While I served as the chief of the Matériel Readiness Branch in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19th Support Command, Camp Henry, Korea, I performed a lot of temporary duty travel. To say that I was out on the road a lot is an understatement. I was usually out on the road at least three out of every four weeks every month. Sometimes I was out on the road longer. My preferred method of travel was riding the blue train. However, occasionally travel itineraries, destinations, and travel times did not allow for riding on the blue train. In those situations, I had to resort to either the green train or the red train or even the bus. And depending on which mode of transportation that I had to resort to, travel conditions went from bad to worse rather quickly. There were even a couple of times where the travel conditions made the trip one that I could only describe as a trip from hell. On one such trip, I was on the slow train from Timbuktu, and it was going nowhere damn fast. What made that trip even worse was that it was SRO (standing-room-only). I was wedged into a passenger car, if you could call it that, like a sardine in a can. Only in this particular can, there was no room for the oil and juices that are normally packed with the sardines. Oh hell no. Cuz every Tom, Dick, and Harry or should I say every Kim, Park, and Lee had their chickens and vegetables with them on the train. The ambient temperature was about 95 degrees, and the air was stagnant. It didn’t help that none of the poor bastards on that train knew what a bar of soap was or how it was used. And it was obvious that every damn one of them had eaten a pound of kimchi right before they got on the train. Cuz they were sweating kimchee. I ain’t lying. And that goddamn train seemed to stop at every intersection and street corner. It was stopping every five minutes to let people off and take on more passengers. Hell yeah. Let’s just cram more people in here. Let’s see how many clowns we can pack into this Volkswagen. I am betting 30. Any takers? That trip from hell was taking forever, and it started to remind me of a trip that I had been on during my first tour in Korea eight or nine years before. That was the ultimate trip from hell. In order to set that trip up, I have to give you a little bit of the back story. In May 1980, I flew from Seoul, Korea, to Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Japan. While I was in Okinawa, a mass protest broke out against the South Korean government in the southern city of Kwangju that was known as the Kwangju Uprising. The government launched a military strike that killed more than 200 people. As events unfolded, the U.S. military canceled all leaves, passes, and temporary duty travel and ordered all military personnel to return to their bases. A country-wide curfew was put into effect, which had the effect of making the existing curfew law even more strict. The curfew hours were extended to cover the entire period of darkness each day. And personnel were not allowed to travel away from their home for any reason. Back to me and my current situation at that time. I was in Okinawa. My unit contacted me and told me to book transportation back to Korea by any means possible as soon as possible to return home. Easier said than done. All commercial flights into Korea had been canceled by the Korean government after the uprising. Thus, booking a commercial flight was not an option. So, I walked over to the Military Airlift Command and attempted to book a space-available flight back to an Air Force base, preferably Osan Air Force Base, Korea. No. They told me that wasn’t going to happen. However, as luck would have it, my brother-in-law worked in flight operations at Kadena Air Force Base. He told me that he was working on a small cargo flight that included some medical supplies and a few jet jockeys that he had to get to the air base at Kwangju. He said he could manifest me onto that plane. I thought my problems were solved. Note to self, never think that your problems are solved. I thought all I would have to do would be to buy a military bus ticket from Kwangju to Seoul. They would have to let me buy a military bus ticket because I was returning to my home base under orders. Right? Wrong. Like I said, never think that your problems are solved. My brother-in-law got me onto the plane with the jet jockeys. That was no problem. The jet jockeys even seemed to think that I was some sort of bigshot because I was on the plane with them. What a bunch of maroons. No. I’m not talking about the color. Have any of you ever seen Bugs Bunny? Maroon, moron. Get it, got it, good. Once the plane landed at Kwangju, all bets were off. I had to fend for myself. I couldn’t even get a ride to the base bus terminal. It took me a half hour to walk over to the bus terminal from the airfield where the plane dropped me off. That turned out to be a waste of time because there were no buses leaving from the base bus terminal. The guy at the counter told me that I could probably catch the bus that was going to Osan Air Force Base. I said, “Okay. How do I do that?” The guy at the counter replied, “Well, you have to go downtown to the bus terminal. The military bus that goes up to Osan Air Force Base leaves from there.” How is that for an oxymoron: I have to go downtown to catch a military bus. “Okay. How do I get there from here?” The guy gave me directions, first to the main gate, then to the bus terminal from the main gate. Once again, I could not find a ride to get to the main gate, so I had to resort to walking again. When I got to the main gate, the Air Force Security Patrol soldiers would not let me pass through the main gate. I had to show them my original travel orders to Okinawa and the emergency recall order back to Korea by my unit before they would let me pass. And as soon as I showed them my recall order to Seoul, they asked me why in the hell I was in Kwangju? I explained to them that the only flight I could catch was the one that was hauling their pilot’s back because all flights into Korea were canceled. What the hell? Did those dumbasses think I was going to swim all the way to Korea from Okinawa? What a bunch of maroons! It seemed as if everybody in the Air Force was a maroon. Once I got out of the gate, I still had to walk to the bus terminal. There were armed Korean soldiers everywhere. And they all looked at me like I was an alien from another planet. For pity’s sake, it was as if these armed Korean soldiers had never seen an American before. What the hell was up with that? I just wanted to make sure I didn’t get shot at, or worse, shot. When I finally arrived at the bus station, I was allowed to get on the bus going to Osan Air Force Base. I finally thought that my troubles were over. But once again, I was wrong. They were just beginning. The KNP (Korean National Police) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army had checkpoints set up every few miles. The bus was required to stop at every checkpoint while armed guards would board the bus to check out the identification and travel authorization for every person on the bus. A bus ride that should have taken three hours took well over eight hours to complete. That bus ride was the worst bus ride I have ever been on. But when I got to Osan Air Force Base, my trip from hell still wasn’t over because I still had to go to Seoul. I had to catch another bus from Osan Air Force Base to Yongsan, Seoul. Once again, the bus was required to stop at every checkpoint while armed guards would board the bus to check out the identification and travel authorization for every person on the bus. That bus ride should have only taken a little over an hour, but it took well over three hours. As I said, to get to Seoul from Okinawa, I had to take the trip from hell. The whole trip seemed to be one big continuous exercise in futility.
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