August 8, 1970: A Trip to Rec Center 1
	July 11, 1970: A Further Tour of Camp Howze
	Return to the Index for 1970

It is almost exactly a month since I arrived, and I will already get to experience probably the most exciting activity that anyone in the Finance Office will encounter- a money run to Seoul. More about the money run in a moment, but first I want to say something about the route.

At left is a map showing the approximate route we will follow. The route can be approximated, but because almost nothing in my pictures marries up neatly with anything that exists today (that I can locate on today's aerial views), it is probably not exact. In fact, there was only one thing in any of my pictures that I could find still exists today- one of Seoul's eight Gates- and even it is no longer where it was when we passed by it. But at least I could find out where it was, and with that waypoint I could make a good guess as to the route.

I did try to match up the streets in my pictures with those that exist today, but I was totally unsuccessful. As you an imagine from your own experience, almost nothing stays the same over fifty years, unless you are talking about old cities like London, Paris, or New York. Seoul is an old city to be sure, but it has undergone an almost total transformation since I was there. Only a few palaces and historical buildings remain the same, and we did not pass close to any of these- save for the Gate I will mention in a while.

But what, exactly, is a "money run"?

A month after I arrived, I had gotten used to the Finance Office routine. I am in the post of Deputy F&AO (Finance and Accounting Officer), while LTC Fuentes is the F&AO. There are three other officers here- LTs Tworek and Granville, and LT Cannon. Lieutenant Cannon (Peter) is the one from Hawaii, and he is currently the Disbursing Officer, meaning that he is in charge of the cash and the two payment windows that we have in our little "bank". LTs Tworek and Granville are each in charge of a large payment section, with a number of clerks in each one who essentially keep the financial records for each soldier in the Second Division.

Actually, LTC Fuentes, as is traditional, keep the records himself, with Mr. Jones' help, for the thirty or so full colonels and above who are assigned to the division (plus a couple of Lieutenant Colonels that he knows personally). Both Dan Tworek and Bill Granville have officers and enlisted records in their care, but the officers are LTCs and below.

The office operates on cash. That is, most of the soldiers get their pay in cash each month (although they have the option of having some of their pay sent directly to family or financial institutions); I have most of mine sent to NCNB in Charlotte, where I have an account.

Note from the present:
The widespread use of direct deposit for salaries is still a good many years in the future. At the time I was in Korea, only a fraction of people even had checking accounts. When you couple that with the fact that even my pay as a First Lieutenant was only about $500/month, with enlisted getting a good deal less, you can see why most soldiers took most of their pay in cash. The Army is working on a modernization of the system, to make more reliance on checks and direct deposit and to give servicemen something akin to a credit card so they can draw against that money, but for now, our office prepares pay vouchers for each soldier each month. With the various allowances each soldier earns and the various options each soldier has for sending money to dependents and such, these vouchers can get complicated.

On paydays, the office needs a good deal of cash on hand- usually upwards of $500K, and sometimes more than a million. This is not in US currency, of course; dollars are not used in Korea, since it is still, technically, a conflict zone. There is also the danger of counterfeiting. So all our transactions are in MPC- military payment certificates. These look like money, and come in the same denominations, and are accepted just like dollars on any post and in any PX or such. (I should note that we also use regular US coins when needed.)

What happens regularly is that the MPC is switched out, and this usually happens every six months or so. All soldiers are notified, and they either bring in their old MPC and get new, or their commanders collect it, exchange it with us, and then return the appropriate amount to each soldier. This pretty much eliminates the counterfeiting problem, as MPC can only be traded in by US military or certain civilian organizations. If some foreign person had been able to counterfeit these MPC, they would find themselves with valueless inventory periodically, and so no one would accept their counterfeit notes. Sure, a few notes work their way into the hands of Korean citizens, but for small amounts they can approach their own banks to exchange them- as it is not specifically illegal for Koreans to come into possession of them.

We also operate with large amounts of Korean Won- the Korean currency. First, many soldiers will want to get some of their cash in Won so they can spend it in Korean shops and businesses, or for taxis, buses, and the like. Second, our office is also responsible for paying the Korean civilians who work for the US Army, and those people get their payment in their own currency, of course. Since the Won is currently well over 300 to the dollar, we also have huge amounts of Won in our safe; many millions of Won may only be a few tens of thousands of dollars.

The cash requirements of the Finance Office are usually fairly low. Soldiers may need partial payments (advances on their salary) for R&R or for some special purpose, or soldiers may wish to buy some Won with their MPC, or soldiers may be arriving or departing and need to exchange Won or MPC. But on payday, we need quite a bit of cash, and that is why we need to make "money runs" to US Army Finance in Yongsan (the US Military HQ in downtown Seoul). (Sometimes we are bringing currency back, but most times we are picking it up.)

