Stewart Reeves submits:
When all hell broke loose in the middle of the night
Years ago now, in the capitol city of South Korea,- Soeul and the
An American Army Sergent spent the night at his girl friends
small living quarters in down town Seol.
It was an up stairs very small apartment with its sole way in, or out ,
being a single stair case that ended right at the side walk below
and across from the street nations major
For security, the city was normally under curfew 11 PM to the
morning)--and thus usually very, very quiet at night.
In the apartment as is the custom, the bed was rolled out on the floor
at night to sleep comfortably on a clean floor. ( they wisely don't wear
shoes inside their homes)
So, the Sergeant, being sound asleep, suddenly at 0300 hours in
middle of night,----was startled awake with very, very, very loud
deafening noise of a machine gun that sounded like it was right
out side their door !!!!!
A machine gun nest, had been set up just inside the building entrance ,
right at the foot of the apartment single stair case and was \ firing on
the main telephone exchange
He had no knowledge at the time ,---but learned only later, a "military
coup d' etah had just began !
Next, he and any one in the world ,would have immediately wanted to
know "what is happening, -"what am I suppose to do", followed by
"what do I do, to remain immediately safe" etc., etc.
In a 'coup d etau' , by design, the first thing to go is all normal communications
He certainly wasn't going to go down and ask whom ever was behind the machine
gun y "HEY," what are you doing, and by the way, what side am supposed
to be on ??"
He remained holed up until well past day break , and the machine gun fire had ceased
and had apparently repositioned else where .
When the immediate area around, seemed quiet again, he carefully made his way
back to our camp not far away..
There, to join us in defensive ditches positions just in case, as fire fights
some times raged beyond the defensive perimeter barbed wire ,and the smoke ,
While I was not that Sergent, ---there were lessons learned , as years later
as a Corp. VP, was caught in our down town office building during for most
of the L.A. Riots , with our well armed staff in a defensive only position "in case."
At one point, we were preparing to have to escape the immediate area with
staying off the streets, and instead crossing over high rise building roofs until
"hopefully \would be in the clear.
As it turned out, we weren't forced to.
Other office buildings close by, were not so lucky, as they were not prepared
unarmed and were over ran.
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