Todays news: I did some shopping for christmas. I finished my shopping for some of my many peoples. I also got an xbox to work better by cleaning the DVD lenses. It kept having disc read errors with the Need For Speed Underground 2 game. Me and -k took it apart and cleaned the lenses. So far so good. But I still want to replace the DVD drive. I also bought a RS Type Sports short shifter for the Scion. It will be delivered sometime next week. Expect pics of the install later. Next week is guard duty. My friends from TX just left for Iraq last weekend for a 12 to 15 month tour (come home safe). Some more friends I knew in Korea are coming home from Iraq in Feb (stay safe til then). Its snowing out here. Its nice. Also, the wedding plans are coming together great. March 20 is the day, 2006 is the year. Bye for now.

I found some pictures online of a guy in the Army in Korea back in 1968.
Just switch the Jeeps with HMMWVs and it looks the exact same… very strange. There arent very many dirt roads as the pictures show, but the dress and bikes and carts and shops all look the same. Even the post looks pretty much unchanged in the past thirty-five years.

Hmmm, I kinda like the sound of UT Bestriding Collosus, but UT is fine. In fact, lets use my real name; Doctor. Yea…I really am a Doctor. No? You dont believe me? Damn!

Anywaaaaaay…….

Emails, Air Mail and short telephone conversations fill up alot of my recreational time when on “out of area” (OOA) operations. OOA Ops can be filled with chaos and strange new incidents, so how do I find myself running out of things to write home about? I have even been known to mass produce one email and then distribute it to addressees individually, thus ensuring that they feel that I wrote to them personally. All very boring really, but I crave those short replys I get back from friends and family who usually say “well, not much to talk about. Ill write more when I have news”. BAAAHHHH! JUST MAKE SHIT UP!!!

For all you (like Yac is this him?
:-)) who have forgotten to write to Mob in Korea; check your Schedules for just a little amount of time to write “Nothing to say, Ill write more later”. It does us Service Types a lot of good. You can take those short letters on Guard Duty/ foxhole/trench/somewhere far removed from normal people, and read them over and over. Letters bring Soldiers comfort.

Isnt the Internet good for self help.

:-)

Well, biblicone was down for a few days as some of you noticed… that is due to the lack on my part to make sure the biblicone.com name was paid for. I renewed the name once again. How long has biblicone been up now, 3 years? Does not seem like it. Enjoy.

Things are good with me here in Korea. Ive been here 4 weeks now, and Im getting used to the routine (or lack thereof). I think I am finally climatized. The runs feel good now, where when I got here, I thought I would never be able to handle them. Now only if we did pushups more often. Up, down, up, down, up, down…

Korea #3

I get to Camp Garry Owen, and unload my bags. I start filling out more paper work (the Army is all about paper work, there does not seem to be any such thing as a central database of personal information, and if there is, no one uses it). A couple of the Seargents were making fun of the amount of baggage i brought. Im moving here for at least 12 months, how many bags would you pack? Plus, when I was at Camp Mobile, they issued me 3 new bags full of stuff. Stuff like everything you can imagine an Army guy wearing… utility belt (pistol belt), kevlar (helmet), pocketed vest (LBE = load bearing equipment), green coveralls for working on the Bradley, lots of different types of gloves, lots of cold weather gear… you get the picture.

I my self was carrying about 150 pounds of my stuff, and then there was still 3 other bags, giving me a total of 7 bags of stuff. Ouch. Oh well, I needed to bring all my CDs (350+) DVDs and my Playstation2. Oh ya, and a few clothes.

I finish my paper work, and take all my bags (with help) and I am put into the first floor of the barracks in the Pool room, right next to a pool table. I am told I can sleep on the couch, but its a weird wooden/cushion sectional couch. It looks more like a row of 3 chairs.

The Seargents leave me on my own, in the pool room, and tell me to wait there until someone comes by to get me. An hour and a half later, another Sgt. comes by and hands me off to a lower ranking guy (private) and he then proceedes to show me around. He shows me the DEFAC (dining facility) the PX (post exchange = shoppette = small store that sells everything) and a place called Ms. Kims Shop right outside our front gates. At Ms. Kims Shop you can buy some mink blankets, silk sheets, phone cards, and cell phones. I bought myself a $65 cell phone, and a $10 phone card that gives me 300 minutes of talk time to the US.

Its kind of sad that I had a phone and phone number, 4 days before I even got a mailing address… but thats how things work here in South Korea I guess…

More to come in Korea #4

Korea #2

I land in the Incheon International Airport in Seoul Korea. I head down to the baggage claim area and await the one bag that didnt get lost. (Im glad this bag wasnt lost since it contained my PS2 and all my CDs, DVDs, and PS2 games) As I am waiting for my bag to circle around, a little old man came over and asked if I was coming in for the Army (the shaved head and confused look must have given me away). I told him yes, and he said to head over to the counter on the far wall to find him once I am ready.

Before I go and find the little old man, I first want to check the status on my duffle bag. When in LA, the airline said that they would send it to Korea for me and make sure it got to the Baggage Office there in Seoul. Once I got through the line (it seems that Koreans dont belive in lines, you just cut in when you see a chance) I found out that the people at the airport didnt have a clue about my bag, or anything regarding my bag. I filled out some paper work stating that I had lost some luggage and they said they would keep their eye out for it. So I left once again not knowing if I would ever get that military duffle bag again.

