Soldier's Tour in Korea 

NEW WEB SITE

Well, I have run out of space for this web site, so I had to move to a new one. To see what is new in my life go to http://tonymarchant.blogeasy.com There you can see everything I am currently doing and see tons of new pictures. Enjoy!!!

July 11, 2005

Well, today I had my physical therapy. I got 2 times a week to get my achilles tendon worked on. basically all they do is put some gel on my foot, heat it up and rub it with a wand that warms the gel. It doesn't do anything for my foot and it hurts just as bad every time I leave. It really is a waste of time, but I have to go through the motions in order for them to actually look at my foot and fix it. You gotta love how the Army works sometimes. I'm glad I'm getting out next year.


So after getting back from physicla therapy I headed to the gym to get a work out. I haven't run in 2 weeks. I was resting my body to get ready for the 36 mile run to Camp Red Cloud last Saturday, but everyone chickened out the last day and didn't go. So I wound up resting for nothing, and even gained about 4 pounds in the process. So I'm going to hit the gym hard this week to lose the weight. I could notice a difference already. I was breathing harder than usual and started sweating earlier. That was just from 2 weeks off too!


I got back from the gym and wanted to go see if they had the new Fantastic 4 movie out. Well, they didn't, but they did have war of the Worlds. So I bought that and took it over to maxwell's room and watched it with him. And that was about the extent of my day today.

July 8, 2005

NCO Induction Ceremony


Well, this was about the only thing I did today. I had to give a prayer for an NCO Induction Ceremony today. An NCO Induction ceremony is where they pay respects to all the new NCO's into the Army. NCO's are all Sergeants and above in rank. It's a little ceremony to show that they have attained the next step in thier careers in the military.


Here was the itenerary for the schedule of events.


SPC Furnillos had to dress up in camoflauge and run down the aisles for her part of a skit that she was doing for the ceremony. man, that camo is hard to get off of your face.


After the ceremony is over, they drag all the new NCO's outside and drench them with water. It's just part of the tradition.

July 5, 2005

Well today started off like any other uneventful day, but wound up being a lot of fun. Let me tell you why.

Well nothing exciting yet. I stopped by Electronics Market to buy some more blank DVD disks to burn some movies.


And then it got even more boring. Yes, this is a picture of me doing laundry. Why in the hell did I take a picture of me doing laundry you ask? Because uo to this point in my day, it was the most exciting thing I had done. Now let me finish the rest of the story dang it!

OK, so I happened to be bored out of my mind, which always winds up resurting in two things: #1- I watch some TV and go to bed, or #2- I do something incredible crazy and stupid. Today I opted for #2. Luckily for me, I made the right choice. It all started when I was browsing some web sites and wanted to know exactly how liquer was filtered. I know we all read about triple distilled this and cold filtered that, but do we really know what the hell that means? After some careful studying, I decided to do a little experiment. I wanted to see if I could get undistilled liquer and filter it myself to make it smooth tasting. And thus my jouney begins.


CPL Kim and I took a walk to the store and bought the items we would need to conduct our exeriment: One brita water filter and pitcher, and one bottle of the crappiest and cheapest vodka we could buy. Total cost $20 ($7 of which was for the liquer).


The first step was to remove the filter from its package. make sure you use a new filter for this. Used ones have less charcoal in them and will not remove the taste as well.


The next step was inserting the filter into the pitcher. Now if you don't have a handy brite pitcher I imagine you could use anything. You could insert the filter into a funnel and make it water tight by wrapping roads of duct tape or pipe glue around it and then setting it over a jug. Anyway, back to the story. So before you pour your precious alcohol into the filter, be sure to run water through it a few times. The first few times the water will come out a little black in color and the filter will have some flakes of black around it. This is only the charcoal that is in the filter and will dessapear after two flushes.


Now it's time to pour the liquer in. The filter takes about 15-20 minutes to filter a liter of alcohol. Once all the liquer has passed throught the filter, pour it into a jug or a couple of glasses. They repeat the steps a couple of times to triple filter the liquer. I did mine 5 times just to make it extra tasty!


And the finished product is ready to serve! You now have your very own $40 bottle of Grey Goose Vodka for $7. And the best part is, you can use the filter over again (up to 40 gallons). There is very little bite. I drank it straight and it was the smoothest vodka I had ever had. Next time well, experiment with bourbon.


All those semesters of Physics in college finally paid off! Until next tme....Toodle Loo.

