Spam on Rice

Foreword

This story is about a time in the history of the US Army at the winding down of the war in Vietnam. While parts of the story are based in fact and the names of the towns and cities are correct, all the names of the people involved have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent or guilty as the case may be.

The US Army then was significantly different than it is today, and I have described things as I saw them happen during my tour in South Korea in the US Army. Those readers who served in South Korea during that time will understand. For those who didn't have that experience, please do not think this story is in any way descriptive of or intended to mock the current soldiers who defend our country today. I currently know and have known many of these men and women, and I have the highest respect for their voluntary commitment to service.

South Korea has changed significantly as well, and while I am certain some of the events I describe still occur, even at that time most South Korean people were not really all that different from people in the US. No matter their station in life, they worked hard and lived their lives as best they could given the political and economic conditions of the time. This story only reflects what I experienced and should not be interpreted as being disrespectful to the people of South Korea then or today.

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Standing in the line of other guys wearing only my jockey shorts wasn't something I'd planned or wanted to do, but like all the other guys there, I didn't have a choice. The letter I'd gotten from the local draft board instructed me, Eric Winslow, to be at a local restaurant at ten the night before to travel to Chicago for a US Army induction physical. It didn't matter that I'd finished two years of junior college and was working to get enough money to get into school for a bachelors degree. The draft was down to my lottery number so I had to go.

At about eleven, they called our names and loaded us on a bus to the train station in Mattoon. After spending all night on that train, I got off at the station in Chicago and stood in line with the rest of the guys. The sergeant there told us to get on another bus when he called out our names.

That bus took us to the induction center where we took a bunch of tests and then stripped down to our underwear. Each of us got a folder of papers to carry, and then they started us through the maze of doctors and medics who poked us, prodded us, took our blood, and checked our eyesight and hearing. At the end, we put our clothes back on and waited for the results.

An hour later, I was standing in a formation and swearing to defend my country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I had time for one phone call home to tell Mom and Dad the Army was keeping me, then it was another bus to O'Hare and a plane to Ft. Dix, New Jersey.

Ft. Dix didn't seem too bad for the first two days. We were in a holding barracks until there were enough of us to form a Basic Training company. The sergeants were pretty laid back, and we had a little spare time. We got our uniform issue and then changed and packed our civilian clothes in a box to send home. On the third day it was back on a bus for the trip to the barracks that would be our home for the next eight weeks.

My world got turned upside down once they'd separated us into batteries and assigned us a bunk, locker, and footlocker. The drill sergeants seemed to not know how to speak in anything less than a scream, and nothing was ever done fast enough or right enough. It seemed as if we raced through and to everything. I couldn't figure out what all the rush was about since we'd be marched to someplace and then wait for an hour before doing what we came there to do.

I did have somewhat of an advantage, well, more than one really. I'd worked most summers while in high school so I was used to people telling me what to do and I'd seen guys who couldn't handle that work a day or two and then get fired. I'd also spent two years in junior college. I learned fast that it didn't matter if I liked the subject matter, if I didn't do my homework and study, I'd flunk out. I was also twenty one by then, so I'd grown up quite a bit. The result was I figured out Basic Training pretty fast.

The Army didn't fire you if you didn't take orders; the drill sergeants just made sure you went through seventeen kinds of hell until you learned to do what they said. The penalty for failing basic training was to repeat it and after two days, I was sure I didn't want to do that.

It all boiled down to this. Don't do anything unless you're told to do it, and do everything you're told to do when you're told to do it. The younger guys didn't catch on quite so fast. There were a couple who never did. They do something like light a cigarette before the drill sergeant said it was break time, and end up low-crawling up and down the parade ground while the rest of us rested. Talking in ranks or saying "OK" instead of Yes, Drill Sergeant" usually meant twenty pushups. Taking a drink from your canteen on a march before it was authorized meant running around and around the formation of marching trainees. I escaped almost all of that by letting the Army dictate every thing I did and when I did it.

