When I served as the commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company in the 227th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, the company passed several major tests and milestones. And the company picked up new missions without skipping a beat. One new mission that the company seemed to have inherited was a new concept called palletized delivery of rations forward in the combat zone. We had already even field-tested that concept, and it had worked out pretty well. One mission that we were already performing was hot refuel ops for two attack helicopter Battalions. However, it appeared that the hot refuel mission might be expanding to include a third location. That being the case, I wanted to hit the road and go out to reacquaint myself with the hot refuel mission on the ground at my two facilities. Those two facilities were the most remote of my nine remote facilities. As a result, I didn’t get to those facilities as often as I did with the rest of the remote facilities. That was due simply to the amount of time it took to cover the land distance to each of those two remote facilities. The nearest of those two hot refuel facilities was located at Camp Page near Chuncheon, South Korea. The other hot refuel facility was located at Camp Long near Wonju, South Korea. There was a back road that ran directly from Chuncheon to Wonju. But the road was kind of treacherous, and it had a lot of ROK (Republic of Korea) Army checkpoints along the way. As a result, most American soldiers did not use that road to get from Camp Long to Camp Page or vice versa. Most American soldiers stuck to the main supply routes. They did not want the hassle of dealing with the ROK Army checkpoints. Plus, I think they were a little bit afraid of the ROK Army soldiers. There were a lot of rumors circulating about how mean and vicious ROK Army soldiers could be. It didn’t help that KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation to the United States Army) helped to spread and reinforce those rumors. However, I was not like most American soldiers. I was the adventurous sort. I always had Kato stop at a little Korean convenience store as soon as we headed out on the road to get a few snacks. I used the snacks as bribes for little kids and for any ROK Army soldiers that we might run into at checkpoints. It was rare to run into KNP (Korean National Police) manned checkpoints out on the back roads in the boondocks. What are the boondocks? Oh well, you see those are garden spots that are way out in the backwoods where greenhorns from the city and urban centers tend to get lost when they venture too far out into said backwoods. Yeah, my guy Kato would lie and tell all his buddies that he thought for sure I was going to get him killed every time we went out into the boondocks. Of course, that was pure bullshit. I always had it under control. That’s what the bribes were for. See, I also bought some dried squid and peanuts and a few bottles of Soju. You just got to know the territory, and who you’re dealing with. Usually, generally, always, we were dealing with ROK Army soldiers. Those ROK Army soldiers were out there in the middle of the boondocks all by their lonesome guarding a checkpoint that may or may not have a vehicle roll up once or twice an hour. And they may or may not see their Sergeant of the Guard except the one time when he comes out to relieve them to post the next two suckers that have to stand watch at that checkpoint for the next 12 hours. That gets to be a pretty goddamn boring job. If you’ve ever pulled guard duty out at a remote site in the middle of the goddamn boondocks for more than a couple hours at a time, you know exactly how goddamn boring it can get. Now imagine that some American soldier comes rolling up to your checkpoint at a high rate of speed like he is just going to crash right through without stopping. Of course, the American soldier knows he’s going to stop. Cuz he does not want to get his ass shot off. Yeah. That wouldn’t be prudent. Cuz hell, he can’t even shoot back. He ain’t got no weapons. Ain’t that the shit. So of course, he’s going to stop. When Kato stomps on the brakes and brings the Black Beauty to a screeching halt, I just wait for the senior ROK Army soldier at the checkpoint to approach the vehicle before I begin to converse in Korean. Now, if we are headed to Camp Long from Camp Page, my first question (innocently asked) would be, is this the right way to go to Camp Long? Once I get an affirmative answer, my next question would be how far is it? Then, I asked my friend when his Sergeant of the Guard will be back? Cuz naturally, we wouldn’t want to get caught smoking and joking and drinking while they’re on the job, now would we? Soon I get around to asking my new friend if he is hungry and thirsty. Next, I grab my satchel with the bribes. Soon, I am standing over by the checkpoint with the ROK Army soldiers drinking a few shots of Soju and eating some dried squid and peanuts. We’re all laughing and joking and having a good time. Then I tell them I have to go, and I bid them farewell. Then, Kato and I set off for the next checkpoint. Of course, his version of events to his barroom buddies is filled with a helluva lot more bullshit than my version. My version is pretty damn close to the truth. Nothing but the facts. Even with taking that back road and saving lots of time, traveling to both Camp Long, and Camp Page in one day was a major challenge. Kato and I usually had to depart Yongsan by 6:00 AM in order to get back to Yongsan by eight or 9 PM that evening. But I had to do it in order to check out my hot refuel facilities in order to become more familiar with operations prior to hosting meetings about a possible third hot refuel facility. I planned to stand that facility up with no exercises in futility.
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