July 3, 2005

Well I must say it wqs quite nice not to have to work today. I had spoken to my new Chaplain a few days ago and one thing that he told me was that he doesn't answer his phone or walk anywhere on Saturday. I had asked him why and he had said because it was the sabbath, and he didn't work on that day. My new chaplain is Jewish, and that is why he celebrates Saturdays. Well I was inspired a bit by that. Although many of us celebrate Sunday in the Christian sects, we tend to continue our busy lives after we leave the church doors on Sundays.


I have always gone to the church I work at since I've been here simply because it's the closet church within walking distance. However I have been hearing some buzz about a new style of worship that had been started up at the other end of the post. They had originally began in the chapel, but the service continued to grow until they had to hold services at the movie theater to hold all of the attendees. It appears now that they are going to have to look for an even bigger service now, because they have now filled that as well.
The service was great. It was very conteporary and they sang more modern hymns and christian music with electric guitars and drums. The service was catered more towards the younger generations and I think that is why it has done so well. Each Sunday is different. Some days they have skits, others they have a suprise for the congregation. And of course there is always a sermon. After the service, on my way out the door, I saw a sign-up for a free concert. It was a Michael W. Smith concert being held in Jamsil. There were 8 people who had paid $50 for their tickets, but couldn't go, so they were giving them away. I got one of the tickets, and decided to go later that night.


A buddy of mine name Dan who I had met at the Tres Dias retreat a month ago was also at the service with his girlfriend. He invited me to have lunch with him and his girfriend at Greenstreet, so I agreed. Dan is just a funny guy. His personality reminds me a lot of myself; always acting like a little kid and having a good time. His girlfriend is from Australia and I loved her accent. She told me that she teached english here in Korea. It seems that every non-Korean here is either a soldier or a teacher.


Well, I had planned on taking tons of pictures at the concert tonight, but due to my stupidity, I forgot to put the memory stick back in my camera when I walked out the door of my house. So the only picture I have is of my ticket. Oh well. It was a wonderful concert and very emotional. All in all, it was a great day of devotion to God and a much needed one for me.

July 2, 2005

Well today is actually a continuation of yesterday It has been one long day. Yesterday I went with Kim to the electronics market to get my X Box fixed. I accidentally erased the DVD player file on it when I was messing with it a while ago.

Kim in the taxi on the way to E. Market. A new guy, McGraw, came with us. He's never been anywhere in Korea, so I told him I'd show him around a little bit. he was suprised at the movies here.

Here's apic of McGraw. We hung out and killed each other on Medal of Honor for a while and then watched the new Adam Sandler movie "The Longest Yard." It was a long night.


Well, I got up early this morning and packed my bags into the chapel vehicle and loaded up some blankets and took one of the Korean Katusa's with me, CPL Park, to Seoul station. I had planned on visiting the homeless there for some time now, but never had a free weekend to do it. I really didn't want to do it today, but I knew I had to. We showed up and as soon as we started handing out food, homeless people came from everywhere. Some of them were rude and tried to steal the food out of my bag, but most of them were nice. Park was able to translate for me, and we said a prayer with all of them and gave them some snacks and religious literature. It's truly a humbling experience to that sort of work. It makes you feel guilty and selfish when you show up there. I was imbarrassed when I asked to take one of the guys pictures and pulled out my $500 camera. I just kept thinking how much food I could have bought with that money to feed these people who can't even afford to wash the clothes on their backs.

After feeding and praying for the homeless Park and I left to go get some food ourselves. On the way I spotted another odd sign. This time it was the sign on the door for the men's restroom.

And here was the women's sign. Classy!

We saw these motorized skateboards there too. It has a little controller like a remote control car, but when you turn it it speeds up the board or slows it down. It also had a brake line that went to the wheels. Pretty cool stuff. It looked hard to use though. They also had mini versions of the American Chopper themed bikes there too.

Here is Park at the restaurant we ate at. Park is a Chaplain Assistant who works at the Chapel I work at on the weekends. He works at the chapel during the week. Today was the first day that I really got to talk to him. he is a strong Christian and realy enjoyed helping me today.

That's me at the restaurant with Park. We had Bulgogi for lunch. That's beef and rice and a few noodles in a bowl of broth.

After eating lunch came home and wrote birthday cards to everyone having one this month (they're in the mail!) and a letter to my mother. Then I went grocery shopping. I've been craving meat, so I bought a bunch of steaks this week. As you can see, I'm eating pretty healthy these days. Even the ice cream is sugar free and low fat. I found out later that that is a nice way of saying "low taste" and "delicious free" though. It wasn't that great.

CPL Kim was nice enough to give me this free program today. Now I can make copies of any DVD movie for free. It's illegal in the states, but hey, I'm not in the states now am I? You simply put the movie in one DVD drive and a blank disk in the other and press start.

