It was hot as hell when I arrived in Texas at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. They said even though it was 110 in the shade, the heat would not bother us since it was a dry heat. They were crazy.
There were about 700 doctors, and we were there for six weeks before we became officers. One of the sessions was a lecture by the top General of the 82nd Airborne. He wanted about 12 of us to volunteer since we could not be assigned. He said it was safe and that we would get another $100 a month.
After this medical training, was I going to jump out of a plane?
The General then told a joke about a British paratrooper who was training with them. He explained to the Brit that they have two chutes. If the first one does not open, then open the other one. Then when you land, a truck picks you up and takes you back to the assembly area. The day of the drop, the Brit jumps with them. The first chute does not open and neither does the second one. The Brit then said, "I bet the truck won’t be there either.''
The General thought his joke was funny, but none of us did. Nobody signed up.
He said our orders had not been cut as of yet, so it would be no problem to assign us to his division. Shortly after that, we found out that our orders had been written in June before we arrived. All the good slots to Europe or the Pentagon went to single people. All of us married men got the terrible assignments in the hope that we would then go Airborne.
We became a very unruly group. On at least one occasion, they read us Article 31. I was about the only one who knew what it was. It is conduct becoming an officer and they can get you on that any time they want.
I was sent to Korea in August 1959. I got on a plane in Oakland. I ran into someone from my class at West Point. He was going over to be in the Quartermaster Division and it was his second tour. He said he would take care of me.
On the way over, we stopped at Hawaii for fuel. I called up my friend Jim Thompson, who was interning there. We then made a stop at Midway, Manila and eventually Tokyo. We stopped over at a base called Kachine Barracks near Yokohama. There, I had my first bath in a Japanese Olson.
I had one day off and I went into Tokyo on an errand. Sally said she wanted a set of 9-millimeter black pearls. She never took off her set of white pearls. I went into Mikimoto, which was the big pearl place on the Ginza. I told him what I wanted and he showed me several sets but they were baroque. I was no dummy and told him so.
I found out later that black pearls are baroque and the Japanese used to throw them away until they found out the Americans liked them. They even dyed white pearls black to keep up with the demand.
When I got over being the dummy, I went to see my father-in-law's man in Japan, Bill O’Connor. He had a pearl business on the side and said he would find me a set. By the time I went back to the States, he had found a set as perfect as you can get. It pays to be lucky, particularly if you are not smart.
A Different World
Another great feature about Tokyo was the famous Takashimaya department store. It was like Macy’s. The roof has a playland with rides for the children, and there is a one-ring circus with a baby elephant.
The next day, I was off to Seoul and ASHCAN city. After a few days, I was called in and given my assignment to Camp St. Barbara. I asked the man where that was and he said he had never heard of it. That did not sound good, and I assumed that my friend did not come through. I was wrong. I was at Corps Artillery headquarters, but it was up on the DMZ. The reason for that was that it was the only place in Korea you could shoot off the artillery without killing anybody.
The different artillery units would come up once a year to register their guns on our range. I was also assigned to the general headquarters and ate at a General’s mess. I also lived in a stone block building instead of a Quonset hut.
I had two dispensaries under my command locally, each with about 50 men. I had other units under my command, and I had to find ways to keep them busy and out of trouble. One of the ideas was to have a volleyball team. We won the title for the Corps. Artillery, and in the picture you can see me taking credit for it. I brought the trophy home and it was in the playroom at Salt Box.
The man I relieved instructed me in several business opportunities. I was lucky since I had another doctor with me. My commission was a few weeks older than his, so I was in charge. He was a nerd. I had several helicopters and also sorts of trucks and Jeeps that came with the dispensaries.
Early on, the staff officers did not like us doctors. We were made Captains with five years longevity in pay, plus more for being doctors. I was making between a Major and a Lieutenant-Colonel pay.
Until I had my businesses running up, I made a nuisance of myself. Evenings before dinner, we would all go to the bar and wait for the General. When he decided to go in, then we would follow. Many of the staff officers, including Doc Schardt (no MD), who became my best friend and who I see regularly up to this day, would try to instruct me.
When I wanted a drink at the bar, I would strike my ring on the bar to get the bartender's attention. I was told by my friend Doc not to do that. I said the bartender did not mind, and he didn’t. In the presence of West Pointers you don’t do that because of the term ring-knockers. I knew that, but I decided to be a pain.
