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THE SNAKE RANCH
SOUTH POST
11 May 80
Seoul
Buddy, I recieved your letter yesterday during an extremely slow swing shift. It appears that the bad Gooks are all out planting mines (a good sign, from what they tell me) or transplanting rice. They couldn't fly their MiGs due to inolemant weather. The circuits wee down because the lines that run on the poles outside the Snack Bar caught fire. It is good to know that they have put a lot of thought into what happens when the
Free Rockets Over GRound (FROGS) start impacting outside the Class VI Store.
The set-up here is surreal. Normal chain of command doesn't exist.
Two seperate and autonomous otganizalions control the Combined Field Army, and the ROK Pirst Army. Theoreticly there are liaison units built into the system, but it is a bit disconoerting to attempt to talk to the Yank team over at the First ROK Army (FROKA) and get the Gate Guard, who hasn't the faintest idea where the duty officer is.
That is the command and control in the field. Once things start to narrow down towards the pointy end of the pyramid it gets really wierd. There is a ROK counterpart to each U.S. Officer, all the way up to the Commander in Chief , who happens to be Gen Wickham. There are parallel Intel outfits; some combined and some U.S. only (for the obvious reasons).
They are lettered, naturally. I still have not got the Gs, (Army) Js (Joint), and Cs(Combined) straightened out in my mind.
Some are accountable to each other, some we can talk some things to, and others attempt to invegle themselves into our confidance. The ancillary support commands appear on the wiring diagrams like a plate of linguini.
Currently the fiasco in progress involves the 'C' side of the house. (I like that phrase a lot. That and the term U/I, or "unidentified," are really all you need to communicate around here.
"Well, sir, we had some U/I activity in an unlocated Corps doing an unspecified evolution but really, that is over on the J5 side of the house. Honest.
I have briefed items Just Like That to general officers, and one of the deputy CINCs just nodded and thanked me for the information.
Anyway, the ROKs are hot to have their grubby little hands on an operation like ours, so they have sold the concept of combining everything into a giant unified organization.
It was nonsense, of course, but since Carter was going to pull everything out anyway, our side went ahead with the program. Now we have a co-equal intel outfit half-staffed with ROKs who can barely speak English, and can't be told anything.
I have nightmares about attempting to run an all-source indications center with only a curtain between me and dozens of ROKs eager to use the coffee pot, or the head. It is all a lumbering attempt at unemotional Nice Guy-ism, a policy which has worked marvels all over the world for us.
Thankfully I am just a cog in the machine. I don't have to worry about things like getting promoted (they call it "frocking") eight months early like the two female line officers, or the Joint Service Commendation Medal which I will probably loose for buying an extra jar of mayonnaise in a single month. The above punative action actually happened to some poor geek who toiled here for eight years.
The corruption and thievery has got to be seen to be believed. All the Navy guys here appear to have married Koreans. No big deal.
But one of the great features of that is the aspect of family augmentation. The bride's family moves in with the happy couple, and magically, the entire crew are now U.S. dependants, entitled to a fair shot at the Commissary, larger Government housing, and more sugar. That is all purely legal, so the black market end of things only starts at the far end of the abuse spectrum. Consequently the poor Army creeps have to come down hard and heavy on everyone.
You are guilty until proven innocent. I heard that the Korean personnel at the PX have a neat trick of adding on controlled items to receipts after the hapless customer has departed the store.
Three months later, "Now, Mr. Socotra, just why did you attempt to purchase 80 Ibs of ground coffee two months ago?"
"Huh? What are you people talking about?"
I am happy I got a chance to see what happens when all the shit is just laying around on dry land, waiting to be misappropriated and maleased. I have come to like the Navy more than I ever did. They actually attempted to get us our mail (as I mentioned in my last letter the entire Post Office is under indictment here, and a blatantly illegal search team is stationed at the point of entry for all mail), since they understood why people act irrational when the ship comes back in, and aren't quite so bogged down in the sea of ink and paperwork that dogs the landbound services.
I might even stick for another tour, if that lying son-of-a-bitch in the Detailer's officer will give me the straight word. Course, I don't expect miracles.
I heard through the grapevine that the Sea Service Ribbon of song and story came through. That finishes off my first row of ribbons, if true. I did get the Navy Achievment thing in a drunken ceremony just before blowing out of Yokosuka. If the dratted Meritorious Unit commendation comes through, and I avoid getting busted for something strange here I could be mistaken in a dim light for a bold seafaring man.
I have not shot pistol for record as yet, as both of my handguns are loaded and covered with a thin film of oil under my bed. I will be goddamned if I check the things into the Armory, as the only circumstance in which I would need them would be one where I could not get to the place to fill out the paperwork, wait in line, and be written up on the custody sheet.
The black-clad NK special warfare types will have set up a LZ on the golf course, followed the convenient signs, and sealed off the area long before anybody could wake up and issue the ammunition.
Hence, I will just keep a few hundred extra rounds at the Hooch and hope for the best.
Re your comment on the violent neanderthal level crime in Hawaii? What is the deal? Are the streets safe to walk? Who is responsible for it? Are the lovely islands just another seething cesspool of urban sprawl and degeneracy? If so, why? Is high-rise living the only practical housing? What of the soft sea breeze and cocktails? Changing gears here for just a second, I want to concur with your just anger at the travesty known as "Where the Buffalo Roam."
It was my last night in the United Snakes. I was staying at the house of a Pan Am stewardess of my acquaintance. She is loony, and understands the peculiar wired aspect of Going Back Out There for another Goddam Year.
Goddamn it.
She has a jungle fatigue jacket that weighs at least thrity five pounds from the wings, unit insignia, stars, and metal gee-jaws pinned to it. Her green beret more nearly resembles a chain mail cap from the badges on it. She used to fly the R&R hops of legend from places like Da Naag, and Tahn San Ut, and Cam Rahn Bay. She has better war stories than anybody since Ed Makrham, the mil-kill LOACH pilot.
Anyhow, we went to see the San Francisco opening of the film. We were staggering whenwe arrived at the theater, and then the celluloid abortion staggered me.
I had just finished Dr. Thompson's "The Great Shark Hunt" and was filled to the brim with the vitriol of those days. The idea of Peter Boyle playing The Brown Buffalo was bad enough. Bill Murray, though, and his cutesy little schtick was too much.
If I hadn't already been sedated past AMA norms, I'm sure something more than the small incident would have occurred. Turning the Ohioano rage into some insignifigant hippies ("Hey, don't pick on the Kids, your Honor) treating the Revolution like triva, some sort of college prank, and laughing off Dick Nixon like he was just some Buster Keeton. I was reminded of the opening of Ravel's Bolero, when the evening -ressed crowd was driven to madness and tore the last seventeen rows of seats from the concrete floor and hurled them into the orchestra pit.
Oh, they got me out of the theater before anything horrible happened. But to see my usurp my times, trivialized in such a fashion was a greater crime than I could deal with. Perhaps that is the way of the world, but I thanked God I could go to the source and see that the Doctor remained the giant of my memory. How he came to be associated with the film is beyond me. Murray has joined my private blacklist, and I will never willingly contribute cold cash to any endeavor associated with that pig again.
Pass along my best to the Boss when you see him. I see he has remained true to form, and ceased writing after two letters. C'est la vie.
Maybe when I get back to the world I can entrench, level some decent fields of fire, and forget the savages, brightly feathered, out on the perimeter.
I will be working the mid watch out of Military Bunko tonight, and must, for the moment, remain, Your obedient Servant, Vic |