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. Normally, life at that apartment complex was rather laid-back and mundane. But occasionally, things could get rather hectic. Case in point. During our first few months in country, my family and I experienced our first snow storm in Korea. The snow started coming down around noon one day while I was at work. Well, actually that’s not quite right. See, the way it really happened was that first, it actually started to rain. Then, about two hours after the rain started, the rain switched to snow. By about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the snow was coming down pretty thick to the point where it was reducing visibility and it was starting to accumulate on the ground. Naturally, that put the commander and all of the other high-ranking decision-makers into a tizzy fit. They thought that the accumulation of snow on the ground would cause soldiers to have lots of accidents. You have to understand something about senior military leadership. Starting with the Officer Advanced Course, then moving on to the Combined Services Staff School, and continuing on to the Command and General Staff School, and concluding with the War College, officers are force-fed a curriculum of military history, doctrine, tactics, leadership theory, and economics. Officers are fed a very heavy dose of economics theory. That economics theory includes both macro and micro economics theory. Why do you suppose that is? Anybody have an idea? That’s exactly correct. Military leaders at company command, and higher have to budget money. They have to know how to forecast and spend the training dollars and operational funds that are allocated to their units. They aren’t allowed to have overdrafts. Unit commanders that overspend their budget are looked down upon. In similar fashion, if a unit commander has funds left over at the end of a fiscal year, that commander will be forced to answer difficult questions about what training didn’t get accomplished and what operations didn’t get done. Needless to say, such commanders do not get many gold stars of appreciation from their higher commanders. Brown nosing and butt kissing won’t help here. Not one little bit. But why am I telling you all of this? Cuz lots is Econ speak. Econ is short for economics. Lots means more than can be counted. Lots and lots means as many as the stars in the sky or in terms of money, two bags full. Sorry you don’t get the black sheep that comes with the two bags full. They cost extra. So, the local commander declared blackout conditions for the roads. If you’ve been in the military for a day or two, you may know that blackout conditions mean that no military vehicles may travel on the roads and all civilian traffic is advised to travel at their own risk. As such, military activities were suspended for the day. Yay. That meant we got out of work an hour and a half early. As was my norm, I caught a ride on the Korean bus outside of the gate of Camp Henry. When I got to Sue Song Heights, I saw what looked like an American demolition derby starting to form at the bottom of the hill leading up to the apartments just inside of the gate of the apartment complex. Multiple people had apparently tried to drive up the hill in the snow and lost traction. When their cars lost traction, the cars slid back down to the bottom of the hill. When the first couple of cars slid back down to the bottom of the hill, it wasn’t a big problem because there was enough room where the cars could avoid each other. However, as more and more apartment occupants arrived at the apartment complex, they bypassed the cars that had slid back down the hill and went around them. Now what do you suppose happened to those cars that went around the initial cars that lost traction and slid back down the hill? Ding. Ding. Ding. That is absolutely right. Those cars lost traction as well. Cuz, you guessed it, the drivers of those cars couldn’t drive in the snow either. When their cars lost traction, they locked up the brakes and their tires became skis. When their tires became skis, down the hill they slid. As more and more cars slid down the hill, it was game on. And they’re off. Well, actually, they’re not off. They were not going anywhere. But the demolition derby was in full swing, or should I say crash. Cuz those cars started to crash and smash into each other. By the time it was all said and done, there were well over a dozen cars involved in the demolition derby pile up. At about that time, my neighbor asked me if I thought there was a way to get some of those cars separated and moved up the hill. I said, “Yes but it will take a few people in a coordinated effort.” He asked me, “How many people will it take? “At least seven.” “Seven? Why seven?” “You need one guy to drive the car. You need four guys with rugs or cardboard, preferably rugs. Two guys would lay down rugs in front of the drive tires of a vehicle. Then, they will get behind the vehicle to pick up those two rugs. The next two guys will put down two more rugs right in front of the other two rugs. Then they will walk around behind the first two guys. In that fashion, the four guys will walk the car up the hill. The sixth guy, me, will supervise the whole operation because I know how in the hell to do it.” “That was only six guys. You said it would take seven guys. What about the seventh guy? What would he do?” “You’re the seventh guy. The last car we’re going to move is your car. So, you’re going to supply the beer for you and me. Cuz I’m going to be thirsty after all of this supervising.” All told, we managed to separate and move ten cars up the hill. The rest of the cars had to be left where they were because we could not find the owners. We also helped several other residents of the apartments get their cars up the hill and parked for the evening. One soldier parked his car out on the street in front of the Sue Song Heights apartment complex. When he came out the next morning to move his car, it was smashed all to hell and moved down the street about 450 yards. I figured a bus or truck must’ve hit it going at pretty high speed. That’s the only way it could’ve moved the car that far and caused that much damage. Well, when you abandon your car in what amounts to a demilitarized zone, you have to expect, whatever comes of your exercise in futility.
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