Basic training was interesting most of the time, almost as interesting as watching the younger guys screw up and pay the penalty. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about weapons and how the Army is supposed to work. I'd been in the marching band in high school, so drill was easy and sometimes even fun.

The physical part of basic wasn't fun. After spending a lot of time sitting at a desk in class or doing homework, I was pretty out of shape. The daily runs, PT, and endless marches to classrooms and the ranges caused a few pains at first. By the end of basic, I'd gained ten pounds of muscle and was in the best shape of my life.

After passing all the tests, I graduated and got my first stripe. The next afternoon, we all sat in the day room while the senior drill sergeant gave us our next duty assignments.

I kept hearing a name and then "Eleven Bravo", the Military Occupation Specialty for infantry. A few of the guys drew artillery, armor or communications. Those guys knew they were probably headed for Vietnam, and they sat around with blank looks on their faces. I couldn't blame them. I was just hoping I wouldn't join them.

I held my breath when the Drill Sergeant called my name. Then he said, "Sixteen Hotel, Operations and Intelligence". I had no idea what that was, but at least I probably wouldn't be carrying a pack and a rifle through the jungle. As it turned out, six of us drew the same MOS. The next day, we were on a flight to Ft. Bliss, Texas.

The difference between Ft. Bliss and Ft. Dix was night and day. The drill sergeants were insistent about keeping the barracks clean, proper dress, and military courtesy, but otherwise were pretty good guys. We still did PT, but not until we were worn out like in Basic. Most of the time was spent in training, though the drill sergeants confided that 16H was an obsolete MOS and we'd probably be reassigned when we got our next orders.

They were right, except we didn't go anywhere. I had spent eight weeks learning how to use radios and field phones, how to read aerial photographs, and how to write backwards on a big plexiglass map. That's what an Operations and Intelligence Specialist was supposed to do. I then got orders for a school in air defense artillery, still at Ft. Bliss. After another eight weeks, I could operate a radar console and direct fire control missions. I'd also learned about a great bar in Juarez, Mexico and Oso Negro vodka. Sometimes that part of my education hurt a lot the next morning.

It was a little disappointing that my next orders didn't say Florida or Hawaii or Okinawa like our instructors said they might. Mine said I was to report to the 8th Army Replacement Center at Camp Humphries in South Korea. On the day of my flight, I said good by to Mom and Dad and flew to Chicago and then to Ft. Lewis, Washington. Two days later I was on another flight to Incheon, South Korea.

Like everything the US Army did, I got to Camp Humphries and then waited. In my training duty, I had something to do. At Camp Humphries, there was nothing to do except eat and sleep and the club for enlisted men. I spent my nights there sucking down a few beers with a couple of my buddies from Ft. Bliss and enjoying the entertainment.

The entertainment was a whole bunch of young Korean women of a very agreeable nature. They'd sit down beside you, say "me takusan horny. You want short time", and then they'd massage your cock for a while before telling you the price. Apparently that was pretty much the extent of their English. If you said anything, they'd just nod and massage your cock some more.

It was the damnedest thing I'd ever had done to me. I mean, in junior college, if you dated one girl several times, most would let you go further. They'd jack you off if you returned the favor. A few would let you go all the way as long as you had a rubber. I dated a lot of girls back home, but not once did any of them grab my cock through my pants and start jacking it. It just seemed really strange and all but one or two of us just enjoyed our beer and watched each other wince when the jacking got a little to vigorous.

We didn't take the girls up on their offer of a "short time" because as soon as we'd arrived at Camp Humphries, we'd all been put in a room and listened to the ravages VD would wreak on us if we screwed what they called "business girls". According to the doctor, the strains of VD in Korea were becoming resistant to penicillin, and it took stronger drugs to cure it.

There were also barracks rumors of a secret venereal disease called "the black clap". It was supposedly incurable. If you caught it, the Army would send you to a secret remote island colony and tell your family you'd either been blown to tiny little pieces by a bomb or died of some super-contagious disease, and send home an empty, sealed coffin for them to bury. You'd stay on that island until you did die so you couldn't infect anybody else.

