Soldier's Tour in Korea 

May 12, 2005

Well my achilles tendon is still hurting me today so I'm not going to run or work out at all today. I'm going to relax and let my body rest, even if it kills me. I thought about just running a couple of miles, but I figured that it would be best to lose 1 day of running than to hurt myself worse and miss a week of it. We had a change of resposibility ceremony today. Our old 1SG is leaving and we got a new one. I said the prayer for the ceremony.

The change of responsibility ceremony at the PT field.

Today Jung was awarded the position as the Senior KATUSA as well. He really, really didn't want the job because he gets paid the same amount of money but has a lot more work. Of course the Army didn't care what he wanted so he got it anyway.

Jung with his new Senior KATUSA badge on his BDU Uniform.

Chaplain Wead is leaving at the beginning on June, so we don't have many more days with him. I'm a little worried about the new Chaplain coming in. I have never worked directly for a Jewish Rabbi before and am wondering what kind of Chaplain he will be like and if our faith differences will cause some animosity in the office. I hope he is as easy to work with as CH Wead was, but I doubt it. Chaplain Wead was probably one of the best Chaplain's that I have had the opportunity to work for of the 15 Chaplains I have served with, and he will be difficult to replace. I guess we'll find out next month.


This is one of the old Chaplains of the Unit (I will not mention his name). Since it was close to Easter and Rabbi's do not believe that Jesus is the son of God, I thought I'd correct him to make him Christianly Correct.

May 11, 2005

Well nothing extremely exciting to write about today. Just another regular day at the office. I got up early this morning before PT and ran 4 miles. Then when I got to PT they toldus that we were going to go on a 3 mile run. I though it was going to be rough, but I managed to beat almost everyone back. After PT I was still feeling pretty good, so I decided to push myself a little bit until my legs got tired. Well 13 miles later I finally had to go get ready for work. I was really happy that I managed to get so much done before work. After work I tried to run some more, but my achilles tendon on my right leg began to hurt so I stopped.

I went to the gym instead and did 3 miles on the cross trainer. I got a total of 16 miles in today. After work I went home and ate dinner and watched a movie and did a little bit of reading. I emailed my wife too. She tells me that we have a new addition to the family now. She got a little puppy from our neighbors. It's a miniature doberman. It's pure bread, but they gave it to Sherry for free. We couldn't think of a name, but decided today on Cully, which is just another word for companion. That way when we call her name it will remind us that she was Sherry's friend while I couldn't be there and was sort of filling in for me. I think it'll be a nice thing for Sherry to have. Clyde our turtle is nice, but puppies are a little more active and fun to play with.

It's just another regular day at work tomorrow. We have spring clean-up though, so I get to work outside instead of being in the office all day, which will be nice. I just hope it stops raining. We're supposed to rake leaves and plant flowers and pick up trash and whatnot. Well, it's almost 11:00 P.M. over here right now, so guess better get to bed. I don't want to be up too late and be tired for work tomorrow. Talk to you all later. Goodnight!

May 9, 2005

Well the work day started at the motor pool today. I had to check out the vehicle with Jung to make sure that everything was running smoothly on it. Our air conditioning is out, so we are using the redneck colling system in the meantime (rolling down the windows and driving fast).


At lunch we had a bible study in the office. We have them every monday. Usually there are only 3 or 4 of us, but today we had 5. The Chaplain was out of the office so I had to kead to the bible study. We ate Pizza and soda for lunch. Here is PV2 Klopp and a Katusa who joined the study today.


When I got home I went over to Maxwell's room to hang out and we got bored. Well boredom always leads to something interesting and I would up being dared to snort wasabi up my nose.


If you dont know what wasabi is, it's like a horseradish paste and it's really hot.


As you can see from the rediculous look on my face, it burned like hell in my nose.

And here is the result. Let this be a lesson to you kids. Don't snort wasabi, and don't try this at home. Find something else to do when you're bored.


After the wasabi incedent we were bored again and so we decided to just watch a movie. We settled on XXX 2. I was actually surpised by it. I thought it was going to be horrible, but it actually turned out to be pretty good.