However, I soon had my businesses going, and everything was working smoothly. I had a taxi service. After 10 p.m., the main supply route (MSR) was closed to all traffic, except for my ambulances. Since as a doctor I had a phone in my room, the officers would call me if they partied too long and could not get back for duty from Seoul.
Venereal Disease
Then there was my private clinic for officers who had venereal disease. I treated them and diagnosed their cases as non-specific urethritis. If it were known they had VD at their next promotion, their career was ended. They got good treatment, and I protected their careers.
Venereal disease was my biggest medical problem. It was also the largest complaint of the chaplain, who mentioned it monthly to the General. As a result, the General would call in the company commander with the most cases in a company and read to him his displeasure.
Some of the company commanders would call me to see if I might get them off the hook for a while. They were very grateful. After I treated the enlisted men, I would tell them that flies spread disease so keep theirs closed. Some of them did not want to get treated and had to face their CO. They selected an alternative in town. The Korean doctors were treating their cases with Wild Root Cream oil. It looked like penicillin. However, most of them would then come to me to get an abscess cut out.
Bed-sheet Business
Then there was my bed-sheet business. They had to account for any missing sheets. I did not since the dispensary was excluded from that. I used to tear sheets up into two and get credit for two sheets torn.
My Jeeps and helos (helicopters) were always in good condition. Every month, I had to hand in to the commanding officer the list of gonorrhea cases for each company. I used to move the numbers around from different companies. If one captain were nailed for the most VD cases, he would be in my office very quickly to see how I could help. I would assure him that an arrangement could be worked out.
The General did not care, but the chaplain was on his back. I had to treat them because the enlisted men would go to a Korean doctor in town to keep their problem secret. They would shoot them up with wild root cream oil and tell them it was penicillin. I would then have to cut out the abscess.
One of the things we got each month were tickets to buy 12 bottles of booze and 24 cartons of cigarettes. I had a friend in the CID on post. I did not smoke, so I took 12 cartons and I got a commendation from the Korean government.
I also had special uniforms made. One of my patients was the club sergeant. He was a first-class dealer. The rule is that you have to rotate back to the USA at least every 6 years. He had been there since the Second World War. His scam was to rotate from Korea to Japan. He went from one officers club to another. He saw to it that I got at least one of the 25-year-old Napoleon brandy per month.
Booze was cheap since there was no tax. Beer at the bar cost more than a shot of whiskey. When I sent it home in a footlocker, I covered it as medical books since doctors could get more things over the usual limit. I sipped that brandy for several years.
The club sergeant was so grateful that he invited me to his going-away party on a formal invitation that is scanned in this book. It was a well-known house of prostitution. I did not go and, obviously, the second reason is that officers and enlisted men do not party together. One of those houses was for senior officers. It was supposed to be off bounds for the MPs. One night, some eager beaver raided it and caught the Provost Marshal.
Shooting Pool
I told you my Fordham education would pay off. The General liked me and I became his doctor. He was a very straight-up guy. He didn’t know I went to the Academy since no one looks at a doctor’s file. There was only one place to assign me.
He also liked to play pool and had heard that I was a good pool player. Frequently after dinner he would come over to me and ask me if I wanted to play. I always said yes. This meant that nobody else could get to the pool table before us. Later, I’ll tell you how I became his aide.
I also had to inspect some of the bars and restaurants in the town that the enlisted men frequented. Post-war poverty around the camps was severe, and black-market theft and prostitution were widespread. There was an American army-surplus store in town, but we could not ask them where they got the items.
I went in there one day and asked him to get me a watch you may call it. He said, "We do not have it, but you come back I'll get it.”
One night, they stole a Bailey bridge that was across the MSR. How they got it and how they did it in one evening, I do not know.
There was a more serious problem. The officers were charged for any government items stolen, but they were forbidden to take punitive action. The Turkish artillery brigade was under our command. Their solution to the problem was to catch one of these thieves and hang him over the gate by a pair of ice tongs.
The four-star commander called my General and told him to get the body down. My General considered it a medical matter and ordered me to go down and take care of it. I went and mentioned it to their CO and he mentioned what I could do with my suggestion and asked if I wanted to join him. I said thank you and passed the suggestion on to my general. It finally took a visit from General McGruder himself.
That wasn’t the only thief. The wife of South Korean President Syngman Rhee (Francesca Donner) had a thriving business. She took the chassis of trucks and made buses out of them from the metal of 50-gallon oil drums.
