you different answers. But the generally accepted answer is that if no blood has been drawn, no teeth have been knocked out, and no bones have been broken, then nobody has been beaten up too severely. And if said boys are not bullying the girls to the point where they are crying to their mommies, everything must be fine. As a result, nobody cares. Since nobody cares, nobody is really checking on the boys and the mischief that they are potentially getting into. This may or may not have repercussions. That brings me to today’s topic. One particular sunny Sunday afternoon, all of the children were all out in the back, behind the apartments playing and having a good old time. I was also having a good old time with my neighbor, the local CID (Criminal Investigation Division) warrant officer. Most people in our building didn’t trust him because they thought he was only there to spy on them. But I looked at it this way. The guy had free beer that always tasted good. Well, the beer was free to me. And if you didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t have anything to hide. If you didn’t have anything to hide, I always figured, go ahead spy on me. You aren’t going to find any dirt. Just call me Mister Clean. In fact, I was so clean, I squeaked. Well, if you looked behind my ears, you might find dirt. Come to think of it, there might also have been dirt underneath my fingernails and in between my toes. But I don’t think that was the kind of dirt he was looking for. Anyway, his free beer sure did taste good and I was happy to help him drink it. There was one other guy that lived one floor below us who also joined us for Sunday beer drinking. I guess he didn’t care too much about the CID cop spying on him either. Either that or he was more interested in the free beer. Come to think of it, free beer can be pretty persuasive for a lot of people. But I digress. There we were, drinking beer and minding our own business. We were shooting the shit and talking about the good old times that we hadn’t been having. Suddenly, my daughter came running into the apartment building shouting for me. She sounded pretty upset and pretty excited at the same time. I wondered what in the hell was going on. All three of us got up to go outside and check it out. I found my daughter and I asked her, “Okay honey, calm down and tell me what’s going on?” My daughter replied, “Daddy, you have to come quick. A boy was playing with a snake.” “Okay. What’s the big deal? I used to play with snakes all the time when I was a kid. Did he drop it down the front of the dress of a girl or something like that?” “No.” “Well then, what’s the big deal?” “The snake bit him. I think he’s hurt pretty bad.” “Where did the snake bite him?” “On his hand.” “Did you get a good look at the bite?” “Yes.” “What did the bite look like? Was it sort of like a dog bite but smaller?” “No. It was just two holes.” “Just two holes? Are you sure?” “Yes.” “Oh shit!” “This is very important. Did you get a look at the snake?” “Yes. It was kinda brown with little yellowish stripes, and it wasn’t very big.” “One more question. How did the boy get bitten?” “There were three or four of them playing and they found the snake in the grass. The boy picked it up and started playing with it. And it bit him on his hand.” “Show me where this boy is now.” So, my daughter led the way, and we went out to find the boy who had been bitten by what I thought for sure was a mamushi snake. He was sitting by himself in the grass, holding his hand, which had begun to swell around the bite area. I asked him where he lived, and he told me. The warrant officer went to find his parents. We had to get him to the hospital fast. There was no doubt in my mind that the snake was poisonous. The snake was commonly called the salmosa or salmusa snake by the Koreans. The boy was fortunate that my daughter took swift action and came to find me. There were no parents or other adults supervising the children that day while they played out behind the apartments. That snake bite could very easily have turned into a disastrous exercise in futility.
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