In Korea Now

Korea vs Iran

2009-06-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend the Korea vs Iran WorldCup Soccer Game here in Seoul. I've never been to an international sporting event and enjoyed it very much.

The game ended in a 1-1 tie. I didn't know that you could end a game as a tie. Each half was only 45 minutes long. Each team only had a couple substitutes, unlike American football where each team has 50 some people on the sidelines waiting to play.

Some of the guys from where I work decided to motivate the crowd. The one in back made a hat to look like a soccer ball and painted his face to match. He was the ONLY one that I saw who had face paint on. It must be an American thing to do at sporting events!

Some of the people I sat with at the game. The guy in front is a West Point cadet who is only here for 4 weeks.

2009-05-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything. I've been busy with work and really don't have much to show for that time. I will be coming home in early August for about a month and then be stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. I will be about 6 hours from home, so I can come home every month, I hope!

I've picked up a couple more coins and awards. I don't have my Sargeant rank yet, but hopefully I'll get it in Missouri. I am promotable, just need to improve my weapons score (need to shoot Expert), ace my PT test and get a couple awards.

Sheena is spending most of May here with me. She's been sick the first 2 weeks of her visit but still able to see parts of Seoul.

WLC

2009-05-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

WLC was fun and challenging. It was similar to Basic Training, but most of the cadre gave you MUCH more respect and treated us like sargeants! Here are some of the pictures. . .

This is the entire class (about 140 soldiers).

My squad started with 14 soldiers and we had one drop out. Everyone had a chance to be a squad leader and a team leader. We were evaluated in a variety of areas including ability to lead in a garrison and tactical environment, conducting physical training, verbal communication, land navigation and a bunch of other areas that I don't remember (sorry it's been a couple of months). I was the only person in my squad to receive "superior" ratings in both tactical AND garrison leadership!

On the second day, we took a PT test. I'm good at the running, but the pushups and situps is hard.

Classroom training. Nothing too exciting.

We are evacuating a casualty during a training excercise. We thought that we were doing land navigation training until the cadre launched mortars at us. Kept us on our toes.

The louder we yelled, the more we motivated the cadre and the more they left us alone. I lost my voice by the 3rd day and had to yell less to pace myself. It was hard to find that ballance!

Warrior Leader Course

2009-02-08T04:20:00.000-08:00

Effective almost immediately, I will be in training at the Warrior Leadership Course (WLC) Camp Jackson (near Uijongbu). I will be back in mid to late March. The pictures that I've seen online are awesome and the training, I've heard, is rough.

Pranks

2009-01-22T05:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I was on ACQ duty which means that I guard a barracks building for 24 hours and try to stay awake. Well, we got bored and decided to put an "Out of Order" sign on the 2 elevators!

Out of about 50 people, only 3 questioned it and we told them about the prank. EVERYONE ELSE USED THE ELEVATOR ANYWAY!!! I'll try to upload some videos for you to watch. It's amazing how many people paid no attention to the sign! And in case you were wondering, YES, we do this kind of thing often for fun!

2008-12-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

The day after the Secretary of the Army toured our ward, the Sergeant Major of the Army (SMA Preston, Kenneth O.) did the same! Picture of the coin will be coming soon, It looks cool! Check back in a few days!

Secretary of the Army - Honorable Pete Geren

2008-11-23T03:23:00.000-08:00

Not only did I get to meet and talk with the Secretary of the Army (Honorable Pete Geren) today, but I got his coin!!

If you don't know who he is, or what he does, just know this. . . He's got enough power over me that he has his own flag!!

Unfortunately, I didn't know that he was going to give me his coin, so when he shook my hand, I dropped his coin on the floor and it slid under the Nurses' Desk! Oops! I got in a bit of trouble after he left!

2008-11-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

The above pic is a view of the path I walk on the way to work from the barracks.

The tower on the right is Seoul Tower. It's similar to the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio. It's just a tourist spot with a place to eat for 100,000won (just under $100)

Huge leaves!! When I put my arm horizontal against this leaf, it stretched from the tip of my middle finger to my elbow! There are a lot of trees here with the same kind of leaf. Makes raking the lawn easier!!

Things are still going well here. I'm awaiting approval for Sheena to come here and still hoping that it'll happen by Christmas.
I'm currently renewing my EMT-B certification. That means that I go to the refresher course this week and I don't have to work AT ALL!
In the hospital, I am in charge of our Point of Care Testing (POCT). It sounds high-speed, but it means that I'm incharge of keeping our glucometer running. It's an easy task that is made complicated by the Army. I'm also in charge of putting our staffing schedule into the government computer with an MS-DOS program! I didn't think anyone used that anymore! I'm ordering supplies for our ward while SPC Mann is on leave. I'm also our ward's Customer Service Rep. which includes reporting complaints from patients and families.

