On May 12, 2003, I sat down at my dining room table and my grandfather sat across from me. The weather was dreary and gloomy and it looked as if it was about to rain. I was shaking I was so nervous, hoping that I wouldn’t say anything stupid. My grandfather’s name is Guy L. Mori, and he had been sent to South Korea as an Army Services Specialist and was in the Morse Code Department. Guy Mori is now a retired fireman living in the quiet suburban town, of Framingham, Massachusetts.

Laundry Men

The smell that reached Guy Mori's nose was horrible. Of the dead, of the decaying, of bathrooms that had never been cleaned. Ever! It made the men absolutely nauseated. The nasty scent made each of the Army Specialists dizzy and gave the men an everlasting headache. Meanwhile, dark clouds loomed over the vast Korean dry land, waiting for the perfect moment to open with a torrential downpour. The men were walking back from the communication-intercepting towers to their barracks for some food to eat and some rest. The atmosphere was hot and humid, making the men even sicker with the heat and heaviness of the air mixing with the ghastly fumes. Each man had with him his clothes and a backpack that weighed a ton and just got heavier as the day progressed. Guy Mori looked around as the gang of men paraded down the street towards their barracks in southern Korea. He saw that what used to be a beautiful environment was now a wasteland, with not one tree in sight. This was South Korea in 1958.

Beads of sweat began to dribble down Guy’s face as he walked with his other comrades down the double-fenced street, looking at the shacks of the poor Koreans on the other side. The shacks were raised above the ground; in winter, hot coals were placed beneath the floor boards to warm the house, and the smaller children slept on the floor in hopes of getting warm. But today, it was a blistering hot day and the children had no need to sleep on the coal-warmed floors.

Some time later, the men saw children, boys and girls, walking down to a school that was not to far from the Americans’ barracks. They all wore the same type of clothing in the same colors. The girls wore plaid skirts with white blouses, and the boys wore long black pants with a white shirt. The Americans watched the children say goodbye to their mothers; and seeing these children leave to go to school, reminded them of the homes and families that were waiting for them when they returned.

Arriving at camp, and finally being able to sit down, was a dream. Plus, they were looking forward to eating. Guy always wanted the broken fried eggs that nobody else wanted. The men were hungry; and though it was very early in the morning, those cracked fried eggs were welcome anytime. Soon the food was devoured and the conversations began. Guy mostly heard about what the other men missed most. Some went into great detail about what they would be doing right now if they weren’t in Korea. Some men debated who would be the first to return home.

“I’ll give it a month before I’ll go back home,” one man said.

“I’m not sure when I’ll be goin’ home. I’ve only been here a couple of months,” another would say.

“I know I’ll be going home in a couple of weeks on furlough,” a third man would brag to the others. The other men would give him dirty looks behind his back, for going home, and because they hated him anyway.

Hearing a scratching near the fence, the men suddenly looked up. They saw an older Korean man coming towards their barracks with an overly-large woven basket in his arms. His face was covered with wrinkles. His facial hair was grey, and he hadn’t shaved in some time. His slate grey eyes locked with the army men’s eyes, and then he smiled a toothless smile. He was the laundry man coming to pick up the weekly laundry. He came to the barracks once a week and took Guy’s and the other soldiers clothes to be washed and starched. He also put the name of each man, in Korean, on the pieces of clothing, so they knew whose was whose. Every month the troops paid “the Laundry Man,” and some of the others who came with him, with their American Vice Roy cigarettes, a product of the United States of America. It was all the laundry men wanted, because American cigarettes would be worth a lot of money on the Korean “Black Market”.

One man shouted, “Get out your Vice Roys boys. It’s pay day!”

Guy looked through his bag for a carton of Vice Roy cigarettes, and threw it into the old man’s woven basket along with his clothes that had his name printed on them in Korean characters down the inside back of his shirts. The old man’s eyes twinkled, which meant thank you, then he was off to the next set of bunks. It would only be a few hours before Guy would receive back clean, folded clothing, so starched they could stand by themselves.