We listened to the doctor talk about VD and most of us believed what he said. I don't think any of us really believed the black clap really existed.

A week after landing at Incheon, I took a bus to the Battalion Headquarters of 1st Battalion (HAWK), 2nd ADA, 38th ARTY near Seoul. That trip at least broke up the monotony. The Army bus was the only powered vehicle on the highway as big as an interstate in the US. I saw a guy walking down that highway and sweeping the shoulder with a broom. The real highlight of the trip was a guy on the same highway on a bicycle with a hog strapped on a rack on the back. I later learned the farmers would get the hog drunk on rice wine so they'd lay still and then tie them on the back of the bicycle. The guy was just taking his hog to a market to sell.

I spent the night at Battalion Headquarters, and the next day a clerk looked at my personnel file and grinned.

"You can type, can't you?"

Well, I'd taken a typing class in high school. I wasn't fast, but I could type. I said I could.

He grinned again.

"The clerk at Charlie Battery is going home next week. You're gonna replace him."

The next day, I rode the Charlie Battery mail truck over twenty miles of what passed for a road through the mountains. It would be an insult to potholes to say the road had potholes. They were more like pits. What the road really was, was a lot of big rocks spaced several feet apart with a little dirt in between. That road was fine for the ox carts I saw on the way. The deuce and a half could only go about fifteen miles an hour and sometimes less. I found out why when I drove that same road a few times. If you drove any faster, you couldn't control the truck, and it was a long way down the mountain if you ran off the road.

Charlie Battery was twenty miles from Seoul and the two hour drive made for some pretty great views sometimes. In February, the rice paddies that tiered down the side of the mountain weren't yet green, but they were still impressive. That summer when the rice was growing, it was beautiful. On a clear day, you could see the Yellow Sea from our Tac Site.

I got settled in and started my duties in the orderly room. That was pretty neat. I didn't stand formations and I was always inside if it rained or was cold. We had coffee all day long. Other than Saturday until noon, I usually didn't have to work weekends.

After a couple weeks, I was doing everything I was supposed to do, at least according to the First Sergeant Watts. "Top" was a great guy. He taught me how the Army really worked and how to get things done. His only failing was his relationship with the Battallion Command Sergeant Major.

Every day we sent a deuce and a half to Battalion. It carried the outgoing mail, the movie we'd already seen, and anybody with business at Battalion. If you had a pass, you could hitch a ride on the mail truck and then go on into Seoul. It left right after morning formation and would arrive at Battalion about nine in the morning. It picked up the mail, a new movie, anything else we'd requisitioned that would fit, and hopefully all the guys who rode in. It would be back at our base in time for chow.

Command Sergeant Major Hobbs' desk faced a window that let him watch the main gate to the Battalion compound, so he saw every mail truck that came in. You could almost set your watch by his phone call. It was my job to answer the field phone that was our means of telephone communication to the outside world.

"Charlie 1/2, Specialist Winslow", I'd say and then hear his gruff voice.

"This is Command Sergeant Major Hobbs. I need to speak to First Sergeant Watts."

I knew what the phone call would be about. It was always about our guy's haircuts or uniforms or the way they bailed out of the back of the truck as soon as it stopped. They usually didn't look or act up to CSM Hobbs' idea of good soldiers. Top knew what it was going to be about as well.

I'd cover my handpiece and tell Top it was for him and who it was. He'd sigh "Fuck" under his breath, and pick up his phone.

"First Sergeant Watts."

After that, usually all I'd hear was, "Yes, Sergeant Major", "No, Sergeant Major", over and over. After about five minutes, Top would hang up the phone and open the bottom drawer of his desk. Out would come his bottle of Jim Beam, and he'd add a couple glugs to his coffee cup. About half an hour later, Top would settle down and the rest of the day would go pretty well.

I was pretty pleased that I didn't have to put up with most of the Army bullshit the other guys did. I got along well with the Captain and the XO as well. Both weren't much older than I was, so we had a lot of the same interests.