Playing Bridge
Doc Schardt and a few of us played bridge all month, but there was always a high stakes poker game each payday. The Haliburton of my day was the Vernell Corporation that did all the building over the entire Pacific for our government. These guys had not been home in years and always had cash for a game.
The stakes were high. One night between the gambling and drinking, one of the officers pulled out a 45. Since I was the doctor, they suggested I go over and take it away. The problem besides the danger of this drunk was that he had the combination to the safe for the 280-gun battalion that was our atomic artillery. We got it resolved and nobody got hurt.
Our bridge games were long on weekends but quiet. We each had our own bottle. Since there was no tax, a fifth of Johnny Walker was $1.75. I would have the food sent over by ambulance and we would play all weekend. Doc taught me all I knew about bridge.
Another pastime in my quarters was making phone calls. We would call the switchboard in Uijeongbu and then to Headquarters Seoul. Then we would get out of Korea and call a fighter base in northern Japan, where my pilot had a friend. Then we moved on to a West Point friend of Doc's in Manila. He would then patch us to Hawaii. From there, we had a direct line to the Pentagon, where we would be patched into First Army Headquarters on Governors Island. Then that operator would be asked to call my wife on AT&T. We never could get past that one. This entire process would take hours and we would tie up the entire Pacific.
In the officers' mess, the bar made a lot of money and the officers' club is not supposed to make money. As a result, we had steaks cooked outside on the terrace very frequently as well as other goodies.
Learning Japanese
I had a Korean young man working for me. I had plenty of free time on my hands, so I decided to have him teach me Japanese. I wasn’t very successful in any other language, so I thought I’d take a try before my first R&R trip to Tokyo.
He told me he did not speak Japanese. I asked him to think it over. The Japanese took over Korea in 1903 and Japanese was the official language until after World War II. He taught me.
He was a good artist, so in return I brought a bolt of canvas back for him to do his portraits as his business. He did the picture of Sally, The Last Supper, Pinky by Lawrence and Blue Boy by Gainsborough.
At Christmas time, I played Santa. My Korean painted Santa’s face on the helos' bubble. I got a Santa outfit and had a bag of presents from the priest who gathered them from all of us Catholics. He was also one of our bridge partners. I also use to give him antibiotics from my supplies since I did not have to account for them and he would send them down to a missionary Leprosarium in Taegu.
I flew my helo over and we had a grand time. I know there was a movie of it, but it has gotten lost over the years. Father Fracasso and I went down to Taegu one weekend. We got a pass and took the train down. It was very instructive. That was the only Lepers I saw in Korea, but there was a lot of tuberculous.
Just after Christmas I went on my first R&R. The translation was rest and recuperation. The more adventure-orientated called it rape and riot. I went on R&R and found out that all the street signs were in English and all the kids would come up to me to practice their English. So much for my next language.
Doc Schardt went with me. We stayed in the area near Meiji Shrine. I then did some brilliant shopping at a silversmith called Sagara. I had heard that Japanese silver is soft because it is pure silver. I was having punch cups made for a beautiful silver punch bowl Sally and I had received as a wedding gift. I told him I wanted sterling silver. He said it was against the law for him to put that on the cups. Somehow, we came up with a compromise and I picked up 24 cups in a fitted case on my next R&R. These guys were not going to fool wise old me???
Getting around Tokyo
In Tokyo, the subway and the long-distance trains ran on the same tracks. You had to be careful or you would be in Kyoto before you knew it. They say that even if you can’t read the sign, if your ticket says your train will be there at a certain time, believe it and get on.
All the way from Shingoku to Shimbashi station is a concourse running under it, with hundreds of shops and restaurants. One of our trio suggested an American bar under one of the stations. We went there on New Year's Eve and the noise was so loud you could not hear the trains.
After that, we left and went to the Field Grade Officers hotel for a New Year’s Party and floor show. When we got back to our quarters, which was called Washington Heights, there was a mob going to the nearby Meiji shrine. The old-time Japanese visited the shrine on this night and were dressed up in very colorful kimonos and carrying candles.
The next day, we went to Hakone Park and stayed at an old but beautiful Japanese hotel, which we as officers had taken over. Our rooms looked out over the lake and toward Mount Fuji. We were lucky that there was no fog, so we could see it in all its splendor. On the train back to Tokyo we stopped to see the big Buddha at Kamakura.
