अ Novel

Episode 7:Escorting the Sick Soldiers



What's all that story about? If it were to go on the same or similar route of the previously stated course, would it be worth a try? Wouldn't it be going to be improper of me to have my readers to drink a coffee of bland taste? Isn't it going to be nothing but the insult of the readers?

May be or may be not. What counts I am afraid is that I've met a dream girl in my life and that she has been leading her life of longevity in me as the paragon of the untrammelled novelty and loftiness of gracious deed. She isn't getting old.

I'd asked her a favor of giving me a photo of Iris via her younger sister. The request was met with decline, about which I did not hold a grudge or a spite at all. By the way, I haven't been lucky ever to have a photo of my girl or my woman. Three or four years ago, I'd asked my wife of thirty-some years in nuptial knot a favor of giving me her photo which had been taken in her maiden years. She had declined my request, mumbling some epithets to herself, making me blush in shame and embarrassment.

I decided to go to the boot camp. I wanted to run from the reality, from my girl, and from home. The shameful decline was not the reason at all. Above all, I hadn't volunteered to serve in the army. Thing is that the conscription notice had arrived at a proper time, which I had accepted with gleeful anticipation. I was 23 years old and the year was 1963.

I said hurried farewell greetings to father, mother, grandmother, and to all I was concerned about and to all who were concerned about me. I had my hair shaved off. I hoped to get the dishevelled memories of mine shaved off, too.

A steam train was waiting to transport the shaved recruiters from Euiseong Railroad Station to Nonsan Boot Camp. Some train compartment was somewhat cantankerous. The diligent well-wishers were on hand to wave their sons and brothers off.

Neither of my parents showed up at the station to see their son off, of course, but one of my three uncles, the youngest brother of my father, together with one fine lady, was at the station to buy lunch and say some good things for his nephew. The thing is the uncle, who had been in his early forties and had had his own wife and children, was on his belated elopement.

I was traveling with Iris my love. I felt I was not alone in this wide world because I would be with Iris all the way through the boot camp, in the busy training camp, on the fatigued barracks bed room floor, dreaming of her instead of red eyes of a sniper.

I closed my eyes in the recruiters' compartment and wished Iris would grow all her way up and well through three years of middle school and three more years of high school, and in due course of life I would make a reunion with her.



The weather of the summer in the year 1963 was so hot. The hot asses of the enlisted men of the boot camp got hotter by the wooden bats. Today's barracks life in the South Korean boot camp has made a sea change compared to the year 1963. On the very day I had flunked the M-1 rifle test firing of 300 yard or some distance, I had gotten a real hard beating on my ass by nothing other than a steel pipe grasped in the entire palm.

I'd gotten five beatings. By one beating most of the other guys had made a complete roll over, but I had counted five. On that night I had not been able to lie flat on the barracks floor bed. I had lied on one side, when I had seen the ray of the full moon light knock on the barracks window.

On the light screen seen through the window the worried faces appeared one after another: Grandma commuting between her two sons' houses, mom going on busy house chores with her mangled arm, pop ploughing the field with heavy load on his back. It was just like a fairy tale within impossible reach that there was a city and its people over the wall of the boot camp barracks.

My service category in the army was listed as a medic, which had given me a small comfort all through the boot camp training. Yes, time was "like a running river." Each and every routine after routine was progressing fleetingly, when it just arrived the time we made a move to the Army Medical School, which had then been stationed in Masan City.

Let's make some frog jumps to deprive of boredom of the story and enhance your interest in its development. The barracks life of Nonsan Boot Camp had been the life of obeyance to the rules and to the orders of the superiors, but the life of Masan Medical School was that of competition, say, among the colleague enlisted soldiers.

About five decades later I do a belated take on the meaning of the flurries of hurried exits from the barracks room on the eve of departure bound for a new and final service unit, winding up the medical school training. What's hilarious is that I realize now how smart they had been at that time and I am now able to catch up on the meaning of all the fuss.

I wish I had not heard about my ranking in the training achievement. They said earlier on the day that I had been placed on the sixth in the alumni class of 200. I was sitting quiet all along and I didn't say to any of them "How did you happen to know?" Of course, they had referred to the related document from the person in charge of Education Headquarters or something.

The thing is that all through the afternoon and the evening of that day and far into the night the readjustment of the rankings had been being done. A new day broke. I was named and taken on board a truck together with fresh faces bound for the Third Replacement Battalion on the front line. I forgot about major army hospitals or field hospitals in the rear area. That was it.

The army unit, that is, the front line medical company for which I had to serve, was situated on the neck of a mountain valley, under which the barracks of the army regiment headquarters and battalion army units were nestled. Some of the the alumni soldiers from Masan Medical School were ordered to serve on pharmacy and dispensary departments, with me on the barrack room service which was composed of four stretcher platoons.

