June 28, 1970: A Tour of Camp Howze
	June 15, 1970: My Arrival in Korea
	Return to the Index for 1970

I have spent my first week here getting acclimatized to the Finance Office, the personnel who work there, Camp Howze, and life in Korea. I will have a lot to say in the upcoming pages about all of these things, but today, Saturday, LTC Fuentes has arranged a picnic for all the employees of the Finance Office.

Note from the present:
I am going to start out right here, on the first album page from my time in Korea, to say that I wish I could supply the kind of additional information that I have been able to supply on the album pages for dates much closer to the present.

Let's take today's picnic as an example. I had no idea that I would one day want to recall exactly where the lake was where we had our picnic today, and so as I rode in one our jeeps over here this morning with some of the office personnel, I made no effort to record what country roads we took to get here. Nor did I have the Internet available then so I could later reconstruct where we'd gone, and perhaps have obtained an aerial view of the small lake on whose shore the picnic was held.

I did find in my notes made at the time that the area was known colloquially as "The Tombs", but that didn't help me much as I created this page today, as there are literally hundreds of sites all over Korea that have royal or notable tombs, large and small. Nor did the fact that we were on the shore of a small lake; the lake wasn't like the Han River or the ocean in that very likely it has been since filled in or developed in some way so as to make it unrecognizable, even if I scoured the aerial views around Camp Howze.

Actually, I can't even show you an aerial view of Camp Howze itself! Even though it was a substantial installation, with quite a few buildings (some of them seemingly permanent), it no longer exists, having been returned to South Korea in the 1980s in favor of a more substantial, consolidated installation some miles from here (Camp Casey) which does still exist. While I have the coordinates of Camp Howze (people have seemingly recorded most known facts or "once-known" facts somewhere on the Internet), all I can do is show you (on an upcoming page and on the aerial view on this page) where it was. But as for showing you how the camp looks today, that's an exercise in irrelevance, as the camp buildings are entirely gone, replaced with houses and commercial establishments that are all part of the very dramatic transformation of South Korea from the mildly-backward country I remember to the advanced, first-world nation that has taken its place.

I will try, as I have done here, to generally locate places when I can (as I noted in my narratives, The Tombs was an area about ten miles from the camp and somewhere to the northeast), but unless the place is a historical building or monument that would naturally have been preserved, my successes will be few, as a half-century has wrought much more than even the expected transformation of this place.

This is the area where our cookout and party were held. To me, the warmth, the vegetation, and particularly the red clay made this area very reminiscent of areas around and south of Charlotte- indeed, most places in the rural South. The area was kind of like a State Park.

I believe the seated Korean man was one of the accountants who worked in the office, but he could just as easily have been any Korean who saw the gathering and decided to join it- either for the free food and drink, or just for something to do on a Saturday afternoon. The office with the camera is Lt. Tworek and the other is Mr. Jones

2LT Dan Tworek arrived here a couple of months ago, and just in my first week he and I have become friends, and he lives in the same BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters) that I do. He isn't a bachelor, though, he left his wife at home in New York State while he does his tour here. Warrant Officer Jones ("Mr. Jones") is on his second tour.

In the United States Armed Forces, the ranks of warrant officer (grades W‑1 to W‑5) are rated as officers above all non-commissioned officers, candidates, cadets, and midshipmen, but subordinate to the lowest officer grade of O‑1 (Second Lieutenant). Warrant officers are highly skilled, single-track specialty officers. While the ranks are authorized by Congress, each branch of the uniformed services selects, manages, and uses warrant officers in slightly different ways. For appointment to the rank of warrant officer one (W‑1), normally a warrant is approved by the secretary of the respective service. The President (not really the President but someone in the Defense Department who represents him) commissions the top warrant officer four ranks. Mr. Jones is a W-1; were he a W-2 or above, he would be traditionally referred to as "Chief Jones".

Warrant officers can and do command detachments, units, vessels, aircraft, and armored vehicles, as well as lead, coach, train, and counsel subordinates. However, the warrant officer's primary task as a leader is to serve as a technical expert, providing valuable skills, guidance, and expertise to commanders and organizations in their particular field. Mr. Jones is on his second one-year tour here in Korea; in between them he was stationed in California.

You are looking at most of the Finance Office personnel- five officers and a good many enlisted. The officer leaning on the jeep, LTC Graffeo, is not a Finance officer, but just a friend of LTC Fuentes (who is currently the Finance Officer for the Second Division).

As the afternoon progressed, there was a lot of drinking, and some, like LTC Graffeo (who has a reputation for same) got loosened up enough to get in the warm water- with clothes on.

You'll note a couple of Korean women here; a few of the servicemen have been here long enough to become pretty attached to one girl or another. I have come to understand that these arrangements are rarely permanent; the girls (or women) know that when their companion's tour is over, there will likely be an end to the relationship, but in the interim the girls get someone to be with who is also comparatively wealthy (as most Americans are, compared to the average rural Korean), and who will usually provide for them, and sometimes help their families as well.

Something else I came to be familiar with is the way Americans seem to attract young kids. I have no idea just where this little boy came from, but it was probably a nearby farm. Americans are usually good for a free meal, some entertainment, and maybe a coin or two./TD>

LTC Fuentes is at the right in this picture, and in the background, with his back to the camera, is LT Pete Cannon. Pete and I became friends over the next eight months; he grew up in Hawaii which I found very intriguing. And there is another unknown Korean boy in center view.

The picnic was a good opportunity for me to meet almost all the men that I would be working with for the next year, and it was also a good opportunity for me to engage with my superior officer, LTC Fuentes. It was at this picnic that I found out that when he left to go back to the States, I would become the Second Division Finance Officer for a time- an unusually high post for a Captain (which I will become in a few months).

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	June 28, 1970: A Tour of Camp Howze
	June 15, 1970: My Arrival in Korea
	Return to Index for 1970