10easter

10APR76 - Bup pyong-dong pu-ku, Incheon City, South Korea,

A day of despair... Easter 1976. My friend Jim Kelly had gone home, on leave. He was back in the states, in his hometown of Kingston, New York, to get married to his high school sweetheart. It was a decision that he would question for the rest of his life, but that story is for another time. I found myself at a loss for how to spend Easter. Hanging around the compound was no comfort on this first of a year's worth of holidays that I would spend in this foreign land.

Easter in the past had meant waking up on Easter Sunday to an Easter basket, then off to church in a new suit, where the house of God was packed with worshipers. There were lilies at the altar and it was the one day of the year when women who were under the age of sixty would wear a flowered, spring hat. After church we would return home for an Easter egg hunt in the back yard and dinner at Mom & Dad's with the family. I could almost smell the ham with orange glaze and spikes of clove. And it wouldn't be Easter with out the Easter-bunny cake, covered with shaved coconut fur and pink jellybean eyes, for dessert.

This Easter was not to be celebrated in the traditional fashion. It would be just another day. That fact was punctuated by the knowledge that my roommate was at home with his family and the woman he had promised to marry. I looked out the window of my room in the barracks and saw that it was overcast. The atmosphere mirrored my mood. As I often did in the early period of my stay in Korea, I turned to the Bible to read the scripture and reinforce my belief that the Lord had a plan for me and there was a reason for all of the things that were happening.

I had spent the better part of the day in my room when the door burst open, as it often did. There was no privacy in the barracks. There might just as well have not been a door at threshold of my quarters. In bounded my former roommate, Michael Krause. He stopped by to invite me to a bar-b-que at David Pollard's apartment, in Sinchon (loosely translated as Sin City), the part of the village where most of the Americans who resided off-post lived. The U.S. contingent accounted for approximately 1% of the population of Sinchon. It was still a time when you might run into another American in Sinchon and it would be an unusual event. As for Krause's invitation, I accepted. I accepted mainly for the diversionary value, not because I was especially excited about the prospect of spending Easter with a bunch of people I hardly knew. This was my 94th day of a 390-day tour of duty.

Krause and I made a stop at the Class VI (liquor) store and picked up some beer. We proceeded to the main gate of our compound. After our parcels were inspected by the Korean Security Guard (SG), who verified the ration control receipt against the merchandise, we hailed a Korean cab, a "Pony", for the short ride to Sinchon. At the time most Korean cabs were an odd shade of turquoise with a red interior. This one was no exception.

It was on this occasion that I learned how to give directions to a cab driver. "Odencho" means right and "wencho" means left. After a series of "Odencho, Haduchi" and "Wencho yogi so, Haduchi" and a final "Yogi-so-juseo" from Krause, we had arrived at our destination.

The building where Pollard lived with his Korean girlfriend faced a "T" intersection that was approximately 200 meters south of MSR-1 (Main Supply Route). MSR-1 stretched from the port of Incheon to downtown Bup pyong and terminated at the traffic circle that marked the center of town. The traffic circle was approximately a half a kilometer to the east of the road that led to Sinchon.

The pink, three-story building, which was divided into ten apartments, was about 100 meters south of the railroad tracks that define the entrance to Sinchon. The rest of the village lied to the south of this intersection, to the rear of the building. The two busiest establishments in the village, the market and the real estate office, were on the west side of the road between the apartment building and the railroad tracks.

The streets of Sinchon, more aptly described as alleys, were so narrow that auto traffic was precluded from traveling in the area. That meant that the people who lived in or visited Sinchon would take vehicular transportation, a cab or bus, as far as the MSR-1. Then they would walk up the road, across the rail road tracks, past the real estate office and the market to the "T" intersection and into the village. The apartment building where Pollard lived was popular with the Americans because it was relatively close to the drop off point for cabs and busses. It also provided an outstanding vantagepoint for "people watching" from the windows that faced the street.

As Krause and I walked up the road from where we had left our cab on MSR-1, we saw Pollard on the roof of the apartment building, waving. He called down and asked us to meet him at his apartment. As we entered the building I noticed the smell of kimchee and fish, indicating that not all of the inhabitants were Americans. We made our way up the stairs to the third floor to Pollard's apartment. He was on his way out the door with a bag of charcoal, some newspaper and an open can of beer. Pollard asked Krause to go down stairs to find out when the Smith brothers were coming up. The younger of the two, Mark, lived on the second floor. Krause went on his mission and Pollard told me to join him on the roof.

On our way up, Pollard explained that, as being the person who occupied the third floor apartment that faced the street, he had primary use of the roof. Other tenants were allowed to use the clothesline, but the rest of the roof was his domain. As we ascended the stairs, I noticed that the staircase was very narrow. The steps we kind of strange also. They were very tall and the top of each step was very short. It was more like climbing a ladder that a flight of stairs. I mentioned my observations to Pollard and he said that the stairs were designed for Koreans who have smaller feet and are narrower shoulders than western people have. He said that the stairs were steep because the area dedicated to the staircase was short, to conserve space in the building and was, consequently, very steep.

