Quote:
|
Originally Posted by BAN SUVS
In hindsight, a better attitude would have made it more tolerable, but there's really nothing truly redeeming about a tour there unless blowing most of your pay on booze and hookers seems like a great idea. The best you can hope for is to spend your year(s) there really throwing yourself into your work and improving yourself as a soldier.
|
That's where I feel fortunate having been given the opportunity to learn the language and culture before going. I was able to traverse the country and interact with the people almost as if it wasn't foreign to me at all. Once we got married I moved off-post with my wife and I really dug into trying to live like a normal person there. At that point, the Army simply became my job rather than my life. I think that's part of the problem with tours of duty there - all most soldiers get to see are the bars and shops designed to capitalize off of their boredom. Most people consider themselves "stuck there" for a year, whereas I really
lived in Korea. Once you move a couple miles past the military posts, it's just another regular place - grape soju and "Juicy Girls" are really not Korea.
A side note, I suppose - the Electronics Market in Seoul is one of my favorite places in the world - a gargantuan building filled with six stories' worth of electronics, computer, and video game shops, surrounded by a couple city blocks of more shops. I never had enough money.