The little old man who told me to find him, was no where to be found. I wandered out of the gate and found the main part of the terminal. I saw some other military guys (can see the big green duffle bag and shaved head a mile away) and followed them out to the bus.

The lady at the bus asked me if I had signed in yet at the USO. I didnt, so she took me in to sign in. As I was signing the sheet, the bus driver came in and said that he had to leave so we better hurry. Once again I am almost late/ barely getting to where I need to be on this Korean adventure. I load my bags and get on the bus. The bus ride lasts about an hour and we see some of the South Korean landscape. Lush hills, little huts, muddy rivers, little trucks mostly all made by Kia, some Kia SUVs, and some little moped bikes.

The bus pulls into the Hamilton Hotel downtown Seoul. We exit the bus, get a free room (with a room mate) and are left on our own. No warnings about the night life, or the water, or even how to use the phones. A few guys and I head down to Pizza Hut (wow, pizza is my 1st meal in a foreign country, can you believe it?) and get dinner. No one there really spoke english, but they had a half english menu. The pizzas there are about the same price as they would be in the states. They also taste the exact same. I paid the bill in US dollars, and got change in Korean Won. One dollar equals about 1220 Won.

The television had WWF wrestling overdubbed in Korean. ha. I went to sleep after spending about 30 minutes trying to get a phone card, and then getting the phone to work. Sleeping.

I got up early, showered and met everyone downstairs to head to Camp Mobile to start inprocessing into our units (and to figure out where exactly in South Korea we all were going). The inprocessing started, and I found out that I was heading to Camp Garry Owen. The closest deployed camp to the DMZ (North and South Korea border). Still no word on my luggage.

We spend the next 2 days doing inprocessing stuff such as, getting more issued gear, getting new ID cards, and other random in-efficient paperwork. Finally on Wed. Aug 6th, my luggage shows up at Camp Mobile (where I am doing my inprocessing). Nice.

The next day, on Thursday August 7th, I am picked up and taken to Camp Garry Owen. It is a bumpy 1.5 hour drive in the back of a HMWWV sitting on little wooden slats. The Army isnt about personal comfort. hehe. Some of the Korean country side smells like a very dirty river, almost like a water sewage treatment plant. I think it is because they fertilize their crops with human and animal waste. yummy.

I arrive at Camp Garry Owen, furthest deployed unit other than the guys over in the Middle East doing actual fighting.

More to come in Korea #3.

Korea #1

I left for Korea on Aug 2nd from Chicago. I was late(sorta) to the airport. I was ontime, but since I had to check 2 large bags, and get them through security, the lady at the counter said I was late. Since the lady behind the counter said I was late, she said that I would have to hope to get on the plane on the next flight via stand-by. She also told me that she didnt think I would get on that plane since it was a sold out flight. Even after talking to a manager and telling him that if I do not get to Los Angelos for my flight, that I could be arrested by the military for being Absent Without Leave (AWOL), they still could not gaurantee a flight for me.

So I got through security, and headed for my stand-by flight gate. All of a sudden, I heard my name on the intercom… I was being paged to a gate just a few gates down the hall from where I was from. I headed over there immediatly and they rushed me onto the flight I originally was supposed to be on! How lucky is that?

I get to Los Angelos and wait about an hour and a half for my luggage to come around on the baggage claim belt… nothing. I file my claim and tell them that I am leaving the next morning at 9:30 AM for Korea and that I need my military duffle bag for my job. What do they care?… not much.

I come back to the airport almost 4 hours earlier than my flight, and deal with the baggage people. They have one of my bags, but not my duffle bag containing all the clothes I need for the military. Several hours later, I am almost late getting on the flight headed for San Fransisco then onto Korea, and I still do not have my duffle bag. I’m off.

I land in San Fran, and head down the hall to a doorway for flights to Asia. We get on a little bus, and head to the International terminal. I have about 10 minutes of spare time and buy some double A batteries for my cd player. They cost me $7.00. Then i board the Boeing 777 bound for Korea.

I slept on and off, watched the movie Basic with John Travolta, listened to some CDs, and then watched a little bit of Fear and Loathing on my portable DVD player. Twelve hours later, we land in Incheon International Airport in Seoul Korea….

more to come later in Korea #2

Ahhhhh, I know you fibbed on that Dodgy test Rosie. No? Oh comeon…..6 months in prison only? You mean to tell me that you wouldnt shoot burglars? Anyhooo…..just goes to show you cant trust a copper :-)

Korea. Well Mob, have a good time on your first detachment. I havent a clue how long you are gonna be there for. Its not a place us Brit types are frequenting…yet !!! I have been either too lazy or busy as yet to develop all my photos from my travels this year, but to give you an idea:

The green part – Kuantan, Malaysia

Kuantan – The lesser green part – Malaysia

The best Gulf country Ive been too yet…Abu Dhabi in U.A.E

What a hole this place is….Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Orkney Tourist stuff. The Orkneys are a group of Islands off the North of Scotland. One of the most spectacular places I have ever visited.

I couldnt find any Cyprus ones for some reason. Other links:

Scary, but good TBH!

Public service information.