Loaded-Gun.Com - Anti-Social.Com's Rejects!
General Category => Politics, Philosophy, News and/or Current Affairs => Topic started by: Zoomie on June 03, 2009, 10:05:20 PM
-
Today is, of course the 20th anniversary of the Tienamen Square Massacre. That night I was in my little house in Songtan-Si Korea, huddled with my wife and two children, fearing for our lives. Four hundred miles away were three divisions of the People's Army and between us were 150,000 NKPA troops whose only dream was to kill a long nose (Yang Kko). Most people in that part of Asia OUTSIDE China held their breath and listened to machine gun fire from across town on CNN and then later on Nightline with Ted Koppel and held their breath. The PRC is not something to be fucked with, then or now. But that night was also a turning point for me. It was the first time I knew that I'd made a mistake by joining the military.
I'd only been back in the ROK for 7 months, having just graduated from the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA and then from the multi-service cryptologic school in Texas. I'd already decided that I hated the job that $300K had been spent to train me to do. It was a bore. I preferred things out where the action was: The flightline. Humping gear from plane to plane in 90F+ wearing nothing but a pair of GI boxers, snowball fights with flight crews in the worst winters on the planet, and the gentle curve on an engine nacelle. But I was a linguist now and was destined to spend the rest of my career 9 stories underground. I talked to the operation superintendent and told him that I was unsure whether or not I could live down there 60 hours a week. He gave me a field assignment. Sitting in a tent the size of a VW with a laptop, a diesel heater, an M16, a case of MREs and 4 jarheads. On a mountaintop. Inside the DMZ. Not just in sight of, but well within range of NK artillery. Yay fun.
So I did what any self respecting Non-Commissioned Officer would do. I re-developed a taste for booze and hookers and got my ass pulled from the Operations Floor.
The next year or maybe the year after, when the Soviet Union imploded, there was even less of a reason for me to be there. I came back to the states, wrote two books about Command and Control Communications, and got my ass free from the uniform. I still miss it sometimes but it's the benefits of military life I miss. The travel, the exotic places, the camaraderie and the booze and hookers.
The first cracks in the foundation appeared 20 years ago tonight with the thought that I couldn't get out of my head: "WTF am I doing here?" I'll drink to that...
Sorry Eric, this is the shit I promised to write for you, but no one has posted on your site for over a month, and even then it was me pointing out that it's obsolete.
-
In complete & total seriousness: great story, grampa!
-
In complete & total seriousness: great story, grampa!
-
20 years since the incident...and 19 years since the French have wanted to lift the arms embargo against China. And 20 years of China thinking no one would notice if they claim the deaths were say, 10-40 times less than the actual number!
I'll drink to anyone who has the flash of enlightenment of "WTF am I doing here?"
-
Drinking to that as I type!
-
I would love a drink right now - except I don't think I could hold it down. See hangover thread.