May 8, 2005

Relaxing at Mi Casa

Well it’s around 4 AM right now and I can’t get to sleep, so I guess I’ll start my day. Ever since I got back, I’ve been going to bed late and getting up early. It’s not a real big problem except that I can’t get a regular sleep pattern down. Maybe I’m still trying to adjust to the time. Although I’ve never had this problem before.


I’m just sting here at my computer checking emails and browsing the World Wide Web.

Yesterday at the fun run they handed out shirts to everyone who finished the race. What I found out was that they were giving gift certificates out to the 1st and 2nd place winners of each age group. I placed 3rd for my age group (20-29 yrs. Old). Next time, I’ll have to speed up at the end and maybe I’ll win. I also noticed that the 30-39 age group had the fastest times and that the 40-49 age group beat the 20 year olds. There are a lot of fast older athletes. I’ve noticed that most of the really fast runners are mostly all in their 30’s. I just thought that was interesting


Here is the shirt that I won for finishing the race yesterday.

Church was nice. The pastor had a nice Mother’s Day sermon. It was the day that the pastors mother passed away 11 years ago, so he started to get choked up and cry a little while he was preaching, which of course made all of us start to tear up. I sometimes think that those Pastors do that on purpose. But is was a nice service anyway. We also had communion today. It is really cloudy out today. Looks like it might rain.


A bad picture of the service at Memorial Chapel this morning.

Now I’m relaxing in my chair. I just made some pasta noodles, have my can of soda and some crackers, and am getting ready to watch a movie. I don’t know what to watch though. Well, I’ll see you all around next time. Until then, Toodle Loo!


Mmm Mmmm Good. That’s some tasty looking pasta there. Just look at me. I’m licking my lips and everything. That has to mean that it’s good!


It looks like I settled on the movie “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” Should be fun. I’ll let you know if it’s any good or not.

May 7, 2005

5K Fun Run

I couldn't sleep at all last night. I think I'm still trying to adjust to Korea time after being in the US for a month. I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't go back to bed. i washed some clothes, got all of my race gear together, and watched "Miss Congeniality 2" and "Sahara." At 8:00 I changed clothes and got ready for a 5K fun run. Jung wanted to run with me, so I met himat the room and we ran 1.5 miles to the race and then ran in the race, then ran home. All together I think it was about 6.75 miles. I ran the 5K in 22:54, which is a pretty respectable time, especially since it was my first 5K run. Jung finished in 28:59.


The map of the course we ran. It was on the base in Yongsan, Korea.

Here I am stretching and warming up before the race. It was already about 65 degrees at 9 AM. Nice day for a run though.


Here's Jung and one of the other KATUSA's crossing the finish line at the end of the race.

After the run I came home and relaxed for a while, took a shower, and ate lunch. I had to get ready for work though. I had to work this Saturday at the chapel. It was fine though. i cleaned up pretty fast and was home by 7 P.M. Now I'm getting ready to change out of this uniform, eat some dinner, and watch another movie or read a book. Right now I'm reading a Michael Crichton book called "Sate of Fear." He is my favorite author. I love all of his books. I was broswing the internet a little in the wee hours of the moring today and came across a web site that was pretty interesting. It's the web site for Dean Karnazes, the Ultra Marathon Runner I've mentioned before. The guy is crazy. Click HERE to check it out. The guy ran 262 miles non-stop. He is training right now to run 300. Very interesting stories, pictures, and videos.

Better Pics

I thought I's show you all a few more pictures of Sherry's new haircut. The other ones looked pretty bad.

Here is one of her at the bowling alley.

And this one is of her at a wrestling show that she was recording for.

Recent updates

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May 3, 2005

Pictures from inside the airplane flying over Alaska nat 38,000 feet.

Well I’m somewhere over the world right now. Not quite sure where that is, but my guess is Alaska or Canada. I just looked outside and saw lots of mountains covered in snow.


Inside the airport wiating for my plane to arive to take me back to Korea.

Sherry dropped me off at the airport this morning at 7:30 to catch my flight back to Korea. It was the usual sad departure with my wife, but we both put on our happiest faces and tried not to cry too much in front of each other. It’s never easy leaving.