I also decorate a bulletin board which has enough rules and restrictions to fill a book! This bulletin board has to can only have up to 10% paper on it, nothing can stick out from it, to include pushpins. Furthermore, I have COL Fox, the Department of Nursing supervisor watching it because she likes it so much. I impressed her with the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations and now have to maintain that high standard for her. She brings VIP's to our ward just to show off my artwork.

Networking

2008-09-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Lets see how this networking goes.

I am looking for someone who is a pilot for the armed forces, preferably the Army. I have questions about WOC and taking the AFAST. If anyone knows anyone who knows anyone who might be able to help me, please let me know! Thanks!!

DMZ

2008-09-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I went to the DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone). This is the middle ground where the cease fire was reached. Supposedly it runs along the 38th parallel, but the map says otherwise. The DMZ is an area approximately 1/2 mile to 1 mile wide running East to West across Korea, separating it into North and South halves. When the agreement was reached, both sides had to withdrawl their troops back from the last point of contact. This created a neutral zone in which was neither North Korea or South Korea. Supposedly, no military is allowed in this area, but on my tour they brought us to an area in which the 2 sides are separated by a 6 inch sidewalk curb and the building where the agreement was signed. Both sides give tour thru this building. No other tours could come this far, only USO tours. We had to go thru briefings with the US Army and the United Nations. Since the cease fire, 60 people have died here in confrontations. This are that I went to was neutral ground where BOTH armies occupied and had guard shacks. The US Army cut down a tree in this area that was obstructing the view between 2 of our own guardshacks, when a squad of North Koreans came over and brutally axe murdered the 3 soldiers (see picture below) This doesn't get any cooler than this!!

Also on this tour, we were taken into one of four tunnels that the North Koreans dug underground to attempt to re-attack. These tunnels were found after the cease fire. The most recent was found in the 1990's! These tunnels are only about 5 1/2 to 6 feet tall, but can hold tens of thousands of troops. One comes darn close to Seoul. The Army admits that if these hadn't been found, the North could have and would have been able to destroy the south. It wasn't that great of a tour but it was awesome to be UNDER the DMZ!!

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to snap a pic of the most dangerous golf course in the world. At the DMZ they have a golf course that is full of land mines and is widely know as the most dangerous golf course in the world!

This is the building that was built to reunite familes that were separated during the war and cease fire.

The blue building that everyone is going into is where the cease fire was signed. The large building in the background is in North Korea. We were under strict orders to not stop on the road between where I took this picture and inside the blue building. We also could not point, gesture or attempt any communication between us and the north.

This is how they stand to guard the building while we are in there. The North Koreans give tours thru the same blue building. No communication is done to coordinate the tours; first come, first served. When we are done, our guards retreat and the north sends in their guards for their tour.

This is the guy from Australia that I ate lunch with. He's pretty cool!

This is a North Korean. He was the only one that was outside but you could see others that would peek out of the windows.

This is the cement divider between the blue buildings. When outside, no one is allowed to cross that line! Inside, however, I did!

This is the table where the cease fire was signed. The guard in the background is making sure that no one crosses into North Korea as they will be shot instantly by the north. We are not allowed to stand next to him or behind him as he has to be alert incase the door opens behind him!!

This is the table where the cease fire was signed. That's right, I'm right on the line!

This is the marker where the tree stood and where the US Soldiers were axe murdered while trying to cut down the tree. 60 people have died (a couple at a time) in this general area since the cease fire. This is as real as it gets! We got to look our enemies in the eye!

This one's for Mom and Sheena!

2008-09-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have to put this short post in here for Mom and Sheena.

I want to assure you that I'm eating well and I HAVE PROOF!!

Actually, I'm still addicted to Mountain Dew and have enough empty cans to make a Christmas Tree in December. BUT I ate healthy this one time and had to share it!! I'm proud of myself!

Too Friendly

2008-09-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

So far, everywhere I go (off post), I bring a KATUSA to help guide me, translate if needed and just make me feel at ease. With Sheena coming here before long, I want to make sure that I can navigate and communicate on my own. So last Saturday (the 20th) I let a KATUSA know where I was going in case I needed him to come help me and I headed across town to the COEX mall. According to a huge, wall-mounted map of Seoul, I was going about an inch from where I was, but this is the equivilent of going from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City. I made it there alright and bought a few gifts for my siblings. I left the mall to come back and was confronted in the subway by a nice old man who asked me where I was going. I said Itaewon because I couldn't pronounce the name of the subway stop. He demanded that I follow him and he'll help me out. I was mad because the entire purpose of me going out that day was to establish my own independence. However, in Korea, they're society is based on respect of elders and for me to say "No" could easily be taken wrong, especially because he didn't speak the best English. So I let him lead me to where I needed to go.
I've been told that this country has people who don't like the USA and we have to be careful, but I haven't seen anything but nice, helpful people. Complete strangers in the USA are usually not as friendly.

