1994 - 95 was a pivotal year for me. I was in the Air Force, and the military had sent me on my first overseas tour. I drew the short straw, and spent a year at Kunsan Air Base, in the Republic of Korea. It's a fighter jet base, located about three driving hours south of Seoul.
At that time, Kunsan was considered hands-down the worst assignment in the Air Force. Chemical protective gear was a standard issue, and we practiced putting on the various layers and combinations during annoying, week-long drills that were to prepare us for the day the dreaded “balloon goes up.”
There is a weekend of that year that is relevant to me as I type tonight.
Apparently, something had gone wrong in the talks between North and South at the DMZ. A threat of some kind had been made, and by the time the story got to us, it was reported that Kim Il Sung’s representatives at the meeting had threatened to “turn Seoul into a flaming pit of hell.”
I spent that weekend in a silly little trench, outside the building where I worked, holding an empty M-16A1 rifle in the lowest level of protective gear. Trained but terrified, I was more than a little confused about which specific decision of my life had resulted in me being tasked to defend a radio station full of albums from the Communists. I foolishly thought we’d beat the Commies by winning the Cold War. Yet here I was, a 22-year-old Nebraska boy with an empty rifle and no bayonet, waiting for North Korean Special Forces to breach the concertina wire to attack AFKN.
Needless to say, they never showed up. Tensions eventually ratcheted down, and our emergency state of alert went back down to its normal “elevated” status. I never had to fire that rifle. As far as I know, I was never in ANY immediate danger, and if I had been I’m sure someone would’ve brought me some ammunition and a walkie-talkie or something.
But as I sit and watch the news that crazy assed Kim Jung Il is at it again, and has now reportedly tested a nuclear weapon—I wonder about those silly little trenches, and whether there’s some scared 22-year old sleeping there tonight.
The world is a different place now. We’re at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is rattling its saber, and we finally have action on all three fronts of our self-declared “Axis of Evil.”
Today, Airmen dread an assignment to Iraq for its lack of creature comforts. A tour to Kunsan isn’t such a bad thing. There are seasons on the ROK, and great shopping, and there hasn’t been a hostile shooting in forever.
But the America of today seems to always be aching for a fight, and if conventional wisdom is right, perhaps the maniacal midget north of the DMZ is aching to give us one.
If this is in fact the first signs of the balloon going up, I hope somebody at least takes the 22-year old some bullets.
At that time, Kunsan was considered hands-down the worst assignment in the Air Force. Chemical protective gear was a standard issue, and we practiced putting on the various layers and combinations during annoying, week-long drills that were to prepare us for the day the dreaded “balloon goes up.”
There is a weekend of that year that is relevant to me as I type tonight.
Apparently, something had gone wrong in the talks between North and South at the DMZ. A threat of some kind had been made, and by the time the story got to us, it was reported that Kim Il Sung’s representatives at the meeting had threatened to “turn Seoul into a flaming pit of hell.”
I spent that weekend in a silly little trench, outside the building where I worked, holding an empty M-16A1 rifle in the lowest level of protective gear. Trained but terrified, I was more than a little confused about which specific decision of my life had resulted in me being tasked to defend a radio station full of albums from the Communists. I foolishly thought we’d beat the Commies by winning the Cold War. Yet here I was, a 22-year-old Nebraska boy with an empty rifle and no bayonet, waiting for North Korean Special Forces to breach the concertina wire to attack AFKN.
Needless to say, they never showed up. Tensions eventually ratcheted down, and our emergency state of alert went back down to its normal “elevated” status. I never had to fire that rifle. As far as I know, I was never in ANY immediate danger, and if I had been I’m sure someone would’ve brought me some ammunition and a walkie-talkie or something.
But as I sit and watch the news that crazy assed Kim Jung Il is at it again, and has now reportedly tested a nuclear weapon—I wonder about those silly little trenches, and whether there’s some scared 22-year old sleeping there tonight.
The world is a different place now. We’re at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is rattling its saber, and we finally have action on all three fronts of our self-declared “Axis of Evil.”
Today, Airmen dread an assignment to Iraq for its lack of creature comforts. A tour to Kunsan isn’t such a bad thing. There are seasons on the ROK, and great shopping, and there hasn’t been a hostile shooting in forever.
But the America of today seems to always be aching for a fight, and if conventional wisdom is right, perhaps the maniacal midget north of the DMZ is aching to give us one.
If this is in fact the first signs of the balloon going up, I hope somebody at least takes the 22-year old some bullets.
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