Some of the best years of my life were those that would seem to have been the toughest. I'll bet that's true for a lot of people.

In April of 1988, after two years of Army training, I arrived at my first permanent station — Alpha Company, 102^nd MI Battalion, 2^nd Infantry Division at Camp Hovey Korea.

As all assignments to 2^nd ID were at the time, it was a one-year assignment, considered a "hardship tour" by the Army. Most places the Army sends you, they will let you take your family and household with you - but not 2^nd ID.

Many called us the "tripwire division" (in case the North Koreans decided to come south to unite the peninsula once and for all), but we ha-ha-only-seriously referred to ourselves as the "speedbump division." We were under no illusions that we might survive intact if the Norks came south. We just had to slow them down long enough to allow stateside units to deploy to the Korean peninsula to put pain and destruction on the enemy.

The living conditions in garrison were uncomfortable but not unbearably so — but for the first several months I was in Korea, it seemed we were rarely in garrison. We lived in tents and bunkers overlooking the DMZ, performing our mission. After a stand-down for the '88 Seoul Olympics, we returned to a slightly less active field operational cycle: a bit more time in garrison and a bit less time in the field. But make no mistake: we lived "under canvas" much more than any stateside unit might.

It was a tough routine — not as tough as our lads have it in Iraq and Afghanistan have it — but it was important and satisfying work. Those of us there became just about as close as it is possible to become in a peacetime Army. We lived together, deployed together, partied together... you might think we'd have been utterly sick of the sight of each other, but you'd be wrong.

As a Korean linguist, I figured that Korea was the best place for me to do my job, so rather than automatically rotate back stateside when my year was up, I extended for another year. Several of my colleagues and friends did the same. More field time, more hard work, more 100° monsoon weather, more bitterly cold winter — but it was worth it. At the end of the second year, I extended for a further six months, figuring I might like to return stateside after 2½ years.

In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein sent his army into Kuwait. I figured I was going to be stuck in Korea for longer than I had anticipated, but fortune smiled on me, and two weeks before a freeze was put on all transfers, I departed Korea.

Those 2½ years in Korea were among the best in my life. We worked harder (and played harder) there than I have anywhere before or since. Those are days, good and bad, that I'll never forget. The people I served with were the best I've ever known.

One phenomenon new to me at the time of my assignment to Korea was that of "unit coins." Individual units often had coins minted, typically with a logo or the unit crest and a motto; the coins were presented to soldiers who had earned the right to be called "one of us." I still keep mine, just in case I ever run into another veteran of A/102^nd MI.

Diameter: 1¾".
Obverse: Tasmanian Devil ("Taz") holding lightning bolt and magic wand, wearing headphones, rucksack and boots, standing above Korean word for "Victory".
Reverse: mottos. (And now you know where I got the tagline for this site.)

Posted by Russ at 06:35 PM, August 17, 2004 in Personal Stuff