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Kerry Johnson (1961)

Hello All,

I also just started to get emails regarding these posts and I finally broke down and checked it out.  Hi Gerald, my recollection is that we were up in Itawon (I think the number was in the 60s) for the Student revolt, I got a few pictures when things cooled down a little, I knew a captain in the ROK police who had one of those white jeeps.  He took me around town so I could take some pics.  Anyway, I am pretty sure we had moved to South Post by the time of Pak's overthrow of the government.  I remember clearly stepping out of the house and walking up to the golf course, I watched a tank duel across the Han river bridge, with tanks shooting at each other from each side, they were really poor shots, neither was hit. 

Anyway, I will check in from time to time.  Oh, FYI, out of college I was in the Peace Corps, and I retired in 2006 and the Peace Corps has a special program for previous volunteers, so, I went back in in 2010 and I am still a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I have been a volunteer in Guinea, Senegal, and now Benin over the last few years, I return for three months before coming back to West Africa at the begining of January.

Wish everyone the best, and please pray for those who have ebola, and the health workers treating them.

Kerry Johnson (SAHS 61)

Gerald Braley (1961)

Wow, this all stirred up some activity!  I hadn't looked at the forum for a long time.  Ted, Dave, Kerry, Arthur and the others, greetings from Groveland, IL (east of Peoria).  I remember turning on the tv and AFKN had a notice that the ROK was on yellow alert and travel was permitted for "official business" only.  Being 17, with little common sense, but lots of adrenalin, I assumed that since I never had any official business the warning did not apply to me.  So, off to the USOM buildings and the Duk Soo palace (don't remember which order).  The palace gate was very ornate and there was a rope on the ground (semi circle) in front of it.  While standing within the boundaries of the rope and trying to get a picture of the colorful woodwork the gates opened and a few armed ROK soldiers appeared with some harsh instruction to go away.  Undaunted checked out the back where either the wall was lower or the road was higher, peeked over the wall and saw hundreds of pup tents on the palace grounds.  I learned later that that is where part of the coup forces were bivouacked!  At the USOM building, on the roof, I acquired a few bullet fragments that were a result of the Rhee coup a year earlier.  I seem to recall that the USOM buildings we're other the tallest or close to it back then.  If they were still there you wouldn't be able to find them today.  Great memories.

Kathleen Crawford (Lin) (1979)

Hi everybody...Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for all my classmates and friends from SAHS. God bless you during the holidays! Kat79~

Barbara "Bonny" Tucker (1961)

I am embarrased that I don't remember this event.  I only remember the previous revolution, about a year and a half before this one.  I finally tuned in to the messages and I am delighted to see familiar names and faces.

Sheridan Pressey (Collins) (1964)

All this forum activity made me start reading.  Hi Gerry, Dave, Ted and Sue!  Wonderful to hear everyone's memories from back then.  We lived on Yongsan during the coup and there were bullets going over our yard.  Those years 1960-62 were amazing for putting the real world in our faces.  Guess we all tried to violate the Condition Reds--the thrill of it all!

Michael Nicolay (1960)

We lived in two different houses in Itaewon and three different houses on South Post - 1958-1962...We moved to South Post (after they Kicked Rhee out) when we woke up and the ROK Army had a TANK parked in our back yard and was firing over the top of our house into Namsan Mountain! Heck of an alarm clock! I went back to Korea in 1988 (twice) on a job and THINGS had definately changed! It was much nicer in the 60's - No McDonalds in the Village in the 60's :-)

Roland Keller (1965)

The Name "Camp Sobingo" came up a week or so back so I contacted Don Clark(*) to see what he knew. This is his response: 

In the late 1940s before the Korean War, Camp Sobinggo was the common name for the area that corresponds to South Post before we lost the golf course; that is, the housing area closest to the Han, northward maybe to the main street dividing South Post from Main Post. My impression is that Camp Sobinggo was smaller than all that and that it certainly didn't include Main Post.  Civilians and families connected somehow with the US military lived in "Camp Sobinggo" (as well as Compount 1 and 2 and all around the city wherever they could scrounge billets (mostly former Japanese homes). "So-bing-go" means "West Ice Storage" and refers to the fact that once upon a time they cut ice out of the Han River in winter and stored it is caverns on the north side.  I have no idea where the caverns were, but there was a "west" one (So-bing-go) and an "east" one (Tong-bing-go).  Many of the structures were (and a few still are) Japanese-era buildings. The U.S. military built many more, for example, where the Hausmans lived in those days.

