A-Town in General

A-Town

It’s forty below and I don’t give a fuck, got a heater in my truck and I’m off to the rodeo.

I’m up way too early. Okay I was up at midnight. I am going to have to do the only thing that has ever worked - workout 2 hours before bedtime. Meaning I have to get to the gym by 8pm.

Fucking ridiculous. I am starting to get it why my grandparents had such weird sleep patterns.

A-Town. When I was stationed at Kunsan AB, ROK in 1984, the locals didn’t want the area right outside the base to turn into the area right outside the gates of Osan AB. So they made a rule that American oriented businesses couldn’t be within 10 miles of the gate.

Ta-da! A-Town. Exactly 10 miles from the front gate. 37 clubs on the side of a hill. Restaurants, shops. In the clubs there were practically no rules. There were hookers, drinky girls. Top of the ziggurat was the dancers. You had to have a lot of charm to get with a dancer. You couldn’t buy them. They made more in a night than most of the airmen who made it to A-Town did in a month.

But goddamn it, I got one. Be careful for what you wish.

I have been away from X1 for almost 20 years. But when I met her in 1984 I was done. She was relatively tall for a Korean. She had a perfect hourglass body, long long hair. Beautiful face. She convinced me she spoke Japanese and French as well as Korean and English. I was 22. It didn’t take a lot of effort to convince me.

I was smitten. I was nothing but muscle and hormones. My chain of command and my friends all tried to talk me out of it. If I had a time machine and went back to 1984, I’m pretty sure I would be unable to convince myself that it was a bad idea.

I married her. A few months later we were in Las Vegas. I was stationed at Nellis AFB.

The 474th was a Rapid Deployment Force unit, which meant we pretty much worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We lived in an apartment at the corner of Boulder Highway and Tropicana. I set it up as well as a 22 year old knucklehead could. I bought furniture and groceries and kitchen stuff. I am a first born, so I was used to responsibility. I tried to make a home before she came over. Even though as a first born male I really didn’t have a fucking clue what made a home. That was my mom’s job.

As I recall it was quite the to-do to get her home. I had to fly to Las Angeles to pick her up, then we flew back to Las Vegas. Incredibly expensive for someone who was making about 700 bucks a month.

The first couple of years were not bad. But we only had one car, and I was working all the time. And she felt isolated. So I did the research and hooked her into a network of Korean expats. Then everything spiraled out of control.

We muddled through for the next few years. Had a kid. I got my BS and applied for OCS, then AOCS.

Got accepted. When I left for Pensacola we agreed we were done. I was half way through AOCS when she changed her mind.

I was half way through the most stressful thing I have ever been through and she changed her mind?

To this day the words that are guaranteed to piss me off are “a woman’s right to change her mind.” You change your mind before you start fucking with my life.

We separated on the 1st of December, 1998. We filed for legal separation in May 1999. I got my scuba qual and went on cruise in June 1999. I was a very satisfying cruise. I worked my ass off, worked out like a madman. And had a lot of fun while in port. I guess you are only 37 once.

To this day I wonder what my life would have been like had I never answered the phone that day. If I had realized I didn’t actually need a woman in my life. Women are everywhere.

If only I weren’t so in love with love.