To an army private, hunger was an intimate companion. On the day we the alumni gang of eight privates from Euiseong were deployed to the service unit company, the old-timers gave us extra meal tickets with sympathetic stares and words. I emptied six chow plates at which the kitchen guy, who was handing out the meal, beamed. The other pals seemed to have consumed almost the same amount of meals.

Out of the dining hall, Too Tall Kim somebody said to me, washing his plate, "Can you see your feet, Shimmanni?"
I tried to look down at me. I said, "No, I can't. Can you?"
"Me, either."

Hunger was not just the only companion, but anxiety was the other. Though the cities had been crisscrossed, rivers had been gotten across, and the mountains had been gotten over, the spider webs of anxiety stayed. The gloomy images were lingering.

The sullen gloom in me was so conspicuous. So much so that I was from time to time pointed out and reprimanded by the superiors about the standoffish aloofness, which I couldn't explain. I was progressively categorized and treated, in and around the barrack site, as a synonym of "a U.S. counselor." They were more often than not heard to talk behind my back, "There goes a counselor!", giggling away.

The stretcher guys' barrack life consisted of some monotonous routines: They did hygienic chores, boned up on the first-aid workouts, did some outdoors details, and in case of the inferiors, they had to stand guard during the night.

My emblem of a U. S. counselor was assuredly vindicated and attached fast to me when I, a medic corporal, had been lost, caught by the enemy, listed as a prisoner during the night war game of division level, and sent to my medical company the next morning. The whole company welcomed me with muted pity.

I had a run-in with the military police, too, an addition to the disrepute of a U.S. military counselor. The subject of the criminal infraction was the disobeyance of the commanding order and the allegation was that I, together with Hoon, a sand wrestler in his youth, who had been deployed as battalion medics, during the emergency drill, had slept the drill away in a barrack room of the battalion headquarters, for which both of us two had been put into a detention house in the division military police headquarters for two weeks.



I was summoned one day by Major Sergeant Rhee of the Personnel Section of the company. He asked me about my willingness to serve in an independent army unit. I was able to read his good intention to give me some cheers for my waning months of my army service. I said yes. The year was 1965 and I had some seven or eight months left for my discharge from the compulsory service of 30-some months.

I was ordered to serve as a deployed medic in an armory company, an independent foot company which had been stationed in Anyang, an outskirts city of Seoul. I had mixed feelings of nervousness, freedom, responsibility, and excitement at the same time. I was not to be escorted or transported by any person in formal charge. I was authorized to travel on my own.

Which meant freedom. I was given a free rein. Although I was able to choose any transportation means, I decided to use the train bound for Cheonyangni, Seoul, sitting on a familiar seat of the Soldiers' Compartment. The insignia of first sergeant on me made the seat more comfortable.

I was free to move to any place and to visit any person of my choice. On arrival at the dream station, my heart beat faster and louder. I was determined to be led to where my mind wished to take me. My feet plodded me to go ahead.

It was early afternoon. The warm ray of the early autumn sun was beating on my back, on top, and on my front, which made my warm heart already somewhat warmer. My young boy escort from the waiting hall of the railroad station stopped at an entrance of a brick-roofed house and waved me to go in.

It was an awkward entry with blushing cheeks and lowered heads, but there was a brisk reception on the part of a middle-aged woman who seemed to have gone to the lengths of her life. She took stock of me, up and down and up again, beaming.

"You're so lucky!" she bluntly said.
"What are you saying?" I asked.
"Your mate is a good house wife," she said, beaming again.
"What do you mean?"
"Husband is long in bed. Bedridden..Not done it for a long time...Parched..."
"What?" I stammered.
"You know what. Be a good bridegroom, young man. Rain her hard...Make her wet and drenched. O.K.?" she bristly moved, calling somewhere.
"Wait for some while." she shot me a meaningful smirk.

Popping up her head into a small yet cozy room, she pushed a water basin to me, "Freshen up," she said like an order. I washed my hands and face and dried them with a towel she had given me. "Wait, " she said again, like an order.

There was a cautious knock or two on the room door and after a low response from me, she entered with lowered heads. I was on my feet beside myself and led her closer to me, then she raised her head and looked me in the face, lowering her head sidewise, blushing.

"Let's share greetings," I said, kneeling and giving her a big bow. She was first surprised but soon regrouped, doing the same. I caressed her and pulled her closer, with her leaning against me. She, looking me in the face with burning eyes and shaking voice, said "Wait, " rising.

She started undressing, me doing the same. She took off the outer garment and slowly started uncovering tier by tier of underwear, baring her milky front, me with naked body with no blisters and blemishes on either body part, also with the staff pissed off.

