In celebration of ten years of blogging here at LTG, each week for the next 5251 50 49 48 47 46  45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 weeks I will delve deep into the sewer archives of past posts to bring you a tidbit of blog history.  I had originally planned to call this series “The best of LTG”, but damn, there just wasn’t much “best” to be found.  And mediocre is too hard to spell.)

Ten years ago I wrote about a special ceremony honoring an employee of mine in a post called “50 years”.  As you may have surmised the occasion marked the 50th anniversary of Mr. Kim Yong-tae’s service to the government of the United States.

During my ill-fated visit to the old office yesterday I congratulated Mr. Kim on completing SIXTY years of service.  To put that in perspective, Mr. Kim has been with USFK longer than I’ve been alive.  And I’m an old motherfucker.

Mr. Kim is a remarkable individual.  Smart, low-key, hardworking.  The kind of guy bosses dream of having in their employ.  I recall one day asking him about the war years.  He was a teenager back then and his family was forced to evacuate Seoul twice.  The first time they walked to Busan, a journey that took about three months.  It was no walk in the park though.  His mother was pregnant and gave birth about mid-way through the trip.  With appalling frequency north Korean fighter jets would strafe the procession of refugees walking down the road.  He recalled the day they passed the dead body of a mother still clutching her crying infant in her arms.  I asked him what they did and he grimaced and said “we kept on walking.  We could barely keep ourselves alive”.  Hard to imagine what that must have been like.

Well, I’m still hoping to be working with Mr. Kim again one day.

One of these guys hasn’t aged a bit in ten years. The other is me.