If you Google it, you'll find more on the web (use the spelling: Sobinggo).  One phamplet in particular I found to be most interesting (lot of familiar photos):  http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e2/c/downloads/326120.pdf

(Note:  From what I can tell, everything on Embassy Compound #2 has been leveled - happened years ago - but to date, nothing new has replaced what was.  No idea what the plans are.) 

RK

(*)  PS:  Don Clark attended Seoul Foreign; class of 59 I believe.  He is now a professor of History (East Asian Studies) at Trinity University here in San Antonio.  If you attended SFS, send him a note as I'm sure he would love to hear from you.  (dclark@trinity.edu)

Reg Whatley (1967)

So many of you, like our family, were greatly impacted by the passing of my brother Mel. I shared a few days ago how an event in ones life can have a tremendous influence in the balance of your life.

It's hard to believe that 39 years ago today November 25th, Mel lost his battle with Leukemia and there isn't a day or year that goes by where I had the chance to say goodbye and yet denied myself closure. The greif was difficult for sometime, and reaching out in this forum is certainly a tremendous outlet for me to "open up," after so many years.

I wish you all the most joyous and happiest of family gatherings this Thanksgiving no matter where you are in the world and know our memories of SAHS, albeit a moment in time, are engrained in my families' hearts.

I hope you don't mind, in memory of Mel I have enclosed probably the last photo taken before Mel reentered USF Hospital.

Joyful Thanksgiving to everyone 

Kenneth Ames (1961)

I hadn't followed these messages much until the string about the coups. I remember the overthrow of Rhee but my memories of Pak's coup are hazier -- we were getting ready to leave. I do remember going out into Seoul and hearing gunfire and seeing students running. I was a yearbook photographer and had a notion to take pictures of the coups. It's good to see names here I recognize.

Michael Nicolay (1960)

Does anyone remember the Almost Disaster that fell upon the 8th Army Officer's Club Pool - I think in the summer of 1960 or 1961?

Some Army wives complained to the commanding general's office that too many "civilians" were swimming in THEIR POOL. We subsequently got a call from the Commanding General's Office telling us to kick all the civilians out of THEIR pool.

As a lifguard there I was told to tell the civilians that they had to leave immediately.

Fortunately, I got to go tell Ted's Mom (I think that's when Ted's father was acting Embassador) to leave the pool, and why!

She asked me, "Where's the phone, Mike?"

Well, in less than an hour we got another call and the order had been cancelled.

It appreaded that South Post was actually leased to the US Embassy, not to the Military! So the Embassador (I think) told the General that if he didn't want civilians swimming in his pool he could get HIS POOL OFF EMBASSY PROPERTY!

That was so funny!

Ted Green (1962)

These are all poignant memories: the Rhee overthrow and the Pak Chung-hee coup. Sheridan, for the latter, I was stuck for a couple of days on the Yongsan base. I stayed either with a general or an admiral (at my mother's instance & aggrangement...not that I listened to my parents much back then...) .I seem to remember you, Sheridan, being around, so did I stay with Admiral Pressy for at least one night?  

Mike, I dont remember the pool incident. I do remember that my dad as chargé d'affaires, came under heavy criticism from southern Congressmen because he didnt automatically provide formal US recognition to Pak. After all, Pak overthrew a democracally elected president.

Roland, Don Clark who was at Seoul Foreign School is indeed a great source for Korean history. For those of us not paying sufficent attention in spring of 1961 (Dave Baldwin & I were evidently trying to lay down tracks for a reord), here's what Wikipedia says about Pak (Park):

"Park Chung-hee (Korean: [pakt????hi] 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean president and military general who led South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. Park seized power through a military coup d'état that overthrew the Korean Second Republic in 1961 and ruled as a military strongman at the head of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction until his election and inauguration as the President of the Korean Third Republic in 1963. In 1972, Park declared martial law and recast the constitution into a highly authoritarian document, ushering in the Korean Fourth Republic. After surviving several assassination attempts, including two operations associated with North Korea, Park was eventually assassinated on 26 October 1979 by Kim Jae-gyu, the chief of his own security services.^[2] He had led South Korea for 18 years."

Pak later thanked my dad for his anti-coup stand in 1961, commenting in private & off-record, "Now, Mr Green, no one will dare try a coup against me, because America might not recognize a new regime, no matter how anti-Communist they claim to be!"