We exchanged the gifts that we had bought each other yesterday at the airport and I opened mine when I got on the plane. It was very funny. We had bought each other the same gift without even knowing it! I guess you start to think alike when you’ve been married a while. It was an odd little bear with his heart in his hand. Sherry and I even joked around that it would be weird if we bought the same gift for each other. That made me smile.

Well I can’t say that I’m looking forward to arriving back in Korea. There really isn’t much to look forward too anymore. Before I just kept counting down the days on my calendar each day to leaving for home. Now I don’t have anything to count down. I’m not sure when I’ll even be leaving Korea. Hopefully in 4 months if all goes well. I’ve been praying that I come home in September back to Ft. Knox to get out of the Army, but I don’t know.

I’ve been reading a book by my new-found mentor. His name is Dean Karnazes and he is an Ultra Marathoner. He runs very long distance races and insane competitions like 100 miles races through mountains in 24 hours, or a 135 mile road race in Death Valley where is was so hot that it literally melted the bottom of his shoes off. He also is the only man to have run a 26.2 mile marathon to the South Pole and has also managed to run 262 miles nonstop without sleep for 3 days. I’m going to really apply myself to running harder and training more at the gym when I get back to Korea. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to compete in a 100 miles race, but I might be able to do a 50 miler. That will be my way of killing my time in Korea for the rest my time there.
….. And my first day to start this new training regiment begins tomorrow morning.

May 2, 2005

Last Day with Sherry

Have you ever had just a great day where everything was perfect? Well, today was one of those days. Everything was absolutely perfect. It was one of the greatest days of my life (which is pretty big for 26 years worth of days)! There was nothing extravagant and there was no enormous event that occurred, but it was very fulfilling and wonderful. I had to get up around 8 in the morning to get dressed because I had made a promise to Sherry that I would go with her to the doctor. Her ankle had been hurting in her Achilles heel for a few months and we decided it was time for her to go get it looked at. Everything seemed to be fine, nothing big, just some over exertion. After the doctor appointment we got in the car and headed for the Louisville Zoo. We got to walk through the whole park and see all of the animals there.



Sherry and I sharing a moment together at the Louisville Zoo



Sherry looking cute for the camera.

After the zoo went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. The food was good. I had a BBQ chicken pizza and Sherry ate some chicken.


Sherry getting a massage in one of the massage chairs at the mall.
We had come up with a neat idea to buy each other a gift to give to each other when I leave tomorrow and open them when I got on the plane, so we drove to the St. Matthews mall and bought gifts for each other.


By the time we got out of the mall it was getting later in the afternoon and so we decided to do what we always do and go catch a movie together. “A Lot Like Love” was the name of the movie that we saw. It was a nice romantic comedy with Ashton Krutcher and Amanda Peet.


On our way to the movies we saw this odd looking van and had to take a picture of it.


When we walked out of the movie it was getting late and the sun was setting. I drove up to a little park near our home on Ft. Knox and parked the car. The sun had just set and the sky was slowly getting dark. We just stood there and held each other and watched the sky get dark and talked for a little while. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.


A picture of the sunset that day.

After we got home, Sherry helped me pack my bags for tomorrow and we just lay in bed and hugged while we fell asleep. It was a great day.

April 29, 2005

Today we went to a retirement ceremony for a friend of ours. Her name is SFC Verilyn Eubanks. Sherry and I both worked with her while we were stationed at Ft. Knox, KY. It was a good time and we had the chance to meet a lot if other friends that we hadn't seen in quite a while.


Afterwards we drove to Louisville to have dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Sherry loves wings. Well this is the restaurant.


After dinner we had to kill some time while we waited for the Comedy show to open up. Once it did we went in and watched the show. The show was great. Tim Wilson, the comedian was hilarious. He sings some funny songs that I've heard before. I really enjoyed the show.


After the show we saw Tim Wilson in the parking lot and got our picture taken with him. It was a good night, and we had a lot of fun. Well, it's cold, raining, and I'm tired so I'm off to bed. Good Night!