been to Korea, Doc?

As an S3 Training NCO for the 18th MEDCOM,I hadda take a PT Test Evaluation trip up to Uijongbu, very near the DMZ- from Seoul, only about an hour trip (after you leave the south side of a city of 12 million folks) if traffic's not bad..

The smells of Korea reminded me more of mid-1950s Okinawa than Vietnam- open sewer ditches, fonky fast food, their style, totally permeating the dirty air..

What an education... I was with SGT Kim (I heard
there may be more than one) and he was a KATUSA-
that's Korean Augmentee to the US Army- college kid, prolly from a wealthy family, and had the smack to stay out of the ROK Army-I think it's
KATUSA or ROK for every healthy 18 year-old male, for 2 or three years..there were road overpasses pre-set with explosives, to bring them down in case the North's tanks and APCs hurried South...
zillions of ROK grunts, fast roadmarching, in full battle gear, Daewoo sub-guns at high port, slow-pokes upbraided and swagger-stick-whopped by hard NCOs- on the roads, in the hills, and had installations which looked, for all the concertina, towers, bunkers, tanglefoot and trip flares so much like ARVN posts-- it really took me back to the Highlands... but, I digress.

anyhoo, SGT Kim spoke great English, and almost at our destination, I saw three large signs on a hilltop, each prolly 15' X 15', and close together. They had Hangul lettering, and I asked him if that was South Korean propaganda... he said, "No, SFC Lunky, that is advertising.." (there was a small hootch behind the signs...)
"in that house they sell dog soup. for about 75,000 Won, (about $50, if I recall)- you can have dog soup dinner for two... the very BEST in Korea.."

I just couldn't get "into" Korean chow. Who likes kimchee? Heavily garlic-laced, cabbage and who know what, fermented in jars for months? Surrounded by Koreans on a train or in an elevator, my eyes burned from the garlic odor they exude, because they consume that stuff several times a day...

Yuk. no thanks. Squirrel stew sounds yummy, tho.

Urpy