She then turned slowly around and let me look at her rear. I pulled her and let her recline on the bedding and part her legs, with her crimson red opening swelling in a murky liquid. As I produced a condom, she said in a stifled shaky voice, "You don't have to use this," Good riddance.

"You're so beautiful," I whispered to her hot ear, with my left hand caressing her rising nipples. She moaned a little, saying nothing, with her left hand guiding my stuff into her shyly hollow opening. It being so smooth and so soft in gliding into her that I forgot all the worries of the world in an instant in the metronomic cadence of mutual attractions. I came so early that she stayed motionless for a while clinging to me tightly, shaking a little.

I stayed motionless, too. Then I had an arousal again in her. Then she stirred and pushed me softly, turning my back on the floor, with herself on top of me. Startled, I had my eyes wide open under her, when she covered my eyes with her extended palm, gasping for breath. She searched for me with her right hand, me finding the inlet with a gliding ease.

She seemed to start savoring the moment, engrossing herself into the act, closing her eyes and gasping for her breath, of forgetting and losing herself. She came so quickly this time beside herself, blurting out stifled moaning with clenched teeth, gyrating herself up and down, throwing herself on me with a stifled sigh.

I had her this time from her back, a cicada fashion, pulling myself and letting her lie on her left side with her back facing me. An easy shift of posture. She seemed to have turned out to be another person, who had stopped doing it for so long. (She is now parched!)

Her mound and around it was so wet with liquids with hers and mine, which was so exciting. She pulled her two legs and held one a little aloft to part her opening, with me entering into her from behind with such ease. With entering done smoothly and deep, she pulled her two legs closer to her, with me entering deeper. Feeling so good. With each and every entry and exit of my stuff, she turned her face backward with parted lips, With rapid gyration, I ejaculated in her, with her spontaneous cries of orgasm, with her two legs spread wide apart with the onset of sweet fatigue.

*********************************

In retrospect, the lesson of this writer's Anayang Armory Affair comes from three aspects. I thought then and I think now that you should motivate yourself but not wait until you will be motivated by others. In other words, you should initiate tasks before you are charged with them.


Arriving at an armory company at dusk, I met with a cold reception of the company. I knew through an interview with a staff sergeant of the company that the medic deployed to this independent army unit from my regiment literally goofed off. My previous serviceman didn't do anything at all. So the reaction of the whole company to me was: "What is another medic here for at all?"

The second aspect and what is considered to be no less critical than the first aspect of the matter is that the company command didn't do anything at all. The company commander didn't blame his own indolence but rather ascribed the heap of the sick soldiers to the red tapes of the army: The regimental and divisional medical headquarters is situated too far away.

On a modest party to celebrate a shift change held the next night, my superior medic defended his negligence of duty for the lack of medical supplies from Gapyeong, the site of the original medical company. I, as the successor to the shift, didn't accept his excuses, mildly scolding his negligence for the increase of patients.

I did an initial survey of the barrack patients. I was astonished to find that there were not a few number of patients untreated for a long time. Of all the patients, hubalzzi patients, that is, back neck Fusarios patients, occupied the top spot in the list of the patients. I had already witnessed the incidence of the Fusarios cases at Nonsan Boot Camp.

I'm not in the mood to boast about the feat. I've done that already in local online message board to record 8,ooo-some viewerships and the detailed goings-on had already put into a book entitled A Civilized Report. Therefore, I'd like to introduce that matter to my global readers from another angle.

Above all, I'd like to pat my young man on the shoulder and give him a modest nod to his saga of escorting the barrack patients to Soodo Army Hospital in Seoul on a civilian vehicle. I'd like to concede that was the best he could do, and the only communication channel he had had to make.

The living conditions in and around the army barracks of 1965 on which my young man had had to serve were inconceivable from the viewpoint of today. The regimental medical headquarters were far away; The direct dialing telephones, were not available, much less cell phones; The convenience of the intra-village transportation was not invented; The division of labor between the medicine and the pharmacy was not adopted. In brief, the independent army unit was in impasse, and the company command was incapable and ignorant of the ways to steer them out of the impasse.

It was necessary for him, that is, my young man, to act differently. By the way, I am tempted say about being different. I am, together with a huge number of colleague citizens of South Korea, confronted with the leftist-orchestrated reality of sort in which the sameness is stressed to an extreme degree. However, I remind you of the reality that is run by the Rule of Difference.

In a strict sense of the word, nothing in this wide world is the same with each other. The sky is high above and earth is down below. A newly born baby, who has begun standing erect, starts learning about difference between mom and dad. All the gamut of learning of the world consists of categories, that is, the perception of differences.

