Dem
47
GOP
53
We wonder how many readers know what budae jjigae is. If one lives just a few miles from Koreatown in Los Angeles, it's hard not to know. Beyond that, however, we are not sure. For those not in the know, it's Korean military stew. Soldiers (and, now, restaurants) toss a bunch of good things into a pot—kimchi, tofu, ramen, mushrooms, sausage, gochujang (chili paste), and a bunch of other stuff—and the result is something very substantive and very delicious.
When we put out a call for stories of those who served, and those who supported them, we got a fair number of responses that aren't quite long enough to run all by themselves. So, we thought we'd serve up a nice military stew today. Note that we've decided to leave them uncensored, so brace yourself for PG-13 language:
B.G. in Carpinteria, CA: In 1944, my 25-year-old father joined the U.S. Army medical corps and was shipped to Belgium, where he cared for U.S. and Allied troops that had been injured during the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis' last major assault on Western Europe, and an attempt to retake the industrial port of Antwerp. Later in life, he told my sister and I about the horrors of fascism in Europe that he had witnessed or heard about from the wounded soldiers under his care.
Back in the U.S., he had a successful medical practice for 35 years, but never forgot what he had seen during World War II. As he was a political activist, our neighbors were questioned by the FBI during the McCarthy period about Dad's daily activities. My mother was scared shitless. One day at the hospital in Los Angeles where he had surgical privileges, the FBI came by to speak with the chief hospital administrator about my father's political activity and who he associated with. As dad told my sister and I, in no uncertain terms the administrator told the agents that my father was a good doctor and to FUCK OFF! Late in his life, my wife and I on occasion would see dad by himself on the sidewalk at the Saturday's farmers market in Santa Barbara, with Green Party sign in hand, talking to the shoppers.
B.A. in Astoria, OR: I met a real hero once. In 1968, Fort Ord hospital was filled with guys shot up in Vietnam. One had his legs operated on three times and they still didn't work quite right. His platoon tripped an ambush. He stood up in the middle of a firefight. He laid down enough fire that his platoon was able to cut their way out. He should have ended up dead, but only ended up with his legs shot up. The army gave him the Bronze Star with V device.
On the weekends, while recovering, he took up with some hippies living in the redwoods behind Santa Cruz. One Monday he just didn't come back. For 30 days he was listed as AWOL. On day 31 it was changed to deserter.
He'll never have a place in a military graveyard. No headstone with his name and rank. No one will ever place a flag over his grave. He is, after all, a deserter. But one with a Bronze Star and legs that don't work right. He deserves to be remembered.
F.L. in Allen, TX: I'm alive because of measles.
My father enlisted in the Army for World War II. He was sent to New York for boot camp.
He was, literally, on the boat to England, but they hadn't put to sea. Not feeling well, he went to the ship's doc. A cursory exam revealed a temperature, indicating something contagious—measles was the guess. Naturally, the doc ordered him back to base, and to report to the infirmary immediately.
Dad met his sergeant on the way out. There was, to put it mildly, a discussion. The sergeant quickly found out who's really God on a ship, and it ain't the cap. So, Dad missed the boat, so to speak.
He spent the rest of the war mining San Francisco harbor (yet nearly died when a mine dropped on the deck of a crane barge).
Seven kids and ten grandkids later...
D.E. in Ann Arbor, MI: I asked Dad what he remembered about being in the Army. He immediately replied that a ceasefire was signed in Korea shortly after he went in, which was a relief, as he'd assumed he would be going to the war there. He said few people who have been in the Army enjoyed it, because of all the "chickenshit" that goes on there day to day.
Dad remembered a live-fire training, where they had to crawl beneath live machine-gun fire, and if you stuck your head up above a certain level, you'd be killed. That impressed him as a very serious matter. They were also required to dig "tank-over" foxholes, which were narrow enough that a tank could advance over them without caving in the foxhole. They had to crouch in these foxholes as a tank passed over.
Dad said that after basic training, he was trained in military government. There he learned to direct traffic. Dad did a comic imitation of directing traffic, in which he gestured very slowly and widely with his arms and pointed with his hands, to show me how deeply he had learned his lessons.
T.B. in Leon County, FL: My wife once asked my dad why he enlisted. (Her father was a company officer—CO—firefighter during World War II.) My dad's reply was: "Nobody wanted to go to war, but everybody was getting drafted. I figured my best chance for survival was as a naval officer." Growing up in an ethnic enclave of Detroit, "conscientious objector" was not a thing, but in college, his best friend, Julian, registered as a Conscientious Objector (the "CO" term I grew up with). My dad became a gunnery officer on an LST (landing ship, tank) and participated in D-Day (scheduled to be in the first wave of the aborted offensive, but part of the far-more-survivable third wave of the actual invasion); his CO friend Julian was a starvation experiment guinea pig in Florida (so authorities could learn how to help concentration camp survivors to survive).
After the European war ended, my dad was stationed in Washington, DC, and he boarded with Julian's parents, who lived right next door to my mom's parents, and my mom was living at home as she worked for the USGS there. Her father did radioactive nucleoid research (but not on uranium) for the War Department as they were the only folks paying for this kind of research, but as a would-be CO, he refused the salary. Drafted in World War I, he refused promotion to prevent his being put in the position to give anyone orders. Her mother was a war-time (civilian) code breaker, and accepted her government paycheck!
Me? My brother was an ROTC-scholarship Minuteman Missile Silo officer who simply said "Don't join; they'll beat you down." I "became" a CO a few years later after spending a half-hour in the Statue of Liberty Crown Observation Area—a possibility as there were very few tourists on that blustery cold February morning—thinking about my paternal grandfather who had been a political refugee from tsarist Russia, and who would have seen the Statue in 1907, and then later my viewing two particular exhibits in the all-but-deserted basement museum: one about the Quakers who helped mold the early American concept of religious liberty, and the other, the oath one takes when becoming an American citizen. I realized I couldn't take that oath. (I later learned that COs can actually become U.S. citizens, but the oath doesn't make it apparent.)
Thanks to all of you. (Z)