..... and about 45 minutes later you have these wonderful copies of your favorite movie absolutely free! I'll never pay for another DVD again.

I was really happy when I visited the post office today. I got another package from my mom today! That's the second one this week. I also had a note that said I had a package that I had to pick up but the post office won't be open until Wednesday, so I guess I'm going to have to wait.

Tonight I watched a movie, copied a few movies, and did some shopping. I got a few gisfts for my wife. Tomorrow I think I'll go for a run after church. There is also a free Ty England concert. He's a country singer and although I know who he is, I can't think of any of his songs. That's at 6:00, so I may go to that. I mean, you can't beat a free concert. That means the beer will be $3 a bottle, but that's OK. I guess I'll be drinking my water tomorrow. Well, stay tuned and I'll fill you in on all the details of that. Until then, goodnight.

July 1, 2005

Ogreetings everyone. Welcome to another exciting episode of Tony's life. Today's story revolves around my roommate, coworker, and Korean friend Eun Chang. I didn't know it, but he was getting promoted today. Luckily I brought my camera with me to get a picture of him. I have a video of it too but he sounded like a dork on it and besides, I can't add video to my blog anyway. Otherwise, I'd let you all hear him stumble some words out of his mouth because he was so nervous, Haha. Just Kidding Jung. You know I love ya man!


Old SSG Woodie got promoted today too. He's been in a few of the races that I've run. I hate running with him because this is one of those guys that never goes out and runs, yet he can beat me any day of the week at any race. He's so naturaly fast. I wish I was born with natural talent like he is. Anyway, Hardy Woodie got his E-7 pinned on today.


And here is Eun Chang getting his Sergeant stripes today. I told him that since he is going to outrank me for about a month that he is going to have to do all of the work in the office now and I'l be the one to check my emails all day and dissappear for hours at a time.

After the awards ceremony we had training all day long. It's the most boring day of the year. They give classes on such exciting topics as "drive under the speed limit, "drink water when it's hot outside," and the ever popular "be careful when it rains." I mean, honestly how many times do you need to be dropped on your head as a child before you honestly don't know that you're supposed to drink extra fluids when your hot? I swear if there is a retard that stupid in the Army, I sure as hell don't want to be sitting next to him when I got to battle. He'd be asking me who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. But the Army wastes a full day and plenty of Tax payers dollars for us to sit in an auditorium and feed us crap instead of actually doing productive work. Don't you feel content knowing what your money is spent on now? Well, enough of my little rant.

So here I am at the beginning of the day. As you can see there is still a smile on my face. That's SSG Leir in the background. He's our only pagan soldier in the BN. The funny thing is, though he's pagan, he's probbaly the most practicing religious soldier in the entire BN. Go figure. Anyway, I sadly don't have any picture of me at the end of the day to show you how my attitude drastically deteriorated by the end of the day. I was probably asleep. Actually I kept myself awake by writing a much needed letter to my mom. She recently sent me a package of my hometown newspaper and some pictures, so I wanted to send her a letter to say thank you.

I heard from my wife today. She worked at another show last night. She was a good guy and got to slap one of the wrestlers. I think that is just the coolest thing ever. I brag to everyone that my wife is an actress. I love it. I've really been trying to write her more everyday. I send her about 3 emails a day now. I hope she doesn't get tired of them all, but I believe that it's very important to have excellent communication between husband and wife in order to maintain a healthy marriage. I think that's even profoundly more necessary when there are 6,000 miles separating the two of you. We chat a lot online every day and we both have cameras on our computer so we can see each other every day. Sherry dyed her hair again recently and now has dark brown hair. I was hesitant to have her get it, but I believe that its her life and she should live it how she likes. I was suprised that it actually looks pretty good on her. It's going to be hard to see her as a blond again after having seen her with dark hair for so long now.

June 29, 2005

Well Monsoon season is here. And I thought I had seen hard rain in Kentucky. Boy was I wrong. I have never seen or been in a monsoon in my life, but now I can honestly say I have and I hate it.


I had to drive about 1 1/2 hour to Camp Red Cloud today in horrible rain to give an invocation prayer for a 1SG who was leaving today. He had asked if I would mind coming up to give the prayer for him. He used to be my Platoon Sergeant. His name is SFC Best. I used to give him a hard time on our runs because he used to be a Ranger and I would beat him on the runs. He always made me do push ups when I said something though. I don;t like push-ups.


The guy in the very front is SFC Best. We had the ceremony iside of a big restaurant at CRC (Camp Red Cloud).


