THE SNAKE RANCH
YONGSAN SOUTH POST
11 May 1980
It appears that the bad Koreans are all out planting mines (a good sign, from what they tell me) or transplanting rice. They couldn’t fly their MiGs due to inclement weather. The telephone circuits were 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 Liquor and Convenience Store.
After Japan, I have to tell you that Korea takes some getting used to. It is more than a little backwards, compared to Yokosuka and the sprawling Kanto Plain around Tokyo. The set-up here is surreal, the culmination of 26 sequential one-year tours since the Armistice was signed. Normal chain of command doesn’t exist.
Naturally, I am confounded by the military-political lash-up in which I have to live and work. I am on South Post of Yongsan Garrison, the big US Army base that is home to the 8th US Army and the UN Observation Post. There is a remarkable bar and shopping area next door called “Itaewan.” You can get just about anything there, much more like the P.I. than Japan. I have a story about the Hamilton Hotel I will share with you at some point.
As far as the military lash up is concerned, there are two separate and autonomous organizations control the Combined Field Army, and the ROK First Army. Theoretically there are liaison units built into the system, but it is a bit disconcerting 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 weird. There is a ROK counterpart to each U.S. Officer, all the way up to the Commander in Chief, who happens to be US Army General John Wickham. There are parallel Intel outfits to support each echelon of command; some combined and some U.S. only (for the obvious reasons).
They are lettered, naturally, for accuracy and clarity, and number by function. “1’s” are personnel, “2’s” are intelligence, “3’s” are operations, “4’s” are logistics, “5’s” are plans and policy and “6’s” are communications. I have heard that there are “7’s” and “8’s” but I have never seen them in the world.
I still have not got the G’s, (which means Army) J’s (Joint formations of multiple services), and C’s (Combined organizations with multiple nations) straightened out in my mind. Some are accountable to each other, some we can talk some things to, and others attempt to inveigle themselves into our confidence to gain perceived advantage, since knowledge is power and we have the strategic reconnaissance capabilities most of the world can only envy.
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 in rich detail).
“Well, sir, are monitoring some U/I activity in an un-located Corps conducting an unspecified evolution.”
Seriously, I have briefed items Just Like That to general officers, and one of the deputy CINCs just nodded and thanked me for the information. I have no idea what he thought he was going to do with it.
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 President Carter was going to pull everything out anyway, our side went ahead with the program. Now we have a co-equal intelligence outfit half-staffed with ROKs who can barely speak English, and can’t be told anything important.
I have nightmares about attempting to run an all-source indications center with only a curtain between me and dozens of ROKs eager to access the coffee pot, or use the head. It is all a lumbering attempt at unemotional Nice Guy-ism, a policy that 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 traditional end-of-tour Joint Service Commendation Medal which I will probably lose for the crime of buying more than one jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise in a single month.
I am not kidding- the above punitive 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. There was a pizza shortage at the Club because someone hi-jacked the truck bringing bulk cheese up from Pusan.
All the Navy guys here appear to have married Koreans. No big deal, not that I am inclined to do that.
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. dependents, 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, LTJG Socotra, just why did you attempt to purchase 80 pounds 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 supplies are just laying around on dry land, waiting to be misappropriated and mal-feased. I have come to like the Navy more than I ever did.
At least the Navy actually attempted to get us our mail (did I mention the entire staff of the Army Post Office is under indictment here, and a blatantly illegal search team is stationed at the point of entry for all mail?)
I will be working the mid watch out of Military Bunko tonight, and must leave the Hamilton Hotel story for later. I may get to it tomorrow. I will tell you Seoul is one strange town, and I have not even mentioned the coup, or antics of Korean Military Academy Class #4. Or what they did in Kwang-ju to all those students.
That was an eye-opener, when the Commander of the special weapons dump down there called us up in the Command Bunker and said there were all kinds of people at the gate trying to get in. Interesting place.
Vic
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303