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Jo Sul · 12-23-2004, 09:44

OK, here goes. Our team was in Korea in '89 for Team Spirit working with the Korean 1st SF Brigade. We were playing the North Koreans, so our job was to infil south and keep an eye on Camp Humphries air field.

We jumped in at night and our DZ was a wet rice paddy. Of course, the Army decided that all of Korea is rough terrain so we had to wear the rough terrain Gumby suits - that combined with all the other crap we had to carry made it almost impossible to move. Basically when we hit the rice paddy we stuck like lawn-darts up to our knees in mud (those of us that hit the DZ at least). We had one Korean go into an irrigation ditch and almost drown - managed to get him out. One stick missed entirely and landed in the nearby village - one guy went through the roof of a house, another landed on a Korean who was pedalling his bike down the road - this Korean was the mayor of the village and was killed, not good.

Anyway we eventually extricated ourselves from that fiasco and moved to our patrol base. Every night we would send a few two-man teams (one of us and one Korean) to gather intel at the air field. My job was to setup with an IR camera outside the wire at the end of the runway and take pictures. The air field had guard towers and wire all around it, and we were told that the Korean guards had live ammo - war games or no war games they weren't fooling around. My Korean and I were in an open field under a pile of rice straw happily taking pictures when all the spot lights on the towers started coming on - the guards were obviously upset over something. Considering that I had zero cover in the open field, my Korean and I immediately started running for our lives across the field. After about 100 yards, my Korean stops in his tracks for no apparent reason. The ground in front of us looked normal as far as I could tell (at night), and I wasn't about to stop - I quickly found myself up to my knees in pig shit. Apparently this was some farmers pig hole or something. My Korean, who obviously was smarter than I was, pulled me out and we got back to the patrol base. At least I didn't go in face first.

It turns out that one of our other two-man teams found what looked like an empty guard tower and decide to use it as a vantage point to observe from. However the guard tower was occupied but the guard was asleep - of course he woke up when they showed up. Our Korean on this team decked the guard and they ran for it. This is what set off the alarm that had me literally "in the shit".

12-23-2004, 09:44	#8
Jo Sul Quiet Professional Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: NM Posts: 266	OK, here goes. Our team was in Korea in '89 for Team Spirit working with the Korean 1st SF Brigade. We were playing the North Koreans, so our job was to infil south and keep an eye on Camp Humphries air field. We jumped in at night and our DZ was a wet rice paddy. Of course, the Army decided that all of Korea is rough terrain so we had to wear the rough terrain Gumby suits - that combined with all the other crap we had to carry made it almost impossible to move. Basically when we hit the rice paddy we stuck like lawn-darts up to our knees in mud (those of us that hit the DZ at least). We had one Korean go into an irrigation ditch and almost drown - managed to get him out. One stick missed entirely and landed in the nearby village - one guy went through the roof of a house, another landed on a Korean who was pedalling his bike down the road - this Korean was the mayor of the village and was killed, not good. Anyway we eventually extricated ourselves from that fiasco and moved to our patrol base. Every night we would send a few two-man teams (one of us and one Korean) to gather intel at the air field. My job was to setup with an IR camera outside the wire at the end of the runway and take pictures. The air field had guard towers and wire all around it, and we were told that the Korean guards had live ammo - war games or no war games they weren't fooling around. My Korean and I were in an open field under a pile of rice straw happily taking pictures when all the spot lights on the towers started coming on - the guards were obviously upset over something. Considering that I had zero cover in the open field, my Korean and I immediately started running for our lives across the field. After about 100 yards, my Korean stops in his tracks for no apparent reason. The ground in front of us looked normal as far as I could tell (at night), and I wasn't about to stop - I quickly found myself up to my knees in pig shit. Apparently this was some farmers pig hole or something. My Korean, who obviously was smarter than I was, pulled me out and we got back to the patrol base. At least I didn't go in face first. It turns out that one of our other two-man teams found what looked like an empty guard tower and decide to use it as a vantage point to observe from. However the guard tower was occupied but the guard was asleep - of course he woke up when they showed up. Our Korean on this team decked the guard and they ran for it. This is what set off the alarm that had me literally "in the shit". __________________ "Excretion is the bitter part of valor."
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