After work I was so hungry, so I went aroud and asked everyone if they wanted to go to Outback Steakhouse with me. I was craving some regular American style food, but everyone had already eaten. Well Maxwell went with me. I think he did it just for something to do because he had already ate. We got some steak and a bucket of beer and just sat and told stories. I liked that the best. It's been a long time since I've just sat down and joked around. We probably sounded like a bunch of old men sitting in rocking chairs on a porch, but it was nice. Afterwards I wen tstraight to bed when I got home, because I had gotten a tip that we were going to have an alert in the morning. Well It turns out the "tip" I got was nothing more than a bunch of crap, because I didn't get a single phone call.

June 28, 2005

Human Body Exhibit

About 6 months ago Iread about a controversial art exhibit that some guy had created. The guy was using dead people for his artwork pieces. There were a lot of mad people who didn’t want the exhibit. Well, it turns out that I was talking to a guy today and he told me that it was in Seoul and he went and saw it and didn’t really see why everyone was so upset about. So I decided to go check it out after work today.


All of the bodies weren’t really art. The whole exhibit is actually more of a science and anatomy class that you’d get in college. This guy just put some of them in poses to make it a little more interesting.


This guy is posing in a running stance like he’s playing football. Next to every exhibit they had a display that talked about how all the muscles actually worked in order for the person to do what he was doing. The human body is extremely complex to be able to move so many things just to be able to perform something as simple as walking.


This is one guy cut down the middle to show the digestive tract.


This guy is also cut down the middle, but he is showing his organs instead. Did you know that your heart is actually more towards the center of your chest and not in your left side of your chest like everyone was taught in school?


This one must have taken a lot of effort and work. This photo is of the entire veinous system in the body to include the capillaries and arteries.


This is a body split into sections in order to get an idea of where everything is actually sitting inside of the body.


Believe it or not, but this is actually a photo of a woman’s breasts. Under her skin she had developed breast cancer and let it get so bad that it killed her. This is what it looks like.


This is a body that has been stripped of skin in certain areas.


This is a photo of an unborn child in the belly of a woman. They had a lot of displays from 4 weeks old up to 36 weeks to show how the baby grew from something the size of a grain of rice (4 weeks) to a full term child. There were also some babies with defects like Siamese twins and a baby with spinal bifida.

There were a lot more displays, but I just didn’t have enough space to put them all up here. It was definitely something interesting and different.

June 26, 2005

Ah yes, what to write today. Aboslutely nothing. Well almost nothing. It's hard to make work sound interesting. I had to be at the chapel at 7 AM this morning to open up the chapel and set up for the 8:00 service. We have 5 services on Sunday. There is the Protestant, Episcopal, Catholic, Pentecosatl, and the Lutheran servcie. Luckily I don't have to work the Lutheran service so I get out of the chapel around 3:30 every sunday. I don't normally eat lunch on Sunday's because we are so busy and there isn't much time to eat. But today I was falling asleep so I had to do something.


There isn't a whole lot to eat around the chapel within walking distance and since I onlt have about 15 minutes to leave the chapel I had to settle for fast food. I always get an upset stomach when I eat fast food, andtoday was no exception. But at least it woke me up and helped me get through the rest of the day.


I came back to the chapel and ate my lunch in between the services. Somebody closed our office door while we were out setting up the services and locked it. Well, I don't work at that chapel a lot so I had no keys to open it. It would have been fine, except for the fact that all of the offering money from the services was locked inside too! That is a huge mistake to make for a Chaplain assistant. We have some Chaplain Assistants in prison for messing up offerings. Well, I had to use some guys cell phone to call a locksmith. He came over and said that he could get the lock off. He said he'd have to break the door to do it. I told him to burn the door down if he had to, but just get it open. Well he had another idea. He took a drill and drilled a hole between the two windows in the office and pushed a screwdrivber through the hole and popped the lock on the window. I wish I had taken a picture of it, because it was pretty creative. Well, after the big ordeal I was able to get in the office and I taped the latch on the doorknob so that it wouldn't close again.

On the way home I spotted another stupid sign.

Apparently I have been mispelling working my entire life. Haha. Anyway, when I got home, Sherry was on the computer, so I chatted with my wife for about an hour. It's about the only time I c an talk to her is when she's online. She's been very busy lately with all of her wrestling shows. She's been doing a lot the fake wrestling shows (like WWE) and doing a little bit of valeting and wrestling. She loves it because she gets to do some acting. She is sending me some pictures of her soon, so I'll post them when I get them. After that I went right to bed. I hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few days and have been working non-stop so I was exhausted.