Videos from FTX

2008-09-13T23:52:00.001-07:00

This is a CH-47 (Chinook) hovering at the airport across the street! I was distracted all week by all the helicopters!

This is a video of Pre-Op and OR. CPL Song is a KATUSA.

This is just a quick tour of the hospital. Unfortunately, I didn't get a video of the sleeping quarters, DFAC, chapel or other areas. But this gives you a general idea. The big long corridor would be filled with stretchers in a real MASCAL. It looks big now, but when you get a large number of wounded all at once, it could become too small real fast!

Contact Info

2008-09-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

Here's how to get a hold of me. . .

email: bdl1981@yahoo.com
benjamin.d.lammers@us.army.mil

Phone: 011-82-10-2258-7382

Snail Mail: PFC Lammers, Benjamin
B Co 121st CSH
Unit 15244 Box 416
APO, AP 96205-5244 (The postage should be at a rate similar to sending something within the CONUS (CONtinental US) You shouldn't have to pay overseas postage!

Skype Calling: http://www.skype.com/ and search for my with bdl1981@yahoo.com
With a Skype account, you can call eachother for free thru your computer.

Telephone: 011-82-10-2258-7382 This is an international call! It will cost more than any other call you've ever placed! Be careful and make sure that you really want to talk to me that bad! It's free for me to receive a call from you so I really don't mind!!!

Yahoo! IM Screen Name: bdl1981

MSN IM: bdl1981@live.com (I only use this for WebCam, but I'm not usually on this one)

Sheena's Cell Phone: (319)389-9025 She can help relay messages too!

American Red Cross: I have reasons to not support them, but if bad things happen at home, people are dying, severely injured, or other catastrophies occur, contact the American Red Cross (any location should be able to help) Give them my Unit: B CO 121 CSH in Yongsan, Korea
Once they verify that the emergency is infact real, then I will be notified.

FTX

2008-09-12T05:04:00.000-07:00

This blog will have more pictures as I aquire them!

Just 3 days after I got to my unit (after in-processing), I went to the field for training. We set up a hospital in tents and used it! We had a kitchen, dining tent, ER, OR, ICU and ICW (where I was working), Lab, Radiology, PAD, Chapel, etc! We had done this in training, but we were actually doing surgeries in the OR and then they would come to me in the ICU for recovery. Across the street is a military airport. As patients were coming out of sedation, they would see the tent shake as a Chinook or blackhawk flew overhead!

We aparently do this twice a year to stay up on our skills, inventory all of our supplies (the same ones that we would deploy with) and to just have fun. I'm in the medical field (not infantry) so we had airconditioned tents! The airconditioning actually works better than in the barracks!

During our daily tasks and patient care in the field, you have to stay prepared for an attack. They set up mock attacks frequently. They are fun to respond to because they try to make them real! We had a casualty or 2 that got their face smashed or stepped on during the struggle! We have to stay prepared, so we were doing our nursing tasks with M-16 rifles on our back! This was an awesome hospital!!

For 2 days, I got to pretend to be a North Korean enemy. I would hide in the bushes, and as the patrols would walk by, I would jump out at them and wrestle them into the forest! This was an eye-opener for some of the soldiers. Several of them didn't put up a struggle at all. Most of them didn't do nearly enough to resist. The last soldier that I jumped out at, however, was ready to roll. We wrestled for a good 2 minutes, took it to the ground and rolled around on the gravel and eventually I tapped out when he started eye-gouging me! I came out a little bloody from that one, but had the most fun of them all!!!

This is a view out the back of the truck that drove us to FTX. You can see Seoul in the background. The blue truck behind us has all of our explosives!

The guy beside me is my current roommate. We've been in the same company since basic training. A 2-47 at Ft Benning, GA, E 232nd at Fort Sam Houston, TX, C 264th also at Fort Sam Houston, C 247 Stu Det and Fort Bliss, Texas and B 121st CSH in Yongsan, Korea.

This is from inside the ICU. SGT Gilcrest was one of the NCOIC's. PFC Hauffe (behind me) was with me in every company except basic training (but he was at Fort Benning in another company while I was there)

This is another view of the ICU. The big tube running down the center of the tent is the A/C or heater. In the back, you'll see a blue sheet hanging on the left. That is our bathroom for the ward. In Iraq, before they had stationary hospitals inside buildings, they had to use this and sinks that were pump powered by foot. Privacy is still provided as much as possible, but is extremely limited.

This is PFC Hauffe and SGT Tobin pulling guard duty. About an hour later, just after dark, we had a half dozen people attempt to break thru that fence. I wasn't in my gear, but I helped as much as I could. I'm glad my camera didn't get broken!!

This is the kitchen. I really liked the gravel floor!!

