March 27, 1971: A Weekend Trip to Seoul
	March 6, 1971: A Korean Show at the Officers' Club
	Return to the Index for 1971

At the time of the last Korean show, a couple of weeks ago, it was still very cold outside, but now, in the third week of March, the snow and ice are pretty much gone, and we are beginning to see preparations for the spring rice planting.

At this time of year, there is not a lot going on. It is either too cold or too wet for much training, and so activities in the Second Division are at a lull. Because of that, this time period usually sees a lot of activity at the Officers' Club where, on almost all Friday and Saturday nights, there are shows or other special events. I am going to show you pictures from three separate evenings at the club- evening when I happened to bring my camera along.

The pictures on this page won't show you anything of Korea, so if that's why you're here in my photo album, you can skip over this page and not miss anything. But the people on this page were once good friends or at least frequent associates and coworkers of mine, so I'm going to put what I know or can remember of them here on this page.

Amateur Hour at the Club

Tonight, there is an after-dinner show at the club, but it's not going to be one of the Korean shows we saw so often, but rather a few of our own compadres showcasing their talents.

I brought my camera this evening, although I didn't take all that many pictures. As I found in Japan, using a flash an be tricky; I remember I had a number of pictures that didn't turn out.

Sadly, the same thing happened this evening. I think I am setting the flash attachment incorrectly- particularly when I am some distance from what I am trying to photograph.

The Officers' Mess (dining room) is part of the Officers' Club itself; when there are going to be shows or other functions, the tables have to be cleared and moved around. In the photograph at left you can see the portion of the club that is used as our "restaurant". We've all finished eating and the tables have been pretty much cleared.

If you are wondering about the women in the photo, I should explain. Part of tonight's activity is going to be a presentation by the woman who heads up the Red Cross here in Second Division. We see her frequently around Camp Howze, although she and her associates make the rounds of Army installations large and small in the area north of Seoul. Her actual headquarters are actually over at Camp Casey, a larger installation about thirty miles from Howze. We were there last year for the Bob Hope show.

Anyway, one or two of the women you see are part of the Red Cross organization, but there are also some officer wives here this evening. That requires a bit more explanation.

Two of the G-1 officers with one of the women from the Red Cross, ostensibly making a presentation before an after-dinner show.

When an officer is assigned an overseas tour, he/she can sometimes be eligible to take their family with them- particularly when the tour is a multi-year one and the area to which the officer is going is a stable one. When officers take a family, the Army pays for their transportation and will help them find quarters, but all the other expenses are the officer's responsibility. Here in Korea, I understand, this permission is not usually given. There are some postings in Seoul where I understand that officers (and some higher-ranking enlisted) can have their families accompany them.

But for officers assigned here at Camp Howze, this permission has been granted only very rarely, and I don't know any married officers who have received it. Yet, there are a few officers that DO have their wives with them (although I am pretty sure that no one has kids here). There is nothing to prevent an officer from bringing his wife over here at his own expense, but when they do, finding a place for them to live and supporting them while they are here is the officer's responsibility. Oddly enough, I believe the wives ARE allowed ID cards that gain them access to the bases themselves and, at least in Seoul, the Post Exchange and Commissary. One officer even got his wife on-post housing down in Seoul (although he has to pay for it).

The wives you see here all live down in Seoul somewhere. If the officer's superior allows it, he can leave post at the end of each day and travel down to Seoul and return the next morning. Most officers find this commute to be a hassle, and so may be with their wives only on weekends or maybe a few days each week.

Oddly, this practice seems only to occur among company-grade officers (lieutanants and captains). I don't know of any field-grade officers (major or above, but except for a few colonels over at Casey or in Seoul or the two Generals that are here) who bring their families over. My guess is that officers of those grades have been married long enough that their families are used to extended absences, and that uprooting families for a single-year tour (selling houses, pulling kids out of school, etc.) is way too much of a hassle- and pretty expensive to boot.

But young marrieds (lieutenants and captains might only have been married a year or two) might see things differently. Perhaps with no kids to worry about, two young people might see it as the adventure of a lifetime to come and live in this part of the world. Who knows?

All I DO know is that I have met two or three of the wives, and all are a breath of fresh air, what with the only other females around being Korean workers or entertainers. It's a different perspective, which is always nice to have.

