Korea revisited Pics & Posts

[Skyshark]

Warrior Base. Man that brings back some memories. LOL

[GERONIMO]

Korea 68-69 2/28th Inf priority tour. AIRBORNE! GERONIMO!!

[Hendo]

You wouldn't recognize Korea now. Everything is new and they continue to put money into this place. It's ridiculous, this place hemorrages cash. My rent is almost $3000 a month and the Army has given it to me EVERY MONTH since March of 2010. On top of that I live in an apartment on the 18th floor of a building near the Han river and the subway tracks. I do get free internet and cable though...........

[Skyshark]

You wouldn't recognize Korea now. Everything is new and they continue to put money into this place. It's ridiculous, this place hemorrages cash. My rent is almost $3000 a month and the Army has given it to me EVERY MONTH since March of 2010. On top of that I live in an apartment on the 18th floor of a building near the Han river and the subway tracks. I do get free internet and cable though...........

Fucker. My first half of my tour I was in a Quantsa Hut (sp).

[Recon133]

You wouldn't recognize Korea now. Everything is new and they continue to put money into this place. It's ridiculous, this place hemorrages cash. My rent is almost $3000 a month and the Army has given it to me EVERY MONTH since March of 2010. On top of that I live in an apartment on the 18th floor of a building near the Han river and the subway tracks. I do get free internet and cable though...........

Holy Crap. Here I was feeling sorry for you Hendo. I can't even begin to tell you what Korea was like in 1960. Korea was still an undeveloped 3rd World Country. The scars of the War were everywhere. Unexploded Ordnance, fenced off mine fields, our Compound was on generators up until a year before I got there.

[Feetasshead]

Fucker. My first half of my tour I was in a Quantsa Hut (sp).

Mine was one of those big metal huts at the JSA but I at least had my own room since I was an E6, booya. Cold as a mother in the Winter.
I swear I saw one of the KATUSA's who was in the TOC with me yesterday but I did not want to approach him and be the "they all look alike"guy if I were wrong..it was at my overtime gig.

[VoTrooper99]

Fucker. My first half of my tour I was in a Quantsa Hut (sp).

That's a Quonset Hut. Named after the Quonset Point Navy Base in my hometown of North Kingstown, RI. It was a big carrier and SeaBee hub in Rhode Island. Call my state small and insignificant if you will, but they don't name military structures after Nevada!

[VoTrooper99]

Holy Crap. Here I was feeling sorry for you Hendo. I can't even begin to tell you what Korea was like in 1960. Korea was still an undeveloped 3rd World Country. The scars of the War were everywhere. Unexploded Ordnance, fenced off mine fields, our Compound was on generators up until a year before I got there.

There are still alot of backwoods areas, but Seoul is basically NYC with Korean writing on the signs.

[GERONIMO]

The Quanset Hut that I lived in at Camp Hovey for about three weeks before moveing south on our mission had a four inch gap between the side walls and the ground. The wind blew under and the snow and rats came in all the time. The heat was a 55gal barrel made into a fuel oil stove fed by a 5gal gas can. This was in Febuary. The only thing warm was the "Business Girls". AIRBORNE! GERONIMO!!

[jumpers-hit-it]

I was there from Nov 96 to Jun 98, HHC 1/503rd. During my time in the 503, they went from light infantry battalion to air assault bn. It was pretty cool doing all that shit, they were supposed to send us all through the school so we could have our badges but for some reason that never happened. Funny though, we still did air assault operations. My first tour was supposed to be from Nov 96 - Nov 97 but I extended my tour. It just so happens that on Nov 24, 1997; the day I was supposed to leave ROK originally, I got a massive head injury out near Warrior Base. I was on top of an FLA and my foot got caught in the camo netting, I fell off and hit headfirst on the metal stairs. Cut all the way down to the skull, avulsing 1/3 of my scalp and giving me a helluva concussion. Next thing I knew I'm getting slapped in the face by the other medics in my platoon (I was a 91B at that time) as they tried to keep me conscious during the ground evac back to Camp Casey. From there it was helo to YoungSan. Spent 4 days in the hospital recovering from that.

Other than that, it was an awesome time. My squad won a medic competition down south one time, I think it was spring/summer of 97, not sure. I do know that we finished the ruck faster than anyone else, 6 miles in 58 mins. Got a Bn coin for that, my first coin.

My memory might not be serving me right, had a few TBI's, but I seem to remember my PL going to sick call a lot over there, only to find out he had some form of cancer so the army med-charged him out, and I seem to remember him dying or being close it only a few months later. Can't remember his name right now, but he was a good dude.


I actually tried to extend a 3rd time but the BDE commander said fuck no and sent me to the shithole that was Ft Hood.

