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Parasitology
I was the new Commanding Officer's driver between the
time we finished the inventory and opened the Hospital for business. He liked
having a college boy for a driver and wanted me to stay on with him. I considered it, but it was getting cold and
we were driving an open jeep and still in khakis. Besides, I wanted to see what parasites there
were in Korea. I made sure he understood
that I appreciated his wanting me, but told him, truthfully, I intended to
become a parasitologist after I got home and this was an opportunity to learn
more parasitology.
When we opened for business, the first professional work
we had done in almost six months, many changes had been made. I don't remember the new Laboratory Officer
(that's indicative of the level of competence of the new Medical Officers, or
at least our evaluation of it). Nick was
now the Enlisted Chief of the Laboratory and ran things. Montgomery had moved over to Pharmacy and
had five stripes as Chief of Pharmacy; Jackson and I were the senior NonComs in
the Lab., all the old timers had been rotated.
The Army soon began hiring Korean civilians as kitchen
help, eliminating KP and one of the joys of the Army of Occupation. By regulation, all food handlers were
required to take a physical examination that included a stool sample for
intestinal parasites. I was assigned the
parasitological evaluation for most if not all the units in the Seoul
area. Every potential food handler, including dish
washers and table waiters, had at least hookworm, ”Ascaris" and whipworm --it
was the other stuff that was interesting.
Surprising to me, there was not much E.histolytica
or other protozoan parasites, but they were really wormy.
I would submit my reports, listing all the intestinal parasites
each applicant had, and they would all be hired. "Hell", one Mess Sergeant explained
to me, "the Regulations required that they all had to TAK a physical
examination; they didn't say they had to PASS IT to be hired." Besides, with ALL of them loaded with
parasites, we couldn't have hired any Korean civilians and we would have
been back to the EMs doing KP, and that
would have been bad for morale.
I soon realized that the attitude towards intestinal parasites
in the civilian kitchen help was reasonable; a much bigger problem was the
prevalence of gonorrhea among the prostitutes and former Japanese Camp
Followers who immediately became available once the Japanese troops were
removed from the action. We had some
turkeys who caught the clap three or four
times from the same woman: in
for a smear, positive diagnosis, a series of massive penicillin injections
followed by negative smears; two weeks
later the stupid son-of-a-bitch would be back
in with a penis leaking like a
hose with worn out washers. "Where
did you get it this time", we were required to ask, "same place, Doc,
I just can't stay away from her".
When Officers came
in with leaky faucets, we asked
"can you give me the addresses where you have recently used strange
toilets"?
We had a serious problem with smallpox during the winter;
I believe eight patients died of it in our hospital, all of whom, of course,
had been vaccinated numerous times. It
was not a
pretty sight watching them go
from a rash to suppurating sores to a crust of scabs over their entire
bodies. Because of the virtual
eradication of smallpox in the United States, none of our
doctors had ever seen the
disease. That made diagnosis of the first
couple of cases difficult, resulting in a lot of us touching them to take blood
samples and various other hospital related chores before they were placed in
the isolation ward. When the diagnosis
of smallpox got out, there was a long line of everyone who had contacted them
for another vaccination.
We thought the Medical Officers and the Medical Administrative
Corps Officers were pretty dumb, but we loved the new nurses. The original nurses of the 31st were old
enough to
be our big sisters if not our
mothers, and were strictly off limits to enlisted men. The new ones were all younger than we "old
timers", some were pretty, and they all respected us more
than the equally green
officers. In addition to more than a few
temporary assignations, some lasting relationships evolved. Nick and a nubile young nurse, Rose Marie,
fell in love and were
eventually married. We visited them and their several children
south of New Orleans while we were living in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. Phil
Greene, who joined us as a replacement on Okinawa, was engaged to
another for several years before they apparently drifted apart.
Some of the cadre, probably remembering the second class
citizenship of the officer-enlisted man relationship in New Caledonia, elected
to seek companionship in the brothels and taxi dance halls that quickly sprang
up in Seoul. At least one dance hall was
run by the Army, by a sergeant who lived on the premises and who was almost
killed when his pregnant Korean mistress learned he was cheating on her and
slipped a slender but very sharp knife between a couple of his ribs. There were a lot of Eurasian women in Seoul,
offspring of White Russian emigrees from the Russian Revolution and Korean or
Chinese mothers. Some of them were the most beautiful
women I have ever seen.
We landed in Korea in the best of all situations, a liberating
army destroying the bonds of decades of oppression. We were cheered, flowers
were thrown on us as we drove to Seoul,
everyone wanted to give us
everything. That lasted about a week; things
the liberated populace had been thrusting on us suddenly were for sale, at
whatever the market would sustain. A
lively
and lucrative Black Market
quickly evolved and a lot of guys, who were willing to take the risks, probably
developed their "stake" to go into business when they got home. Unfortunately, or more probably fortunately,
I couldn't do it; I could sneak some penicillin to cure a friend's case of the
clap, I could divert a 55 gallon drum of 95% alcohol for personal use, but I
couldn't sell either of them on the
black market. In retrospect, I'm glad I
couldn't.
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