These money runs occur when necessary, which is usually only once or twice a month, and they are almost always on Tuesday, for some reason I never discovered. Usually, it is the Disbursing Officer who goes on the money run, as the security of the cash the office has is his responsibility. But today, Peter Cannon is in Japan on R&R, and in his absence LTC Fuentes has issued orders appointing me to take his place. (The day before Peter left, he and I had to do a complete inventory of all his cash, and I officially accepted the total from him as my responsibility. After he returns, we will do the same thing in reverse.)

This will be the only money run during Peter's absence, and I am kind of looking forward to it. It's a big responsibility, but no money run has ever been compromised- not with the security we have with us.

That's why the money runs are fun. For example, here is our lead jeep as we are moving through the traffic on the outskirts of Seoul, or destination being the Eighth Army Finance Office on the Yongsan post in Seoul. As money usually travels both ways, we have an MP escort (front and rear) both ways. The front jeep has a siren going, and an unconcealed M-60 machine gun. As you will see, we disregard traffic. The drivers and the MPs think the run a good deal of fun as they have standing order to avoid ever actually stopping- kind of like an ambulance.

This is one time they get to weave in and out of traffic to avoid doing so. We get to go through lights and such, just like an ambulance. This particular picture was taken just after we came into the northern outskirts of Seoul, and the traffic is not heavy as yet. It's about 9 am, and already the smog is starting to thicken.

Except right near the Han River, Seoul and its environs (including the Second Division Area) is quite hilly- almost mountainous. Up where we are, the hills are green with trees, but as you come into Seoul, most of the hills have few trees (I suspect because they have been cut down so the wood can be used to build houses) and are very rocky, as you can see here. Much of the city looks like this.

On our money runs, traffic is supposed to move to the right, out of our way, but many of the "kimchi cab" drivers couldn't care less. The MPs shout at the drivers who don't yield. This is one of the nicer residential sections, and the traffic is still light. Looking up from the street, I can see that Seoul is already crowded for space, and housing takes up all possible area, even on these barren hills. These houses, with typical tile roofs, are very quaint.

I certainly did try to locate scenes like this on the aerial views now available to me, but so much has changed that this has proved impossible. As near as I can tell, whole hills have disappeared, flattened into more usable space for today's city of many millions. Streets like this one have been replaced with broad thoroughfares and expressways. And I am quite sure that none of the buildings you see here still exist; even the road from Howze, which has been expanded but still follows the same route, is lined with highrise apartments and all sorts of commercial structures.

I find myself thinking how neat it would be if I had a picture of what, say, this very street looks like today, in a view taken from this very spot. Or if I had someone with encyclopedic knowledge who could pinpoint one of these locations on a map. I will be able to do that myself on future album pages, but only when some particular structure, monument, or physical feature has "stood the test of time".

These houses are actually pretty nice by local standards. They are substantial (built of cinderblock) with metal or tile roofs. Many Koreans live in structures that are much, much worse.

Here are some new highrise apartments. I thought I might still be able to find them, but today they are lost in the much higher, much newer structures. My guess is that they haven't lasted these last fifty years.

But now we get to the only structure I was able to place definitively, and that was because it is an historic structure, and one that the city of Seoul has protected and maintained. It is the Dongnimmun Gate.

We were heading down a main street and we came to an old structure that looked like a very small version of the Arc d'Triomphe or something. The street split to go around it, and as we passed by its south side, I took the picture at left. When I wrote my original slide narratives, I said:

"One of the main gates into the old city of Seoul, Korea. This arch is quite old, about 100 years or so, and used to mark the entrance to the city. Now, it stands in the middle of a traffic circle."

I figured something that historic might still exist, so I looked up a list of Seoul's gates. Fortunately, the website had pictures, and I was able to find the picture at right.

At first, I wasn't quite sure if I had found the actual gate, although the little ornaments at the top of the arch did seem to be the same. But the picture I took didn't show the top of the arch, would have helped identify it. But then, as luck would have it, I took another picture of it later when we were on our way back to Camp Howze, and this time I got the whole thing in.

In the picture at right, you can see it up the street at the left. You can make out the architectural elements, including the railing at the top.

Dongnimmun (Independence) Gate was built following the First Sino-Japanese War to inspire a spirit of independence away from Korea's previous status as a Chinese tributary state. The gate was built to replace Yeongeunmun Gate, which was a symbol of diplomatic relations between Korea and Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty China. To raise funds for the building, the Independence Club collected contributions. Construction of Dongnimmun began on November 21, 1896, and was completed on November 20, 1897.