Flying Lessons
Shortly after I returned to Korea, there was the annual trip of putting the Eighth Army in the field for a week. It was a cold winter. Even my General spent the week in the field. I suggested that the artillery was so spread out that I should visit each group. The General bought that idea. My last duty was to those who were left guarding the camp. I then went to my warm bed for the rest of the night.
It was about 40 miles to Seoul and the road was not that smooth, particularly in a Jeep. I would ride my helicopter and have my driver meet me and drive me wherever I wanted to go. My chopper was like the one you see in the movie M*A*S*H. It was a bubble, with just the pilot and me. I asked him what happens if we lost power since we had no wings to glide down. Some planes are what they call forgiving, like the observation planes that we had.
The pilot said no problem crashing a helicopter. At just the right moment, you switch the blades and catch an up draft and have a reasonable landing. He said that long before we were near the ground and rotated the blades so you could feel the chopper pull up. He stopped long before we were near the ground. The timing of this maneuver is obviously critical. I never asked him another question.
I even took some flying lessons. There was an L-21 at Kimpo airfield near Seoul. The gas was free and you just paid the pilot for taking you up. I went up twice. I liked the learning, but the Koreans were crazy. We would be landing or taking off and they would land or run around wherever they wanted to. I decided to cancel my lessons.
We all ran the medical service just like in M*A*S*H since we were not staying in. We did salute and we did wear proper uniforms. However, as you read earlier, we had a different system than the Army wanted. The two surgeons at the M*A*S*H were halfway down to Seoul at Uijeongbu. One was trained at Charity Hospital in New Orleans and the other at Cook County in Chicago. There was not much they had not seen or done.
When we all landed in Korea and were at ASHCAN city we all had to sign a document that we would not treat the Koreans unless it was an absolute emergency. The Korean government was worried that we were going to set up practice.
One day, I got a call from one of the surgeons to help out. It seems they had a lady with an acute gall bladder. They were going to sneak her into the M*A*S*H and do a gall-bladder series. They had to do it on the QT since the head nurse was a pain in the butt. She was also no Hot Lips Houlihan.
Also in town was the county hospital, which was nothing but mud huts. The local doctor was trained at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Seoul, but he did not know how to do a gall bladder.
The plan was this. One of the surgeons would remain in the M*A*S*H. The other would go to the local county hospital and do the surgery. I was to come down and help by holding the idiot stick. I brought one of my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. I brought some field lights and ran them across the truck batteries. He brought a sterile pack and we created an operating table with some boards over two sawhorses.
The sterile pack made us feel better. We had no cross-matched blood, but the surgeon had typed her blood and some of the Korean nurses agreed to be donors if we needed it. We used open drop ether for an anesthetic.
The craziest thing we did was boil the instruments in a hibachi stove in the corner of the room with ether around. I guess what saved us was that there was no glass in the windows and the door was a joke.
The surgeon got started and the Korean doctor passed on our instructions to the Korean nurses. He looked at everything we did. He was smart. I’m sure he belonged to the school of see one, do one, teach one school of medicine.
When we got to examine the common duct for any other stones, we found none. Instead, we found a worm and it was still alive. We put in a T-tube and a drain down below and filled her up with antibiotics and left her to the care of the Korean doctor.
Two days later, I called my friend and asked how our patient was. He said she was no longer in the hospital. I wasn’t surprised that she had passed on. I was wrong. She was up, took out her tubes and was working in the fields. Anybody else would have died or at least had a roaring peritonitis. I felt like I had gone back in medicine 100 years.
North Koreans
The North Koreans were always a pain. Our camp was at the head of the valley where the North Korean capital was. They also had an armored division stationed there, and this was one of the sure entrances to South Korea.
Every month in the middle of the night, the North Koreans would come roaring down the valley. That would cause an alert, and we had to get everybody out of bed and head for our duty station out in the field. Then when they were a few miles from the DMZ, they would turn around and go home. They were very annoying.
When I had to go out with my people, I also had to take my 45 with me. The only other time I had to do that was if I was going to Seoul to get narcotics or gold for the dentist. One day when I was coming back, I was on the main street out of town, which was maybe 10 lanes wide. The reason it was that big was that the Japanese had their headquarters at the end of the street before I would go onto the MSR to go back to camp.