Susan Scott (Weinsheimer) (1962)

thanx mike for your memory - what fun!

and another time that was tense and a shut down of south post was the change in scrip. hundreds of koreans who did not have scrip legally were trying to get somebody - anybody to accept their no obsolete for the new stuff. the black market was so alive and very well in those days.

and i cannot remeber which exciting time it was, but my father had a team on watch all night for usom. he at one point called my mother to tell her to get us and our always ready suitcase ready to go in a moments notice. as oldest - i was informed by my mother. ahhh those were the days daze

Gerald Braley (1961)

I did not return to the U.S. after graduating fro SAHS but took some U of MD courses while working in the PX cashier cage.  That was certainly exciting when the script was changed.  I do remember all the odd characters clinging to the fence around the golf course trying to sell their old script for ten to thirty cents on the dollar.  As an 18 year old, by then, I took the days deposited to the bank.  On a really good day (before Christmas) that was as high as $70,000!  Big money back then.  Also had training and carried the classic colt 45, model 1911.  Saw more of that during my RVN days.  The security office was next door with no sound insulation so I could hear the interrogation of various and sundry shoplifters.  Don't recall if it ever made the news or not but there was a big theft of gasoline from the PX gas station.  Turned out the thieves had run a pipe into the storage tanks masked to look like all the other pipes to their own storage and the to their own gas station.  Aside from the phenomenal growth the biggest change I noticed, especially while on the train between Seoul and Puson, was the smog!  Others who traveled in the last few years have said that it has cleared considerably.  Hope so.

David Baldwin (1961)

Sue,

I remember the MPC (Military Payment Certificate) change.... Basically a change in color intended to remove illeagly possessed dollars from those not authorized to have them.  A couple of our fellow students crossing from South Post to 8th Army (claimed to have) picked up a (shoe?) box with MPC.  I am not so sure they actually were able to exchange it though...?

All your bags were packed, and ready to go....  Peter, Paul and Mary wasn't it?

Derek Smith (1981)

Hi, I just got my associates degree, at 51 . I am still an artist, still musician. GPA 3.60, cool! oh yea, medical records and coding, I tried veterinary.I will have more money and my own horse. My girlfriend said you were never in korea. I opened a box, thr. ew my yearbooks at her feet, rode my bicycle to circle kaos, bought some beer. I came home, she was gone, there was a kitten n my bed. My best friend was Steve Moore, and I am still tying to find my brother Darrell, and my sister Dawn, maybe Kyle TX, and where isDebbie Dyer? I love you all.Derek Alan Smith

Cathi DuBose (1981)

Derek-

Darrel and Dawn Smith both live in Texas and are both on Facebook. I would love to know about Steve Moore. 

Hope you are well. 

Cathi DuBose

Lon Burba (1967)

I just wanted to wish all my Yangsan friends a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Lon Burba class of 67

Joe Holcombe (1967)

You may be interested in a look at the past.  Visit  http://www.seoulamericanhs.com/SeoulAmericanHighSchool to see photos and videos. There are copies of all yearbooks 1960 – 1969, directories, pictures from all reunions, senior yearbook pictures of  those classes side by side with a current picture and the favorite is an album of candid pictures taken from 1964 thru 1967 that has 1265 pictures, many from the yearbooks. If you are asked for a password, use sahs. Don’t go to this site if you don’t have a few hours of free time. It’s like a book you can’t put down.

Best wishes to all my old friends - Joe Holcombe

Buddy Wootten (1967)

thanks Joe-Merry Christmas

Mark Wilson (1967)

I agree with Buddy! I hope all of the SAHS Family have a great holiday!

Sherron "Sam" Dix (Lawson) (1961)

Pete Ramirez (1967)

I wish all of you alums a very joyful and great Christmas! Thank you Joe for sending our that web site on SAHS photos, old year books etc The link is . http://www.seoulamericanhs.com/SeoulAmericanHighSchool . You are right, you can spend a few hours just to review the information. Korea is in the news again and all of us can say that , "We were there".

Jacqueline Farmer (Williams) (1976)

Merry Christmas! To all SAHS Alums! It's true that we get to say we have been there in Korea a great place to have experiencd. Special Hello to classes of '75 and '76!! 

Ray Palmer (1966)

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the SAHS family.

Ray Palmer, Class of 66

Mary Jane Pardue