The pictures at left and right are overkill, as in both you see the same G-1 (Personnel) officer and the same woman from the Red Cross contingent.

I suppose these women have to put up with a bit of this sort of thing all the time, American women being the rare commodity that they are around here. I actually found out later that this officer and the woman are quite good friends, although the officer has a family stateside.

After the little presentation was over, we had a couple of our own officers doing a sing-along. (NOTE from 2021: I cannot quite dredge up the name of the officer I photographed, although I remember seeing him around post many times. I did not record his name in my slide notes either, and it is those notes I am using to be the framework for this narrative.) Here are a couple of pictures I took of one of the performers:

A Night to Remember

My time in Korea has certainly taken me out of my comfort zone in many ways. Nerdy and basically pretty straightlaced through college, I was naive about a lot of things. Not being part of the "in-crowd" growing up, and being bookish and withdrawn most of my life, I have found that many of the experiences I have had here have been new for me (but not for almost any of my co-workers and friends). One of these experiences is, to put it bluntly, drinking (alcohol).

While my parents drank occasionally, and while I have tried it once or twice, I find that it must be an acquired taste, and since I didn't care for it on the few times I tried it, I never got to like it enough to drink very much, and certainly never enough to drink to excess. That changed here in Korea.

Myself, Ed Haywood, and Dan Gunn

Much of off-duty social life here centers on the bar at the Officers' Club. It is a place to unwind and to have fun. It is a place to talk and joke around. And during the winter, it is just about the only place to be- particularly when it is snowing and below zero outside. On this particular evening, I have brought my camera to the bar, intending to take some candid shots of my friends, all the better to remember them by.

What I hadn't planned on was this being one of the two or three nights on which I, myself, achieved a state that before my arrival in Korea I had never experienced. That, of course, was the state of being intoxicated. Let me introduce my pictures this even with the photo at left, taken only an hour into the evening (which lasted until well past midnight this particular Saturday night).

I am at the left, of course, and Ed Haywood, probably my best friend here in-country, is in the center. At right is Dan Gunn, the Lieutenant with whom I went to Japan in January. The three of us, with the usual addition of Theron Lott and Bob Cavendish, and oftentimes Peter Cannon and/or Don Brasher, were fairly frequent companions, both here in the Club and also on forays around this part of Korea.

I know that one question you might have is just what I am shouting about, with the other two officers looking so much more serious. Well, this is a story in itself. Again, it involves my upbringing contrasting with new experiences in Korea.

Me, Ed Heywood, CPT Don Brasher

Like most young people growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I listened to popular music. But my tastes where fairly narrow. For example, I never much liked rock 'n roll of the Elvis variety. This ruled out many other singers too, and also many negro groups. What I DID like were pop songs by teenage idols- like Del Shannon, Leslie Gore, the Supremes, and many other individuals and groups. I also liked more symphonic selections, played by the likes of Mantovani and Ferrante & Teicher. But what I had really never been exposed to was "country" music.

This might seem odd, growing up in North Carolina as I did, but while I'd certainly heart C&W music on local stations, the music was of the Grand Ole Opry variety, way too twangy for my taste. It was at Davidson that I began to understand that "Country" music was evolving, becoming less "country" and less "western" and more "pop". In the couple of years before I entered the Army and came to Korea, I'd become fond of some of this music- particularly Glen Campbell, John Denver, and Tammy Wynette.

One of the first things I learned about Ed Haywood was the his absolute favorite singer was, in fact, Tammy Wynette. He had most of her music, which I was able to copy and listen to. While I liked almost all her stuff, "Stand By Your Man" quickly became a standout favorite- mostly because it was eminently easy to sing along with it. Ed brought a 45rpm single of it to the Club, and on many nights the three of us would sing along with it. Early in the evening, we did so seriously, trying to harmonize. But after a few drinks, we were belting it out at the top of our lungs. The song caught on, and it became a staple on any night where the drinking had pushed a group of us into an uninhibited state.

When I came to Korea, and acquired a stereo system, I actually began simply recording an entire evening of AFKN (the Armed Forces Korea Network) on the nights they played "top 40" music. Once I had a whole reel of recording, I was then able to use my two reel-to-reel decks to cut out individual songs and re-record them separately. After a few months, I ended up with quite a collection of music spanning the entire decade of the 1960s.