I spent most weekend evenings watching the movie in the enlisted men's club on base or in the tiny village about a quarter mile away. There were three clubs in the village. Well, I guess you could call them clubs. Each was maybe twice as big as my living room is today, but still had a bar and barstools, a few tables and chairs, a little dance floor and a pool table.

They served American beer the guys in the company bought at our little PX for a five bucks a case and sold to the bars for ten. The bars then sold the beer back to us at fifty cents a can. They also sold Korean beer and a syrupy-sweet Korean wine they called champagne. For less than a dollar, the owner's wife would fix you something to eat, usually ramen noodles or summer kimchi, but sometimes I'd get lucky and they'd have barbecued beef that was really great.

The bars each had its own group of business girls to serve the customers. Most of the girls weren't all that pretty, but they'd sit with you and let you buy them Cokes for a while. They didn't grab your cock like the girls at Camp Humphries. Most favored the soft approach. They'd dance with you and make sure you felt their breasts against your chest and their thighs rubbing yours. Then they'd ask if you were going to spend the night or just wanted a "short time".

A few guys had "yobo's", women they lived with when not on duty, and who were supposedly faithful to them. They'd bring them on base most weekends. A few business girls always came on base by themselves in hopes of taking a guy home with them. I never figured out how that conformed to Army regs, but apparently it was.

I never indulged because I had to type the VD report every week. The Army didn't condone prostitution, but they were practical about it. They knew there was no way to keep the guys away from the business girls, so the Army tried to at least give the guys some information so they could make a good choice.

The VD report was a listing of every business girl in the village and the result of the test for VD she underwent every week. The test was done by the village doctor and witnessed by our medic. It was posted in each of the three clubs in the village and in our own club on base. If the village clubs hadn't posted it, the Captain would have declared that club off limits. If the girl didn't get tested, she wouldn't be allowed on base.

I thought that was pretty cool until the Billy, the medic explained how the test was really done.

"Yeah, it looks great, but it's just bullshit. If the girl is having her period, the doctor can't get a swab so she doesn't get checked. Even if she does get checked, all it takes is a carton of American cigarettes and she gets a clean report. I wouldn't go sticking my dick in any of 'em if I was you."

Most guys who did used a condom. Then there was Private Jackson, not the smartest guy in our company evidently. He'd gotten the clap the first week he was on base, gone on sick call and got his shot of penicillin, and spent a couple weeks getting over it. He then went back to the village and got it again. He left for home a couple months after I got to Charlie. He'd had the clap twelve times in thirteen months.

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Besides the offices for the Captain, XO, and the orderly room, the quonset hut that served as the battery headquarters had a small medic's office, supply stores, a tiny shop where you could order Korean made stuff, and a barber shop. The barber was a Korean man who gave good haircuts, but he quit about three months into my tour.

Now, anybody who's been in the military knows haircuts are really important. Haircuts are right up there somewhere between guarding top secret nuclear installations and maximum combat readiness, and there was no way to send the whole company to Battalion Headquarters to get a haircut every week. We had to find another barber. Our interpreter, Mr. Yu, found one.

Miss Park Mi Cha was introduced to us three days after the old barber quit. Miss Park caused quite a stir in the company when she got there. She spoke very good English, was prettier than most of the business girls, and most importantly, she wasn't one of them. That made her a prime target for most of the guys in the company and most of them started getting weekly haircuts again.

Some guys, mostly the married guys, just liked being with a woman who didn't ask them to pay to screw her. Some guys just liked the short back massage she'd give you after a haircut. Several tried to ask her out in hopes of getting her in the sack, but she always just smiled and said no.

I wasn't immune, and it was worse for me because I spent all day, every day, just twenty feet from the barbershop. I was already at my desk when Miss Park came to open the barbershop, so I saw her every morning. Several times a day, she'd walk over to the enlisted men's club to use the john because that was the only building on base with one for women. She'd leave for home about four and I'd still be at my desk watching her go.