In Their Shoes: In Their Shoes

19: Korea, Vietnam and Bosnia

19: Xrea, Ulnam anI :JJosnia«You need not change your style.» -A CIA recruiter, asking me to become a spy Ling in Japan in the mid-fifties, I found it an easy hop over to Korea. And for me, it cost nothing. A U. S. Air Force officer issued me "orders" to travel. This was a standard military form with my name and under "rank" he wrote "correspondent." With this form in hand, I boarded an unheated cargo plane. Bundled in GI-issued woolen gear, I sat on a narrow steel "bucket seat." On either side ofme were glum uniformed men, some going to Korea for the first time, others returning after rest and recreation in Japan. How, I asked one soldier returning to duty, did he like Korea? He stared at me, with a dejected, pained expression , then muttered, "It's a hellhole." This was the second of the big wars that had been fought in my lifetime. Surrounded by American soldiers, I reflected on what had started the Korean conflict: President Truman, operating under an umbrella of the UN, had sent American forces to right a wrong, the wrong being a June 24, 1950, attack by the North against the South. By the time I got to Korea in 1955, the fighting had stopped, but the tensions remained, with the ever-present possibility of a new outbreak. 197 198 In Their Shoes On a drive into Seoul, I looked at a city lying in ruins. I saw little boys urinating in a small stream where only a few feet removed women washed clothes and others drew water for drinking purposes. Not in Berlin, Rotterdam, or Cologne had I seen such devastation. Two hotels were standing, and I checked into one, the Bando. Mter getting settled, I arranged to travel by jeep, with driver, to various camps. "You will get a warm welcome," a U.S. Army public relations officer told me. "All of our men are lonesome to see someone from home." At that time, American servicemen , even the highest-ranking officers, could not have their wives with them. This being the case, I was one ofthe few American women in Korea. In setting up interviews and in moving about the country I experienced little or no red tape from the military. The men, privates to generals, welcomed me to join their off-duty hunting expeditions, usually for pheasants. One day, a pilot asked, "Want to go for a ride in my jet?" The invitation came as easily as if he himself owned the machine. I eagerly climbed in, and, streaking across the skies of Korea, I noted how beautiful that war-torn country appeared from a vantage point of thirty thousand feet. But eventually, Korea came to represent more than the picaresque or even more than another war. Korea became a turning point in my life. It forced me to answer, at least for myself, a pivotal question: who is a good American? This question arose after I spent time with an American general in command of U. S. forces based near the 38th Parallel, the line dividing the two enemy forces, the North and the South. I had interviewed him and snapped his picture and was ready to return by jeep to Seoul. "Stay awhile," the general insisted. "You'll better know the meaning of being 'at the 38th Parallel.'" From Alabama, he was the epitome of southern charm-polite, genteel, proper, considerate, ever solicitous of a guest's needs. I Korea, Vietnam and Bosnia 199 said I couldn't stay, I hadn't come prepared, I had not brought a toothbrush or pajamas. "We have extra toothbrushes. And I will loan you a pair of my pajamas." I accepted his offer and spent several days and nights at his headquarters. I was flattered by his attentions, his treating me as visiting royalty. I had carte blanche to interview anyone in his command. When he and I entered the officers ' dining room, he, the commanding general, insisted I go first. In the evenings, we sat before a fireplace, and he talked. I kept silent for the most part; my training as a reporter was to listen, to learn. And what I learned was baffling: he had been sent there to defend South Koreans, yet he hated Koreans, a people he defined as having a "lowly status." He referred to all Asians as "these colored...