I do remember hearing the propaganda shit coming over from N Korea, and going up to the JSA quite a bit. Don't have my pics from korea in electronic form (yet), but when I do I'll upload them. I only have a few left. Haven't thought about Korea in a long time. A buddy of mine, another medic nicknamed VJ, he was head over heels in love with a "buy me drinkie" girl from the PI, I think he married her, not sure b/c I've not heard from him since leaving ROK.

Oh, and the reason why we were called turtles was because it took a year to go from one side of the processing camp to the other (in processing to out processing). And turtle ditches were named b/c the newbies who didn't know about the "knock you on your ass" powers of soju would pass the fuck out right in them bitches. Found myself in those a time or two, even picked my cherry LT out of one once.

More to follow later if I find my pics.

[Recon133]

The Quanset Hut that I lived in at Camp Hovey for about three weeks before moveing south on our mission had a four inch gap between the side walls and the ground. The wind blew under and the snow and rats came in all the time. The heat was a 55gal barrel made into a fuel oil stove fed by a 5gal gas can. This was in Febuary. The only thing warm was the "Business Girls". AIRBORNE! GERONIMO!!

Samo samo here. We had a great houseboy. He kept the kerosene cans filled and the heaters working, plugged the gaps and cracks in the walls, made the beds, did the laundry, had stripes or patches sewed on our uniforms, cleaned the hooch, etc etc.

[ABN MP]

I had it pretty rough for my 2 1/2 years there. We had a 2 bedroom/2 Bath house. It has a sitting room, TV room, and then we had a fenced in yard. All on Yongsan. Times were tough I tell ya, LOL. The truth is that I had a great time there. It was a good tour after ETS'ing and our living was very nice. The only thing I hated was the traffic that I had to deal with daily.

[Skyshark]

Ran across quite a few pictures and some other Army stuff when I was going through my garage the past couple days.


Photo 3.jpg

This one really isn't anything to do with Korea. This is a picture of my grandfather the day he came home from the War (WWII) and took a picture with my great grandmother.






Photo 16.jpg

This was a picture taken from the fire escape in my barracks on Camp Hovey. For those of you that know Camp Hovey, you can see the edge of the softball field that was on the right hand side just as you entered Camp Hovey if you were coming from Casey.


Photo 18.jpg

Me and a buddy. Don't remember his name.





The next three are;

The two M-60 Teams of 3rd Platoon. I am the 60 Gunner in the back row with the dip of Copenhagen. LOL

The next picture is a one of a dead North Korean Infiltrator. No I wasn't there when he was killed and no I didn't take the picture. Can't remember how I got this picture.

The last pic as you can tell was a certified pig pickin. We were on a field problem and we had been up all night cause there had been a shit load os reports regarding Slicky Boy. We were about 20 yards in the woodline watching this farm. There was a strong wind storm that night. We all stayed awake in our hasty fighting positions, watching the fence of this farm out in this clearing just get it's ass kicked and blown to hell. The next morning at Stand To we noticed this farmer come out of the house. I call it a house well because it had walls and what appeared to be a roof. Anyway, we watched this guy come out and I am guessing he was probably 250 years old. :) With out missing a beat he went to work and just started building his fence. Wasn't bitching. Just, got to work. My CO at the time watched and thought that he could use some help. We all put a guard on our rucks, put our weapons on our backs and came out of the woodline. Holy Shit the farmer practically shit his pants when he saw all of us just walk out. He had no clue we were there. So the KATUSA NCO explained to him that we were there to help him with his fence. He just stared at us and we could tell he was touched. So we all got together and re built the fence. Took us the most of the day. As we were fixing to leave the farmer called over to Cpt. Smiley (The CO) and was telling him something. The KATUSA was translating. Turns out this guy was so touched he was trying to give the CO his prized pig. The CO tried to refuse but the KATUSA told him that he was insulting the farmer by saying no, that the farmer could not take charity and demanded that he pay for the services. So the CO had the pig loaded into the back of the 1SG's vehicle and they headed towards the rear. A few hours later and several miles later we got to our LZ and the birds came into pick us up as the Field Problem was over. Got back to the rear and spent the rest of the evening and the whole next day cleaning weapons and everything else. The next day was Saturday. 1st Platoon had this E-5 that was born and raised in the islands. Didn't know it, but the day before when we were cleaning weapons and all our equipment, he had taken the pig down by the river behind the camp and well, killed/cleaned the pig. Got is all ready and put it in the ground. So, Saturday we spent the day eating that pig and cleaning out the Class Six.

Great Day.

LOL

[Skyshark]

Man these pics came out like shit. My scanner is busted, so I had to hold them up to the camera. I will have to scan them from my sisters house this weekend and see if they come out better. If they do I will re post them.

[AlaskaDad]

Hoping that all you troops that served

Eligibility

July 28, 1954–present

have gotten that new Korean Defence Service Medal

http://www.vfw11999.org/Downloads/fi...CE%20MEDAL.pdf