When we were on the roof, I felt as though I was on top of the world. The building itself was situated on a rise in the topography and there was nothing to obstruct the view for miles. The air was it's usual hazy brown but you could see for a great distance. Pollard told me to dump the beer we had brought into a 20 gallon galvanized tub, that was filled with ice from the mess hall back on the compound. I arranged the cans in the ice and took a cold one for my self. There was another tenant on the roof, hanging her clothes on the line. She was a matronly, Korean woman in her mid thirties. She didn't have a clue that it was Easter, I might add. She met us with a broad smile and bowed. Then she made her way back down the stairs.

Pollard dumped the roughly broken chunks of charcoal into the bar-b-que pit and lit some of the newspaper that he had crumpled to get it going. He and I stood at the edge of the roof drinking our beers and looking down on the intersection and the road to MSR-1. Soon we saw Steve Jones, his wife and four children marching over the railroad tracks with armloads of grocery bags. It was obvious that they were returning from their weekly trip to the Post Commissary. Everyone was loaded down, including the kids.

The Jones family would not consume all of this food during the upcoming week. The Jones' landlady, like most, preferred to accept, and granted a substantial discount for, payment of the rent in the form of groceries from the commissary. The Jones' would leave the groceries on the kitchen table and take the kids for a walk. When they returned the groceries would be gone and the rent would be paid. Technically this was a form of supporting the "black market", however the authorities turned a blind eye to the practice, because it was virtually uncontrollable. They also understood that a family like the Jones' would probably be trying to survive on $500.00 per month, so getting a discount on the rent eased the budget a little.

Pollard called down to Steve and asked him if his family would join us for the bar-b-que, but the Jones' declined. They made their way around the bend in the road and they were gone. As the people in the street made there way up the road, we saw others that we knew and hardy wishes for a happy Easter were exchanged. After a few minutes Pollard said he was going to see where Krause had gone off to and asked me to keep an eye on the fire. I was left alone to drink my beer and listen to the portable radio that Pollard had left on the roof.

I turned on the radio. It was tuned to AFKN, the Armed Forces Korean Network, a division of AFRTS, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, referred to by the troops as A-FARTS. This was the only English language radio station operated in South Korea. The program format was designed to satisfy all segments of the military population. The station featured hour-long blocks of alternating types of music including classical, country & western and rock-and-roll. The music was interspersed with local public service announcements and news from around the world.

Needless to say this type of programming satisfied no one, but it was all that was available.

There I sat in a pair of Levis and a T-shirt that I had probably worn to high school some nine months before and a pair of boots that I had worn while hiking the Wolf-Brey trail in the Sierras, half a world away. As I looked down at my boots, I lit up a cigarette with flick of my Zippo lighter and drank my beer, while listening to the classical tunes of Brahms and Bach on AFKN.

At the end of the concerto, a news bulletin interrupted the broadcast. The Air Force Sergeant announced " There is a dust storm approaching the Korean Peninsula. High winds crossing the Manchurian plain have collected a substantial amount of fine sand and dry soil. The contaminated air mass is traveling at approximately 30 miles per hour and is expected to reach the vicinity of the Eighth Army Command within the next 3 to 6 hours. All personnel in the mid- peninsula region are instructed to seek cover and remain indoors until the storm has past. I repeat, a dust storm, originating from Manchuria, is en route to the north central portion of the Korean peninsula and all personnel are instructed to seek cover and remain indoors until an all clear advisory is broadcast on this station. Please stay tuned for further updates on the approaching storm. We are now returning to the originally scheduled program".

I thought to myself "Oh great, A Manchurian dust storm. This is turning into a really bad Easter". I looked to the horizon and witnessed a sight that, the pure power of which, left me in a state of total awe. I slowly, unconsciously rose to my feet. It looked like there was a wall of dirt stretching from earth surface to approximately 2000 feet in the air. It extenuated along the landscape as far as I could see. It was a dirty brown color and appeared to be driven by a churning force. The curtain approached from the northwest and absorbed everything in its path. It was about 12 kilometers away and I thought I could hear it coming. It was almost biblical in proportion. I stood there dumfounded.

The first thought that came to my mind, when I realized what I was seeing, was that I thought the guy said we had 3 to 6 hours. The next thought was "What am I doing standing on a roof in South Korea watching a dust storm from Manchuria on Easter Sunday. I wonder if this is what the end of the world is going to be like?" At that moment I knew why the Lord had brought me to this place, on this day. It was to be impressed by the awesome power of nature and to observe this demonstration that life is full of forces that are beyond our control and I knew the Lord was with me.

At that moment the face of the wall began a shift in direction. Instead of coming like a wave would, parallel to a western shore, the northern most edge began swinging to the east and the trailing southern border moved to the west causing it to pivot like a giant revolving door. When it reached the point where it maintained an east-west axis it continued moving east. It ripped across the top of the range of hills that formed the northern edge of the geographic basin that we called home. It never came closer to me than the original distance of 12 kilometers. I watched in silence as it drove out of sight. The sky resumed musty gray, though remarkably lighter, haze as the other guests began to arrive.

Written April 13, 1995