Comments Posted By Jim Caruso

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Emptying the camera

I forgot to thank you. Nice pictures.

» Posted By Jim Caruso On 25/September/2006 @ 1:49 pm

I’ve been waiting for those. You didn’t happen to stop at Camp Casey, did you? I would like to see what it looks like today (before it’s handed over). My 12 month visit was about 42 years ago. Good times, GREAT friends, fond memories.

» Posted By Jim Caruso On 25/September/2006 @ 1:36 pm

Stupid is as stupid does

I will be the first to suggest you get a thorough check up by American docs. That “seizure” remark did not sound very good. Duke said you appeared to trip over your own feet…that could have been a seizure as well. Two blackouts within a short period of time must be investigated. You can’t rely on the results of an examination given in a combination operating room / lunch room. And they gave you an X-ray? That’s pretty basic first aid station stuff…I think the American docs might step it up to an MRI or something like that. You know how drunk you were (or were not). If you were not REALLY drunk, don’t blame the booze. It is as simple as that.

» Posted By Jim Caruso On 03/February/2006 @ 2:51 pm

I just dropped in…

Your feeling of “impending doom” is probably just part of a midlife…well, not a crisis exactly, more a transition. Yes, it will pass.

“What I need to do is get out of the city and have some adventure. Soon perhaps. Soon.” YES! Go north young man, and take your camera with extra memory cards, please. How about some shots in Dongducheon and Camp Casey for us old timers? I’ve read your entire blog, but I can’t remember if you’ve been to the DMZ. They have tours to Panmunjeom (sp?), don’t they?

» Posted By Jim Caruso On 07/January/2006 @ 3:01 pm

Christmas in Korea

You reminded me of my first Christmas away from home waaaay back in 1963. I was a teenaged soldier stationed in a place north of you called Camp Casey. I arrived a week or two before Christmas and that made me one of the FNGs (new guys). New guys, of course, were more than likely to get stuck with any details on Christmas Eve, one of them being guard duty. So there I was, on Christmas Eve, in a guard tower, an M14 cradled in my arms, it was very cold and awfully dark. Raymond Burr had come over and was chatting with the troops at one of the Service Clubs on post. Perry Mason! I do not know if he got publicity for that. Bob Hope usually got all the publicity for his Christmas tours. I did not get to meet Burr that night, and he is gone now, but he still has a place in my heart for doing that. Anyway, there I was shivering (from the cold) and thinking, if the bad guys made a move across the DMZ that night, stealthy bastards that they were, at any given time I could receive a sniper’s bullet through the chest. (No Kevlar vests with plates in those days.) I do not remember feeling particularly frightened, sad, or homesick, but I seem to have erased a lot of my negative recollections of that year. Toward the end of my tour I counted down the days as was the custom. However, I am an “older” man now, and when I look back, it seems like one of the best years of my life. Tonight, Christmas Eve 2005, I am in a warm home in California editing pictures of my grandchildren. I am thinking of other teenagers tonight, in fact, all the American forces in Iraq (Afghanistan too), some away from home for the first time. I only hope that each and every one of them can wind up forty something years from now, mentally and physically intact, at home with their families, surfing the galaxy wide web…or whatever it will be called by then. Merry Christmas to all!

» Posted By Jim Caruso On 25/December/2005 @ 4:48 pm