The Koreans hated the Japanese and had abandoned it since they left after World War II. This day, there was a crowd filling the entire street and obstructed my way. I was standing up in my Jeep, yelling to them to get out of my way with my 45 strapped on. After I got through, the MP stopped me and asked if I had any problem. I told him no and that I told them where to go. He informed me I was lucky since this was a revolution and the people were getting rid of the president.
Oops! So much for my John Wayne impersonation
Dead on arrival
Once in a while, the North Koreans would send in an infiltrator. The people on the line in front of us killed one. The North Koreans came to see him at our request. There were many sites to do this besides where the peace talks were going on. I was sent since I was the doctor in the area. He was obviously dead.
I stayed all day. The only thing that was accomplished was that someone was dead. The flies could have told them that, but I had to stay. The North Koreans denied he was one of theirs. The dead man was in one of those typical padded uniforms. His gun was made in Skoda, Czechoslovakia. We don’t get our equipment from there. Ours usually says Quartermaster, Philadelphia.
My medical superior was a jerk. He was in Seoul. If he would call me, I would just play like my phone didn’t work and he would give up. I might get a letter, but he wasn’t going to ride all the way up to see me and I had more transportation than he had in Seoul. He frequently would say he was proud that he did not know how his stethoscope worked. I had to go to his farewell dinner. His speech was that it was time to leave our loved ones and return to our wives.
By now it was March. Every year all over the world, all West Pointers get together to celebrate Founders Day, which is March 14,1802. There is always one person in the area that sets it up and knows who is in the area.
Up to now nobody knew about me. This officer did and sent me an invitation to a party at the Eighth Army Officers Club in Seoul. I went down and walked into the club. I ran into my friend Doc. He told me I should not be there since the club had been taken over for a private party. I went along and said that should not be a problem. I could sit in a corner for a quick dinner. Finally, he said I needed an invitation and he showed me his. I then took out mine and said, "Is this what you mean?'' Then he knew. Fortunately, it did not spoil our friendship then or over the years.
Out of Korea
There were two other trips out of Korea. A circular that I received said there was a flight surgeons conference in Manila. I suggested that since one of the units on my post was an observation battalion with L-21 planes, that made me a flight surgeon.
I went to Seoul and met another doctor. We took a twin-engine plane that could take about a dozen passengers. We were supposed to pick up some British officers in Hong Kong on the way back.
We went to Manila, and I got the grand tour. When we got to Hong Kong, we had some engine trouble, so we did not know how long it would take to fix it. The other doctor did not agree and headed for town. When we were ready to leave, he was not to be found. One of the crew on board suggested to me that our friend went to a particular house of bad repute in town. I told them to hold the plane and I would try to get him. I took a rickshaw. This place was well-known, so he took me right to it. It was a drive-in. I found my friend, put him in my rickshaw and made it back to the plane.
My other trip almost got me home. I managed to be the doctor for the pistol team. They were good. We made it to Japan, Manila and Hawaii. If we won there, then it was on to Quantico, Virginia. We lost, so I did not get home, but I was at least out of Korea.
I thought that I was pretty cool until one of my men stole one of my Jeeps. Enlisted men are given money for tickets ahead of their travel anywhere. Officers spend their own money and get reimbursed at their next destination.
One of my people who was assigned to me had a security clearance that was better than mine. Mine was top secret, but nobody ever told me anything. His was cryptographic. Why he was assigned to me I don’t know.
The Stolen Jeep
No matter where we went in Korea, you had to wear a uniform. No civvies allowed. We also had occupation money since we could not use American money. From time to time, the money was exchanged since it always got in the black market. This guy stole one of my Jeeps, took it to Seoul and did not get picked up. Then he got into civilian clothes and did not get picked up.
I was hoping he would not get picked up until 30 days went by. If they found him before 30 days, he was my problem and a tremendous amount of paper work. After 30 days, he is not AWOL but a deserter and then he becomes Army’s problem.
It took them almost two months to get him. He was turned in by his girlfriend. He was paying her off in Monopoly money and telling her it was the new script. He was sent to Leavenworth. He also was stealing from the government, since he received travel money at his last post and then got it again from our paymaster.
Garry Owen
Whenever you were in the First Cavalry Division, they would salute and then say Garry Owen, which was the name of the regimental song of General Custer. The heating unit that was in the Quonset huts was called Herman Nelson heaters. When they said Garry Owen, we would say Herman Nelson.
Childish?