This is the tent I slept in. It is NOT normally this nice looking! One of the things we do for family members, is on the last day, we let them come out and tour the hospital. This helps the families be a little more comfortable with what we do. When we deploy, they have fewer questions/concerns and are a LITTLE less worried. We were a little crazy about our cleaning for this event. We made everything look nice and clean, then we trashed it!!

After FTX, we pack everything back into shipping crates. If or when we deploy, these crates are already packed and inventoried. This will be the same tent that I'll sleep in, the same equipment that we'll treat our patients with. If North Korea invades again, all we have to grab is our body armor, weapon and a couple pairs of clothes.

In-Processing

2008-09-12T04:55:00.000-07:00

I was here for a week, in-processing. This is when you get all your paperwork squared away. You go to finance, housing, immunizations, your company, records, dental, hearing, ID cards, and a bunch more. When you go overseas, you have more to do. We had a couple days of briefings regarding Korean customs and courtesies. We learned a couple necessary words in Korean (Hello, Thankyou, Please take me to the _______, etc) We learned the basic exchange rate from US Dollars to Korean Won. Then we went off post to the Korean War Museum. I saw a lot of the buses had bars on their windows because riots are common here! At the muesum, we found that Korea has been attacked over 900 times! Makes you glad that America fights the majority of their wars overseas!!!

The trip here.

2008-09-12T04:19:00.001-07:00

This blog is a little long. Sorry.

I was told that most people fly out of Seattle, WA to fly to Korea. You might assume, like I did, that the flight would be West by Northwest. However, when I got my flight itinerary, it told me that I would fly from Des Moines to Atlanta and non-stop to Incheon, Korea. That adds a couple hours onto the flight! We'd probably be flying directly over Seattle! Why couldn't we just stop for an hour stretch before continuing the 15 hour flight?!?!?!
Anyway, we spent the night at a hotel in Downtown Des Moines, got up real early and went to the airport. I don't remember what time we were there but it was sometime around 5 am. Too early for me! We found our gate and I really couldn't tell you much about what went on. It was the shortest wait that I've ever endured. I held back tears for about an hour, trying to be strong for Sheena. When the time came to board, I gave some hugs that were all too quick and walked away. I peeked back for just a quick second, which I shouldn't have done, because that's when I really lost it!
I got on the plane and sat by a really nice lady. I can't remember who she was or what she said because I was lost in my own thoughts and misery but I remember that she was really nice.
We landed in Atlanta, I found my next gate and I bought a headset to talk to Sheena thru the computer. I spent so much time finding the right equipment and figuring out how to use the laptop as a cellphone, that I didn't have time to eat before the flight. I got on the plane and found out that 2 meals would be served and unlimited snacks. I have to give a million thanks to Dad, who went online and got me a seat near the skydiving door, so that I had 10 feet of leg room. I wouldn't have made it otherwise!
This plane was really cool! It was the biggest one at the airport and was comparable in size to Air Force One! Every seat had a mini tv with movies, music and a few other options. A few hours into the flight, I found out that they also had a GPS system!!! When I activated it, we were flying over Quebec, Canada! We were heading North!!! We flew north until we hit the North Pole and arced down thru Russia, China and took a detour to avoid North Korea! I don't know if we really arced, because the plane never felt like it turned, it may just be the GPS. Eitherway, we flew over the North Pole, Russia and China and I think that was cool!!!
We got off the plane and went thru customs and immigration. I was really scared, especially when the guy that was questioning me didn't speak any English. He had a guy next to him that could speak a little buy not much! I somehow got thru that and picked up my bags. Then I went on to get them searched and had to unpack them. Dad knows how hard it was to pack them. The 2 of us were sitting on them for about 5 minutes to get it closed. I had to show them both of my knives, which were inside, and then reclose my bags by myself. About an hour later I was ready to go! I got a briefing from the airport that I need to stick together with the other military guys when I'm out and about for my own safety and that I should NOT take a taxi! I don't know why this is, but they emphasized that a LOT!!
At this point, I hadn't had a Mountain Dew for about 18 hours and was very nauseous, had a headache and was dizzy. I found my bus and rode to base. I never saw any business on the way but I saw over a hundred skyscraper apartments! They were all labeled with numbers (I saw up to 682!) The bus driver must've been a former NYC Taxi Driver. He was crazy! We took corners at high speeds, cut people off, and changed 4 lanes at a time!! I almost fell out of my seat too!
We got onto post and I found a vending machine and my room after a few briefings.

Testing

2008-09-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is Benjamin's Blog Spot. I'll be sharing my adventures in Korea on this website. This way, I can tell the whole story as opposed to writing a bunch of emails with a short version of it. A blog may sound like a diary, BUT IT"S NOT! Diaries are for girls, this is a blog! I'll have a bunch of stories to write on here, so check back every week or so. Thanks, I miss you all!