After being reassigned to the 227th Maintenance Battalion at Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, to take command of the 305th Supply and Services Company. I also unfortunately endured some harrowing experiences while traveling to and from remote sites along the Western Corridor of Korea and in the 2nd Infantry Division area near Dongducheon. The company had invariably assigned several more temporary drivers to me all of whose driving skills were questionable At best. Finally, the company assigned a driver to me that ultimately became my permanent driver, Private First Class (PFC) Harmon, who I comically referred to as my Kato. I mentioned that there were some matters of personal indoctrination that I would have to teach him, but ‘it was another story’. This is that story. I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with TV shows from the 60’s? And for those of you unsure of my frame of reference, I am referring to the 1960’s, since TVs hadn’t been invented in the 1800’s, and we haven’t reached the 2060’s yet. Okay. I just wanted to clear that up. I know that there are folks out there thinking that the 60’s was a long damn time ago. And it was a long damn time ago, but not that long. Unless of course you consider that the TV show that I am thinking about only lasted for one season on TV. I’m not sure why. Cuz I thought the show in question was one helluva kick ass show. Back then, you had your choice of superheroes of sorts. You could either choose Batman and Robin or the Green Hornet and his kung fu expert sidekick named Kato. Apparently, I was one of the few who chose to watch the kick ass kung fu expert and his sidekick the Green Hornet. Or was it the other way around? The thing about superheroes today is that they’re all standalone superheroes. Sure, they form alliances with other superheroes to try to kick ass on a multitude of villains, in the case of say an infinite war or if they’re forming a justice club. Perhaps somebody has even gone rogue. Going rogue. Now there’s an interesting concept. Take some Billy Bad Ass superhero who decides one day that somebody pissed in his Wheaties and that was after he discovered that the milk was sour. What a way to destroy the whole day. So, good old Billy decides to go rogue. When a normal person goes rogue after they get drunk, they just trash the bar and get arrested for drunk and disorderly and that’s the end of it. But when a superhero goes rogue, there is hell to pay. They just tear up the place. When I say place, I’m not referring to a bar or even a shopping center. Oh hell no. In fact, I’m not even referring to a town or city. That sonofabitch tears up a whole goddamn country or maybe two or three. And maybe he even trashes a few police and military forces that make the mistake of attempting to stop him. When it looks like it all is lost, here comes our friendly neighborhood superhero alliance to save the day. Perhaps you thought I was going to say it’s neither bird nor plane, nor even frog. Do you remember what superhero used that by-line? It was just little ole Underdog. Anyway, we’re not talking about Underdog, or a superhero alliance or anything like that. No. We’re talking about a kung fu fighting superhero that captured the imagination of a kid, well before that kid himself became the object of the other people’s ridicule in a newspaper article called Kung Fu Fighting after a song by the same name became popular. I had this thing about Kato. Maybe it was even an obsession. So what does that have to do with my driver, you ask? Excellent question. Well, you see, there are normal things that a commander’s driver does. The commander’s driver shows proper respect and etiquette toward the commander. The commander’s driver takes care of the commander’s vehicle and makes the commander’s vehicle look better than all of the other commanders’ vehicles. It’s kind of a pride thing. The commander’s driver is supposed to look strac or stract if you want a more formal spelling. Strac means well-organized or neat and clean in appearance and dress. It also means skilled and ready around-the-clock. The commander’s driver is expected to be all of those things. I expected my driver to be my Kato. Yeah. It would have been nice if he had held a black belt in kung fu or tae kwon do. But that wasn’t necessary. He was studying tae kwon do, which was a plus. I already mentioned a few of his other redeeming qualities such as the fact that his fiancée was Korean and that he liked kick ass rock ‘n roll music. Were those absolute requirements to be my driver? Of course not. But they definitely helped. I mentioned a couple of times that there were matters of personal indoctrination. They were little things really. Mostly idiosyncrasies or quirks. For example, I told him that unless there was a higher ranking officer around, whenever I told him something, he should respond or acknowledge me by saying, “Check boss.” Cuz that was what Kato always said. I told him that he was always and forever to refer to my vehicle as the Black Beauty. I know. I know. A military vehicle is neither black nor beautiful. So what! It was my vehicle, and I was going to refer to it as I damn well pleased. And I told him that. Now these little idiosyncrasies worked too much to remember or too much to bear. But they were things that I insisted upon. The Black Beauty had to be in top-notch shape every day. And he had to be ready to roll on a moment’s notice, whenever I called. Once he learned the drill and he learned where the drill came from and the logic behind the drill, the indoctrination was pretty easy to learn and remember. After all, there really wasn’t that much to remember. It wasn’t as if he had to remember any scripted lines. He wasn’t even fighting any bad guys. He was just driving his commander around. And perhaps maybe even humoring him a little. That was the indoctrination of Kato. Kato actually picked things up pretty quickly, so we rolled through the indoctrination in just a matter of a few minutes the first time we went through it. From that day forward, Kato and I rode in the Black Beauty for all of our missions. We may even have encountered an exercise in futility or two along the way, I just don’t remember any off the top of my head.
by 
by 