My only real medical problem occurred in the spring. A Korean 8-inch gun battery came up to register their guns. They laid them out in the usual pattern. However, they cut the fuses too short. One of them went off before it left the barrel and spewed pieces all over, killing two and seriously hurting many others.
The corpsman that was available was a little peculiar. He had a pet chipmunk that he carried around on a stick with a string. While I was binding up wounds, starting IVs and getting the more seriously injured men in my helicopters to take to the M*A*S*H, he decided that this job was not for him. He and the chipmunk took a powder.
Parties for the General
It was getting near my time to leave, and the General, too, was about ready to go home. His aide was also supposed to leave, but a month before the General. The General was a nice gentleman and let him go home on time. The General did not need an aide out here in the end of nowhere.
About the last few weeks before he was to go home, most of the units under our command had parties for the General. For these occasions, he would need an aide. He elected me.
On the evenings we were going to a party, we would be in our two choppers in our dress blues. As we would be leaving, many times my friends who were dirty from a day in the field would give me a sign behind the general’s back. The night we went to the Turkish Brigade was a wild night. When the party was getting out of hand, we bid the colonel good night. He said we should stay since they were getting some girls. It seems his idea of getting girls was not to hire prostitutes, but to send his men out and pick up anybody loose whether they wanted to or not.
Another great evening was when General McGruder, who was the commanding officer, invited General McGee to a final dinner. We went to his residence called Jade House. Several of the senior people in Seoul were asked to dinner. At cocktails, my General took a lot of kidding for having a doctor as an aide.
The seniors ate dinner in another room, and all the aides were in another. I took a lot of kidding also. The next day I got word from my headquarters to report to General McGruder at his headquarters at 11 a.m. the next day. I thought I was in trouble for the aide scam. I arrived the next day with a fresh starched pair of fatigues. General McGruder came to the point. He had come to Korea to get his fourth star and was now taking over NATO in the western Mediterranean in a city called Izmir. He wanted me to go along as his own doctor since McKee spoke highly about me.
I asked to answer him in a few days. He said OK and told me that we would go by the U.S. first and take our wives with us. I called my father-in-law from the AT&T building in Seoul. I came back a few hours later and called him. He said forget it. I thanked the general. It was a good move. No sooner had the General arrived when there was a coup and all U.S. forces were restricted to camp.
Since I was at a general officers’ headquarters, I ate at his mess, which was much better than the usual mess. We had a stone block building with a terrace overlooking the river. Our menu was much better with grilled steaks on Saturday night. Sunday at noon, they served some oriental dish which I never ate. We had Korean waiters who spoke English with a strong accent. My waiter would always ask me if I wanted "fried lice.'' I always told him no.
At that time, the club sergeant was also on my private practice list and he finally was going back to the states. He had managed to stay in the Orient since the Second World War. I mentioned before that he was running a retirement party at a whore house in Seoul. I received an engraved invitation which I have copied in the picture section.
I did not go for many reasons, mainly because officers do not party with enlisted men. He was so well connected since he did most of the buying for the clubs in Japan and Korea. He introduced us to the person whom he bought linen from.
Later when I went to Tokyo, Sally and I visited the man and bought some linens. We remembered our engagement party and I wanted to do something like that for my future daughters. We bought 300 napkins and they were monogrammed. The cost was 10 cents apiece. There were also other items and we sent them home via the Army as medical books. I was a great reader.
Heading for home
Now I had to get ready to leave Korea. It was September 1960. I had accumulated a lot of items, so I sent home a lot of medical books. Between those I sent home, plus all the stuff we sent home on our trip home, filled Grandpa Maust’s garage so that he had to take one of his cars out.
The S-1 who was to publish my travel orders was also part of my private practice. My orders were six pages long. It let me sign out in Tokyo and take six weeks leave, since I had not taken any.
I was not going home directly. I was going around the world. My orders read like the National Geographic since I was authorized to enter any country and I could also ship a car home from Europe.
Sally came over early and was properly accommodated by Bill Connor and his wife. When I arrived, she had moved over to the Imperial Hotel. When I came in, I looked spectacular. I had lost the weight and was in a custom-made uniform with my swagger stick. Our trip home had its moments also.
Our cigarette allocation at the PX was 10 cartons of cigarettes per month at one dollar each. I did not smoke cigarettes so I put them to a better use. For 10 cartons I could get a beautiful document from the Korean government stating that I was a true friend to Korea. I did and that also included a very nice ceremony when I was presented with it.