The design by Soh Jaipil was modeled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Dongnimmun is 50 feet high and about 35 feet wide and made of almost 2000 pieces of granite. Dongnimmun straddled Tongil-ro (the street we were on, but in 1979 is was moved to accommodate the construction of Seongsan-ro (a new boulevard). It was moved again in 2009 and now stands at Seodaemun Independence Park, about 70 meters northwest from its original position.

So, as you can see, this information enabled me to place it, and us, on today's map and aerial views, establishing a major part of our route down to Yongsan. Access to the gate was restricted for much of its history, but it was reopened following the completion of Seodaemun Independence Park, and visitors can now walk freely through the gate.

Knowing that the gate is now in Seodaemun Independence Park enabled me to draw some interesting parallels between then and now. For example, I could find pictures of the gate at its new home in the park, and I could find the park itself on aerial views. If you will look at the picture I took on the way back, I can tell you that the park now occupies the side of the street to the left of the bus that is coming towards us. And I was able to find a picture of the arch and the park (actually looking south from a little bit ahead of where my jeep is in that last picture):

Take a look at this picture at left. The gate is the only commonality between my picture from 1970 and the way this part of Seoul looks today. The street has been broadened, a metro line runs across it now, the park has replaced one side of the street and new buildings and open area have replaced the other. Nothing is the same.

Examine the picture; compare it to the one I took above. Every single one of the buildings in my picture is gone, as if the entire area had been rebuilt from scratch.

But I want to offer one more comparison. I used Google Street view to try to position myself as close as possible to where my jeep was when we approached the gate on our way back, and then I have clipped out the Street View Image.

The trees in the park along the street hide the hill that was beyond the gate in the picture I took in 1970; I don't think that the hill at left in the street view is that same one; it is too far off the main street, which I am supposing follows the same footprint as the street did in 1970.

Again, the changes here are nothing short of amazing. Even though it has been at least fifty years, not many cities can claim such radical transformation. But Seoul was just coming into the 20th century after World War II, and the Korean Conflict held that back some additional time. But since then, Seoul has become a world city, among the world's most modern. And South Korea has become an economic powerhouse.

If you had told me when I was stationed here that beginning in 2002 I would own a succession of THREE cars made right her in Korea, I would have thought you mad. But that's exactly what happened.

Well, enough of waxing poetic about life's changes, and enough investigation of just what I saw in Seoul today is still there. Let's get back to the money run itself, as it was indeed a lot of fun. The rest of the pictures I took today, both heading into Yongsan and returning to Howze, were quite similar to those you've seen already. In none of them have I found a landmark that seems to still exist.

Everybody watches us go by; I suppose the siren gets their attention. The signs on this building are advertising a Korean drama movie, and an American Western with dubbed speech. The theater entrance is on the corner. The small shops are typical, and sell just about everything.

As we move into the central business district, the traffic is getting worse. I noticed that the black vehicle ahead of the lead jeep was trying to take advantage of the hole in the traffic we opened up. Ahead are a new office tower and an unfinished highway interchange.

There are two major forms of transportation in downtown Seoul- the buses and the taxis. There were relatively few private cars, and the ones we did see seemed to belong to businesses or the very wealthy. Taxis are cheap by our standards, but expensive by Korean norms. Most people ride the buses, but they seem to pollute the air a great deal, often emitting dense black smoke. In Seoul, I can't imagine that white shirts stay that way all day long.

We are taking a shortcut to Yongsan, up a very typical side street. At lower left is a man carrying a load of merchandise on an A-frame.

We are almost to Yongsan, now, and this is a relatively nice, semi-residential street. The walled area at left is the north end of the Yongsan compound.

We have been to the Finance office and are on our way back now, driving through a business/residential area of Seoul. We are about to turn left down the street we came up in the left-hand picture above.

Korean signage seems to be more colorful than anywhere else. Incidentally, the word "Hankook" is the anglicized spelling of the Korean characters for the word "Korean".

Here's a busy street on the outskirts of Seoul. This will give you a good idea of the crowded housing. Some of the houses are probably pretty modern inside, but most are very plain.

We are near the northern edge of Seoul, returning from Yongsan. That tower is a memorial in the small park there. I believe there are bells inside. We are near the city's edge.

While I thought the money run to be an interesting experience, our MP escorts and the two clerks from the Finance Office who went with me must have thought it great fun. I just recall thinking to myself that sitting atop a footlocker with the better part of a million dollars inside was certainly an unusual thing for me to do.

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

	August 8, 1970: A Trip to Rec Center 1
	July 11, 1970: A Further Tour of Camp Howze
	Return to Index for 1970