Tuesday, March 09, 2010

My Kingdom For a Coke

I've gone through two full days at my new post in Baran, Korea. The bunker I'm working in is impressive and feels like you're walking into the lair of a James Bond villain. Several ramps lead down to a blast door that's about a foot thick. Multiple levels within the bunker are complete with command centers and offices and huge conference rooms. I'll bet they have a hidden pool somewhere with sharks wearing frikkin' "lasers".

However, the one bad thing about this place, which is located on a ROK Marine Corps base, is that there are no Western amenities at all. No PX, no Burger King, nothing. Also, very distressingly, no Coke. Yesterday I began a recon process that will range further and further out, like the proverbial lone survivor in the post nuclear apocalypse looking for precious nourishment. Hopefully the two inches of snow we got last night will not hinder the process.

Working this closely with ROK Marines is pretty interesting. While most of them speak at least a little English, I have a translator assigned to me who spent seven years in Utah and speaks very good American. (There's one translator who I hear on some of the briefs that went to Oxford and has a British accent. It's weird.) It's interesting to see how the Koreans have adapted to our style of warfare, and by that I mean warfighting with PowerPoint as your primary weapon. Apparently Korean words like "next slide" and "click" are just "next slide" and "click" but said with a Korean accent. I've also noticed that "OK" means the same thing in both languages.

Well, that's that then. Breakfast is about to be served and then it's off to the bunker for another exciting day. But if I don't recon me a Coke soon, I may just create an international incident.

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