You know a lot about the differences between people and things, can define them, and explain them in correct and plain English, and you are smart, can be designated as a smart guy or gal. You are ignorant about the differences between people and things, are confused from time to time about this and that, and you cannot explain them, but rather fumble about them, you are a dull guy or gal, and can be designated as an idiot.

What is sanity at all? How do you keep your sanity? First of all, you should strive to enhance the consciousness about the differences. You should fight amnesia about things. If you were to lose the consciousness about the differences, and if you were to blurt out more often than not blunt remarks, saying "That's the same," or "What difference does it make?" you could be categorized as a person of dullness, bordering on insanity.

The young man that was me decided to perform his assignment, as a medic who had been sent to a remote unit, differently from FM, that is, the army field manual or something. Although Captain Han somebody, the armory company commander, objected to my original plan at first, he was convinced by me to overcome the differences, agreeing to my plan of escorting the barrack patients by bus.

There might be somebody who is ready to denounce me for not following FM but for following my own rule of escorting the army patients on a civilian vehicle. I know I might seem to be reckless by not trying to take a routine procedure of obeying the army channel of order and using the army medical ambulance escorted by an officer but not by man.

The main reason was that the patients had long been left untreated, that the degree of the lesion development in the back neck Fusarios was considered to be serious, and that if you took the routine procedure the state of the lesion would worsen.

Now let me present a scene to my readers in which there will arise a row over the justification of the escort of the army patients by a first sergeant medic himself. To nothing other than Soodo Army Hospital (the predecessor of the Integrated Military Hospital) of all the army medical facilities. Voices are raised and fingers are pointed between a hospital guard and a medic with a Red Cross armband and a first-aid kit on his shoulder over the procedure problem. The first sergeant stands before a file of dispirited soldiers.

In the midst of the row at the entrance of the capital army hospital, the curious insiders, of whom there were medics and army surgeons, came out, popping their heads out to see what's going on. Out of the hospital medics, one or two, or several medics cried out, "Aren't you Shimmanni?" finding me out. I was very glad to see my alumni from Andong Normal School there.

I, together with my sick soldiers, was naturally guided into the hospital, and introduced to a surgeon. In an instant, the issue of army red tapes was gotten away with. My alumnis did all the detailed chores of cutting red tape, with the kind-hearted surgeon treating all the patients with care. He particularly showed me how to treat the lesion.

I liked all the atmosphere of it: with long scrubbed corridors and rooms which were brightly lighted with fluorescent lamps, with young medics in starched khaki uniforms hurrying to service posts, with medical doctors and surgeons sincerely doing their jobs.

Surgeon Lt. Jang somebody demonstrated the amazing feat of treating the Fusarios lesion to Medic Shimmanni that's me and told him do the same later. First, sterilize the opening of the lesion and cut it off. Second, extract the pus using sterile gauze and mayo robson and daub streptomycin sulfate. Lastly, cover the opening with sterile cotton and wrap it in gauze. Hostacillin, or an antibiotic injection after treatment, was given. That was so simple.



I've taken the urine and blood test in a district clinic of internal category, in which I was diagnosed to be a patient of a very delicate disease which could develop in the old people and recommended to go to a university level hospital for a sophisticate test. I am now depressed recalling the worried face of my doctor. I wish I could be able to finish this story.

Pondering the idea of taking the test in a bigger hospital for the exact evaluation of my suspected illness, thrashing the idea and I've settled on an alternative medicine of my choice. I'm not saying I don't trust the contemporary medicine.

I confess that I am so timid that I can't imagine myself lying on a hospital couch and facing glaring eyes of gargantuan machines, and in due course of time bedded in a hospital bed in a patient's wardrobe of faint color. I am so scared and I don't like the idea of looking at the startled eyes of my wife and sons.



Turning back to the Armory story, my entourage and me were given a satisfactory treatment of their illnesses in the army hospital and an armful of medical supplies from the friendly medics there needed for my medical activities. Back home, I discovered to my amazement that the ice-cold atmosphere of the company was turning into a warm spring.

Nothing had been certain when a party of the armory men had hit the road for Seoul, taking a long walk along the countryside farm road for 30 or so minutes, and riding an inter-city bus from Anyang City to Seoul for one and a half hour, getting off the bus at Kyongbok Palace, around which Soodo Army Hospital was situated.

Now they returned with feelings of fulfillment, smiling and talking to each other. Every one of them was given a full treatment at the best military hospital in the national capital, and was ascertained of a complete cure because they were told that the Fusarios lesion was easy to handle, and because Medic Shimmanni would do the rest of the healing work.

The armory men returned to their barrack room with a story to tell their barrack roommates. The story, which of course was overblown to a great deal, made quick rounds of the company periphery. The medical doctors of the army hospital were very kind and Medic Shimmanni, having had a lot of connections, got gifts from them.