NOTE from 2021:
The music I recorded in Korea in 1970-1971 stayed with me for a long, long time. When I got back to the States and bought a car that came with a cassette deck, I bought one for my stereo system, and spent quite some time transferring this music to cassette so I could listen to it in the car, and for the next fifteen years these cassettes were the core of my music collection. This collection, expanded as I borrowed albums to record them and transfer them to cassette, lasted me until the late 1980s and early 1990s. By that time, I had a large collection of music- over 100 3-hour tape reels full of all kinds of music. The fidelity was a bit lacking, since tape was involved, but that all changed with the almost simultaneous arrival of CDs and Napster. It took a while, but with one of my first computers I used Napster to locate and download digital copies of most of the music I had on tape, and I eventually discarded the tapes and cassettes.

Me, Ed Heywood, Don Brasher, and another officer

At left is another picture (I had someone else take pictures this evening so I could be in some of them) of our group belting out a Tammy Wynette classic. This is the third picture you've seen where I am holding a drink. I have never been much of a drinker, but having been in Korea for eight months now, and finding that there is little else to do during the Winter, I have taken to drinking the sweetest thing I can find, a sloe gin fizz (which the Korean bartender had to recommend for me). Unfortunately, even though these drinks are sweet enough so that I cannot taste the alcohol (which I don't like), there is in fact alcohol in them, and this alcohol has the usual effect. I have gotten a bit squishy (actually, very drunk on one occasion) on these things, and tonight was one of those nights. So if I look a little stupid in these pictures, chalk it up to that.

Most of the other guys drink a lot, so they can handle looking stupid better than I can (or at least they hide it well). (NOTE from 2021: One of the other things you should understand is that this is 1970, and prices are a lot lower than they are today, where a well drink at the typical bar can cost $10, I guess. Obviously, on a salary of $342.20/month, no one in 1970 could AFFORD to get drunk very often. Fortunately, not only were prices much lower then, but the cost was subsidized further on post, and a typical drink at the Club was between 15-25 cents. So you could get really blasted for less than half the cost of a typical drink today.)

Another Club tradition that encouraged more, rather than less drinking, was the practice of "buying the bar", at which time an officer would ring a loud ship's bell above the bar, signalling that the bartender was to pour an additional drink for every patron. This might cost the ringer $3-4, so it was usually only done on special occasions- a promotion, a leave being granted, or something like that. But what happened fairly often was that as the evening progressed, and the patrons became more inebriated and their inhibitions went down, the bell got rung more frequently. I remember some nights when you would see three or four drinks lined up in front of each patron at the bar! And I even recall one evening when the bartender asked everyone to down two or three of these lined-up drinks quickly because he was running out of glasses!

Here are Dan Gunn and another officer.

Ask to take a picture and this is what you get.

In all of these pictures, you've seen officers in and out of uniform. Off-duty, you could pretty much wear what you wanted, and lots of guys found it convenient not to have to go back to their quarters to change. Or maybe they came directly from work. I was usually just more comfortable in civvies, but as you can see I and a few other officers were in the minority. And don't confuse me with the other officer who also had a red sweater that night.

I did not record or remember these officer's names. The one on the right is a Warrant Officer.

It might not be "Stand By Your Man", but my friends are singing along to something!

In case you are curious, Warrant Officers are technical experts, trainers, and/or advisors. They hold "warrants" from their service secretary and they specialize in specific military technologies or capabilities. They acquire their authority from the same source as commissioned officers, but they are considered specialists, compared to commissioned officers (like myself), who are considered generalists. Making someone a Warrant Officer (there are four levels of them) is a way of obtaining specialized skills; men and women having these skills are very much valued, and the Warrant Officer program is a way of recognizing their status.

You might have wondered about why some of the officers' fatigues looked wet. While it was warm in the Club (space heaters seem to have only one setting), the liquid came from actual drinks which, as the evening progressed, got tossed around.

We didn't just sing to "Stand By Your Man"; on this particular evening, a conga line formed, and it snaked through the bar with everyone singing at the top of their lungs.

