Korean hospitality can be prodigious. And when an honored guest is invited to your home, it is expected that you will do your best to entertain him. Even if that means going into debt. However, I doubted that these ROK Army officers were going into debt, personally, while entertaining the American officers. The U.S. government provides millions of dollars every year to the Korean defense establishment. Most of the money is earmarked for spending on contracts with the U.S. arms industry, but some of it is for discretionary spending. My guess is that some of those U.S. dollars filtered down to a level as low as battalion commander, especially when he needed an entertainment budget to provide good face for his country. Ironically, the American officers were probably being entertained with American tax dollars. However, they’d still felt obligated to reciprocate.
“So they started black-marketing,” I said.
Jill nodded.
In order to reciprocate, the American officers didn’t want to pull that much money out of their own pockets. Even though an American colonel is well paid-especially from the point of view of a corporal who clears 140 dollars a month-they often don’t have a lot of spending money while stationed in Korea. Their family is back in the States. They have a house payment, a car payment, a household budget, maybe one or two kids attending college or getting ready to start college. After all that, even a full-bird colonel might only have a hundred dollars a month to spend on himself, if he was lucky.
The Division brass had to come up with an alternative source of income. Back in the sixties, local commanders controlled the nonap-propriated fund budget, the profits of the NCO clubs and the officers’ club on base. Although prices were purposely kept low and little was made from club operations themselves, the shortfall was more than made up for by slot machines. The one-armed bandits produced plenty of money for everyone. But in the late sixties, Congress got wind of widespread corruption and banned slot machines from military bases. After that, the 2nd Infantry Division brass was desperate for a source of off-the-books revenue. That is, money not available for inspection by government auditors.
Open ration control plates, and the Korean black market, was the answer.
Human nature being what it is, soon the operation expanded far beyond what was necessary to host a few Korean officers four or five times a year. The mafia meeting came up with new projects to fund. Some of them were good, according to Jill. Equipment like electrical generators and imported refrigerators were donated to Korean orphanages. A Christmas party, complete with an NCO dressed up like Santa Claus, was thrown every year for the few American dependents who lived outside Camp Casey. Medical supplies were provided to farming villages in the Division area of operations that had been hit by fire or flood or other disasters.
But once those things were taken care of, there was the free booze and food and entertainment for the MPs at the Turkey Farm, and the fee to rent a hall and provide refreshments and entertainment at the mafia meeting. Then, when a ranking American officer completed his tour of duty in Korea and was on his way back to the States, a going-away party had to be thrown in his honor. And a gift had to be provided. Not something routine out of the PX, but something that would be a true memento of his time in Frozen Chosun, like a valuable Korean antique. The fact that it could be shipped back to the States in the officer’s hold baggage, and was not likely to be checked by U.S. Customs, and the fact that he could legally resell the item once it was in the States for ninety days, was only incidental, supposedly, to the sentimental value of the gift. An overworked and underpaid American colonel could clear a few thousand dollars by reselling that antique back in the States. And who said he didn’t deserve it? After protecting his country selflessly as he’d done? And the money would go for a good cause. To remodel his retirement home or pay for junior’s college tuition or allow a harried military wife to have that plastic surgery that she’d always dreamed of. So what’s wrong with feeling good about yourself?
Jill became so passionate about this subject that I had to slow her down. Ernie still snored. Kim Yong-ai still hid silently behind the door leading to the kitchen.
“Okay, Jill,” I said. “They broke you in buying wristwatches and then larger items and having you transport them from the PX out to Tongduchon. You were working nights on the ville patrol. Then one morning, as you were getting off duty, something bad happened. Something involving a deuce-and-a-half.”
Her face soured. She sipped her lukewarm coffee, composed herself, and then resumed. The outline of what she told me, I already knew, having been briefed by Sergeant Bernewright, the Division Safety NCO. Two GIs were coming back from the Western Corridor, hungover and driving too fast and the road was slick with intermittent rain. As they approached a group of middle-school girls waiting for a bus, the driver lost control of the truck on a slippery curve and slid into the crowd, injuring two and mortally wounding young Chon Un-suk.
“I wanted to shoot the bastards,” Jill told me. “I even pulled my. 45 and held it to the driver’s head. He believed I was gonna do it, too, and I almost did.” She barked a short, mirthless laugh. “The silly bastard wet himself.”
“And then you gave the girl first aid?”
“I tried. But someone had informed her father and he showed up, absolutely in a panic, and he started to lift her up and people were helping him and I told them to stop, that the medics would be here any minute and if she had a spine injury that they could cripple her for life. But they weren’t listening and when I tried to stop them, her father shoved me. I kept trying to reason with him but other men in the crowd helped him carry the little girl and I could see her head lolling backward and her tongue hanging out, pink, and I was afraid they might snap her neck. I tried again to interfere and this time someone smacked me and I smacked him back and then we were fighting, and a jeep full of MPs arrived firing their weapons into the air and everyone backed off. Except me. I ran after the father, followed him to his home and, without anyone asking me to, I went through the gate. Her mother was hysterical. Tearing her hair out. Moaning over her daughter. I pushed my way through and felt the carotid artery and there was nothing left and I knew that Chon Un-suk was dead. She’d died on the way over, while being carried by her father.”
A long silence ensued. I sat cross-legged on the ondol floor, trying to picture the scene, trying to feel what Jill Matthewson must’ve felt. Finally, she spoke again.
“What pissed me off,” she said softly, “was why those two doo-fus MPs were sent to the Western Corridor in the first place. And why they were driving back so early in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Fred Otis told me the story,” Jill said.
Him again? Why was I surprised? He was a veteran NCO, well aware of what was going on around him, experienced, and it figured that a young MP as bright as Jill Matthewson would gravitate toward him for advice.
Otis told Jill that the two MPs had been sent to a notorious GI village in the Western Corridor known as Yangjukol. Spending the night there had been their reward for driving the deuce-and-a-half after regular duty hours and picking up an ancient vase from some Korean antiques dealer and transporting it back the next morning to Camp Casey.
“The Division honchos are busy black-marketing their butts off,” Jill said, “and little Chon Un-suk gets herself killed because of them.” Jill shook her head and whispered softly. “Bastards. And to cover it up, they let the two guys in the truck off easy. Sent them back to the States, out of harm’s way.”
“What type of antique were they transporting?” I asked.
“I caught a glimpse of it when I first approached the truck. Tied in the center of the bed of the truck, all by itself, partially encased in wood. Beautiful.”