pcs to Korea, gonna miss my camping

I didn't work in my primary MOS in Korea either. I got sent to K-16 and they had enought PLL clerks because of stop loss (Gulf War). I ending up being the NCOIC of the transportation section my last half of the tour. The commander also put me in charge of maintaining the ORF vehicles after she found out my seconday MOS was a 63T. I did not enjoy my tour...outside the gate, the older Koreans appreciated us but the younger ones seemed to hated us.

My son is at Osan at the moment, he's not a fan. Down to his last month and heading for "fabulous Las Vegas" when he's done. I'm much more inclined to go visit him there. :)

Your service is appreciated and the sacrifice of your family is also appreciated. Please let them know.

As far as being jerked around. I once was sent to a joint service exercise to get time on a new small craft. At least, that was the excuse they gave me to get my boss and me interested in my attendance. Was senior to the small boat coordinator and therefore, since that couldn't be, was reassigned as a Master at Arms of a barracks/hotel. Part of my rate, so really no *****, but junior to a couple of Master Chiefs. Bottom line, I ended up running an elevator for an Admiral. Reward (yippee) was a Commandant Letter of Commendation with an O for Operations, but everyone back at the base knew the O was for Otis Elevators. ;-) Things like what your going through makes retirement so sweet.

Ah, yes....."military intelligence" LOL!

Panama, Ray -- I'm with you guys.
I also ended up with really nothing to do for my year over there. At least not related to my MOS.
I ended up being the CO's driver, as needed , so I had my own hummer to take care of and use pretty much anytime as long "the boss" didn't need me. Also, to keep busy during the daily "workday", I volunteered to work in R&U fixing broken door locks and changing light bulbs and such around the unit. I spent a lot of time running around "picking up supplies" with my KATUSA coworker in R&U. Biggest accomplishment of the year was re-building the fire pit stone walls at the picnic / bbq area - made everyone in the camp happy to be able to light a fire and party!

if I remember you will be doing a lot of camping with K.A.T.U.S.A'S mostly in winter when we went to train them to go back to nam went up in jan in summer gear it was chilly

I can relate my last Korea tour there was no job for me to do. Eventually I found some things to do that were productive but a real waste to start.

I was in a TDA slot ( an extra job position created in a Headquarters unit) that was created but not filled for over 10 years. No one know I was coming or what to do with me. My rank and MOS were only needed for the position that had remained vacant for 10 years.

I ended up filling in as a Medical and Civil Affairs Planner as they did not have the Captain / Majors to do that work. I hated it as it was mainly working on planning exercises ( no execution ) for long periods of time. From the 2 of January to the 4th of July I worked at least 15 hours a day with no days off. I worked out of a bunker dark when you went to work and dark when you got off. Again just one exercise after anther no actual deployment or even movement of real troops for training in most of the exercises.


My previous Korea tour was 3 1/2 years. We trained hard but got to see a lot of the country and traveled a lot on and off duty. This last time I never used any of my field gear and only got to use some of my civilian gear working to train some of their Red Cross volunteers.

I never saw any travel trailers but did see and did a lot of tent camping - not all of it in OD green tents on duty. Their national parks are very nice but most are set up to stay in hotels. The sight of a backpacker seemed to be unusual for them.

If you get a chance to work with an English language program helping local government workers practice their English take it. I started a program at Camp Red Cloud that was a lot of fun and seemed to really help the locals out.
When you are done with the additional duty check with your G5 Civil affairs and see if there is program near you.

The hardest part of the year for me was no troops to take care of. And no real work I spent years in US Army South in South and Central America responding to Cholera outbreaks, vaccinating cattle for black leg, teaching sanitation classes, providing support to host nations to expand their medical services to the people living in rural areas. You know real work.

With no work and no troops to look out after it was a very long year. I hope yours is a lot shorter..

I will post pictures as soon as I get some. I do need to vent about some things that are going on here that I really don't understand. The military is not difficult people make the military difficultso I'm going to vent for a minute. I got here November 12 because they needed me here so bad and took me away from my wife and kids right before the holidays. It is taking me over a month to inprocess.
now because of my rank in January I would pull an extra duty for the entire month working 24 hours on and 48 hours off 24 hours on and 48 hours off.the guy in charge gives us an incentive of your only working 10 days a month. so I look at him and say well if I did work 8 hours a day I would work 3 days in one and if I do the math I'm still working 30 days but I'm doing it in 10 days. He didn't like that too much.I say all this because I needed to be here so bad and I won't actually start my job until February. I'm going home to visit my family in June and then I leave here in November.did anyone see why I'm so aggravated?sorry this is so long I'll make my future posts shorter

Take some pictures - it's be neat to see how much it's all changed.

Closest city is pyontek. I think that is how u spell it. I have to go to a two week class in seoul and then move to songton by osan. After that I will be at humphries. I dont know if it still called team spirit since no one knew that name. We will still have two weeks two times a year where we will live in the bush.
yay, NOT. Lol
I will try to update every week or so. We do what we do in the military so you can camp and not worry about things as much in the great U.S of A.

Where are you physically located now? (closest city). It will be interesting to follow you if you give updates every now and then, and if you relocate from place to place. Do they still do "Team Spirit"? The 2 weeks in the field where the entire military wears red and blue and has the joy of living out of those wonderful green tents, sleeping in rice patties, and moving around ever couple days?

Keep us posted!