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I don't know about gang activity, as such. I generally kept my nose clean when I was in, hooked up with a bunch of guys who played roleplaying games and Battletech and shit.
But this article is right on the money, for the most part. Thank God, I never got sent to Korea. It was generally regarded as the shit assignment. Normal tours of duty were about a year, and family members were not allowed to accompany the soldier, unlike, say, in European assignments. As the article stated, the common knowledge was that there was nothing to do in Korea but drink. When I re-enlisted and changed my MOS from 11-Hotel (Infantry Anti-Tank Gunner, TOW missile) to 31-Foxtrot (SEN Switching System Operator), there was another guy in my battalion making the same change. One of us was going to Korea, it turned out. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that it was him.
But wherever the assignment is, soldiers are generally hated by the local populace. The drunken assholes ruin it for the rest of us. My (civilian) wife couldn't even get a job in Watertown, NY (near Ft. Drum, where I was stationed after managing to dodge Korea) to supplement our income (yes, that's a confirmation that the pay is shit) because she was "military".
Christ, you think you're doing the right thing by joining, and it turns out that you've just volunteered to be part of a new ethnic group. You ain't black, you ain't white, you're just Army green, as far as the outside world is concerned.
Of course, internal subdivisions are along the same old lines (white with white, black with black, Hispanic with Hispanic), but to go any further into that would just be parroting the article at this point. |
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