Buck Matthews
Dogpatch Days
Recollections of a Non-Combatant in the Combat Zone
Korea Diary
Korean Children, 1952.
“Wandering through the dusty streets of Chinhae, we paused to take snapshots of the Catholic orphanage and children playing in the yard.
Drawn by the grubby little hands, the shining eyes, and runny noses, we stepped inside the gate to answer the infant cries of ‘Okay’ and ‘Haro.’
Within the space of time it takes to tell it, every child in the orphanage had joined in one great sea of tiny tots around us, all pushing and lunging to get near enough to touch us and be noticed. It was heartbreaking to feel the intensity of their clutches. It seemed that they would wipe away their memories and loneliness by just tugging at our clothes and hearing us speak to them.
I was suddenly filled with regret that I could not bring down a miracle to give them happiness and security again, even while they thronged around me.”
“The Korean people are very crafty in the means of survival.
In the cities, where survival-of-the-fittest is the rule of life, everyone seems to have some sort of racket.
Every child old enough to walk roams the streets with shoeshine boxes, candy trays, contraband articles – anything saleable. No scruples are evident in their manner of selling; the shoe-shiner’s favorite trick is to offer a free shoeshine, then hold out for money once the wax is applied.
Everywhere you walk, your sleeves are tugged at insistently by beggars, salesmen, prostitutes, until you feel unclean and annoyed.
At first sight of these unfortunates, one can feel nothing but abject pity, but there is so much suffering and poverty, that one is inclined to grow callous toward it. In many instances, the beggars are not so bad off as they would have you believe.
When 18th Wing personnel were leaving the K-46 operations area and crossing the street to their living quarters (tents), they were greeted by numerous children--many orphaned by the war--who were there in hopes of some money, some candy, a cigarette or other item they could barter for food or necessities. “We would always have a candy bar for them, a meal (C- or K-rations), or something like that,” Lt. Budd Stapley related years later. Korean children, many of them orphans, tried to survive the war years by living together in small bands near both K-10 and K-46. At K-10, near a air gunnery range, Air Force salvagers found children living in F-51 drop tanks that had been jettisoned and were no longer air worthy. That was when 18th Wing pilots decided to take a more direct role in helping the children. A volunteer policy regarding the bar tab was instituted to ensure that at least ten percent of the money “passing through the bar” went to the local orphanage. In addition, Stapley reported, “we’d always throw our loose change in the donate jar for the orphanage and the kids.”
While sitting in the Jeep in Pusan, I felt a weak tug at my pants leg and looked down to find a tiny boy, one-legged and leaning on a crutch, hunched up from the bitter cold and with grimy hand extended, beseeching me without words to give him money. I had no Won and I could not give him GI scrip (although he could have spent it readily enough in any shop); all I had was a chocolate bar but I wasn’t about to give it to him because of a pack of dirty, hungry-looking boys behind him, who looked like they would tear him apart to get it.
There was no need to add to his misery.
I sent him away feeling as if I had cut off his leg with my own hands, but was relieved, partially, to observe his amazing transformation on being rebuffed. His head came up defiantly, he spat on the ground and cursed me in English, then bounded away with the speed of a normal child to the next vehicle, where he went back into character, head down, shivering, hand out. And he is but one of many thousands of children in that city who are living the same way.
He is the best argument for worldwide support of orphanages in Korea.”
© Copyright 2008 Buck Matthews. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes without permission in writing from the author. Used with permission by BelleAire Press as a tribute to those American servicemen and women who served during the Korean War.