Korea - Land of the Frozen Chosen.

Now that the Thanksgiving Holidays are over, I can continue where I left you all hanging.from the last time.  I try my best to post a new blog every other day.

Korea, in all of its travel brochures calls itself 'The Land of the Morning Calm,' those of us in the military who are sent there call it 'The Land of the Frozen Chosen.'  Nothing, I mean nothing, is colder that a winter morning in Korea.  I thought I was cold a few times on the farm growing up, going out on a winters day to get wood to burn in the stove at home.  Quite a few times I would go to bed, frozen, wake up in the middle of the night, frozen, and wake up in the morning, frozen.  I don't care how cold it was outside, we still had to take care of washing up clean, and shaving each morning.  Many the morning out in the field where we had to take out our steel pots, helmets, put cold water in them and place them on the back of the tanks where the exhaust came out to get the water warm enough for this necessity.  Forget skipping it on cold morning because that is when the platoon leader and platoon sergeant would come by to inspect just for that.

When I reported in, the Brigade S-3 (Operations and Planning), asked me, 'Are you THE Master Gunner that we were promised?  I told him that I did not know anything about a promise, but, yes, I was in the first class of Master Gunners to graduate from Fort Knox.  They called in the brigade Sergeant Major and introduced me as the new 'Master Gunner.'  The Sergeant Major said good, we were expecting you earlier, but the Colonel wanted to talk with me the minute I came into the unit.  I marched right into his office after being told to 'Enter' and reported to him.  After the salute, he got up stuck out his hand and introduced himself to me and asked me to have a seat.  He told the Sergeant Major to have some coffee sent in to us.

He started it off by saying that the position of Master Gunner was new to him and he asked me about the school, what it taught and what we were told to expect to do out in the field.  After explaining all this to him we got down to the nitty gritty.  He gave me all the statistics of his last tank gunnery program.  How many tanks they had that was ready at the time to be able to perform at 100 percent for gunnery.  He explained that for all the crews to fire qualifying rounds in his last gunner program was 72 percent.  He asked me what I thought we could do.  I explained that I had nothing to do with the tank maintenance, that was up to his motor pool mechanics.  I said we need to set up gunnery programs for the crews to be able to maintain their proficiency from one tank gunnery to the next one.  He told me that he was making me responsible for the next tank gunnery qualifying tables.  If I had any supplies that I need to see his S-3 and S-4, and that if any of his company commanders had problems getting their people to my classes to come to his office and he would take care of the problem.

So, for the next few months I was bounced around between companies measuring they readiness for tank gunnery.  As it got closer and closer to tank gunnery, I was expected out on the tank ranges day and night.  After putting all of his tanks through the course, he called me into his office and told me that 89 percent of his crews qualified.  He asked me what I wanted to do next.  I told him that after a few days off for the crews, I needed to get them back to the classroom and continue on with the training so they would retain what they had just learned.  His words were, SSg. West, you are a man after my own heard.  Job well done.

Mila, my wife, had decided to visit with her parents and brother and sisters in Manila while I was in Korea, which was an unaccompanied tour.  While there, our daughter, Michelle Elaine was born in Manila. Mila had by this time become a naturalized citizen, so when Michelle was born, she was recorded as a U.S. Citizen, born on foreign soil.

I had finished up my 13 months over there, and the Colonel extended me two months to finish up on the training cycle I was working on.  I got my orders assigning me to the Armor School at Fort Knox.  Heading back to Kentucky.

Til the next time, my friends, have a wonderful time.