Here are Ed Heywood and I. I have had entirely too many sloe gin fizzes, but they are sweet and I can't taste the alcohol, and so they have a habit of sneaking up on me. Ed drinks bourbon and Coca-Cola, and I imagine those drinks are stronger.

I guess there is no anticipating what inebriated people are likely to do; all I can say is that WO Jasich and Major Carter are having a bit of fun.

I'll just conclude this section with a few more pictures that were taken during the evening.

Ed Haywood

I caught Ed in a serious pose, for a change, and even though the flash didn't work well, perhaps that made the picture even better.

Miss Kye, and WO and Mrs. Jasich

I don't think I've said much so far about the fact that not just a few American soldiers came home from their tours with a new wife in tow, but there were quite a few that did. I know you've heard stories about soldiers in Vietnam leaving behind American-Vietnamese children, and that did happen fairly frequently. Less frequently, soldiers came home from that conflict with actual brides.

The same happened here. But I think that the relationships here were probably different, as it wasn't a case of soldiers under fire taking pleasure where they could find it. Here in Korea, I suspect, soldiers became acquainted with young women (under proper or "improper" circumstances) and the soldier's routine was stable enough that an actual relationship could grow. I have no idea if that is what happened with the Jasich's, but happen it did. The young woman had her own place in a nearby village, and even though she became eligible for post housing when she married, there was none at Camp Howze, and so WO Jasich alternated between staying here or at her place. The arrangement seemed to work for them, and I certainly hope it continues to.

Myself and Ed Haywood

I really liked Ed; he was a lot of things that I'm not, and I credit him for my becoming more easygoing during my time here. He arrived in the Fall last year, when I had already been here for three or four months, and looking back on it, he was one of the major influences on me during my time here. (NOTE from 2021: As you will discover later in the album, I would run across Ed again in Chicago, and get a chance to see him in a totally different environment- with a wife and family.)

I know we look stupid, but that's what alcohol seems to do (at least to me). As I said, Korea has been an eye-opener for me, as I've been exposed to so many new experiences. At least they were new for me. I'd seen lots of classmates at Davidson come back to the dorm pretty drunk from fraternity house parties and, while I'd attended one or two, I never liked beer, which was then the drink most commonly consumed. So I was usually the sober one at social gatherings, and as many of you may know, inebriated people probably don't appear to each other as they do to people who are not in the same position. Maybe this is just another aspect of the Theory of Relativity.

But as far as I can remember, I enjoyed these evenings. Letting go, I have discovered, is indeed liberating. And since none of us had to drive or do anything serious at the end of these evenings, all we had to contend with was the inevitable hangover. But while I drank more in Korea than I ever had, I only actually drank to excess (and by that I mean to actually being sick at some point) one time here in country. This resulted in my being head down in the head early the next morning, an experience that was unpleasant enough that I resolved to try to recognize the signs and avoid the point of no return henceforth.

(NOTE from 2021: In that I was entirely successful for the next two decades. But after I moved to Dallas and was introduced to the margarita, I had to learn that lesson one more time.)

Casino Night

One of the monthly fixtures at the Officers' Club was "Casino Night", in which Vegas-style tables were set up and craps, blackjack, and poker were played for actual money. That the Army would allow this seemed odd to me at first, but then on my first trip to the Officers' Club in Yongsan down in Seoul, I discovered that they had an actual permanent little casino area, complete with slot machines. I never investigated how this was done here in-country, but I did find out from my friend Peter Guerrant when he returned from Vietnam that they had the same thing there. This leads me to believe that perhaps all overseas posts of any size might have gambling, but as I didn't play the games (except that I did try blackjack once and promptly lost a couple of bucks) it didn't matter much.

As I was arriving at the Officers' Club for Casino Night, I saw the sun setting over the mountains way to the west of here, so I went back to the hooch to get my telephoto lens. This was the result.

I didn't need to take a lot of pictures at Casino Night; all the guys were doing was playing the various games intently (since actual money was on the line).

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

At the Officers' Club we had serious shows, local talent, general nights of drinking, and gambling. But there was one other kind of show that was put on occasionally, I and I need not say much at all about it. I had the politeness to ask the performer this evening if she would allow me to take some pictures, and she graciously assented.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	March 27, 1971: A Weekend Trip to Seoul
	March 6, 1971: A Korean Show at the Officers' Club
	Return to the Index for 1971