I couldn't remember his name. Twenty years later and it wasn't coming to me. It bugged me all day at work and on the drive home it finally came to me, Carmichael, Sergeant First Class Carmichael.
His first name is likely forever lost to me as only last names are regularly used in the Army. He was a non-commissioned officer in the mechanized infantry which might erroneously conjure up an image of a robot programmed for battle. Even so, his demeanor could resemble one at times. He was tall, gaunt, spoke little and showed little emotion. "Stoic" might be a good way to describe him. I met him in 1992 towards the end of my first tour in Korea as an infantryman. He came from the large infantry training center at Ft. Benning, Georgia where I'd finished my Basic Training the year prior to his arrival. He helped develop the training manual for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle which was a new troop transport vehicle that resembled a small boxy tank that carries soldiers into battle. Our battalion was to be the first to transition the Bradley into use in Korea.
I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I was chosen to be the gunner in his Bradley. He sat in the right half of the turret as the Bradley Commander (BC) and I sat in the left half of the turret, our shoulders practically touching. The third crew member was the driver who sat in his own separate compartment, the three of us communicating through helmeted headsets. The other infantrymen sat in a large compartment in the back separated from the turret by a curved sliding door. When the time would come to dismount, the back of the Bradley would drop to the ground forming a large ramp. My job was to stay in the turret and operate the weapons system which included a 40mm main gun resembling a miniature tank barrel, a coaxial machine gun, and two TOW (Tube launched-Optically tracked-Wire guided) missiles. The gunner and Bradley Commander work closely together to orchestrate all of these complex interactions and they spend a lot of time together, especially in the field training exercises that can last weeks at a time in austere conditions.
***
During the first of my two years in Korea, prior to the arrival of Sergeant Carmichael, my unit functioned for all intents and purposes as a light infantry unit, sans armored vehicles. When I arrived fresh from Basic Training, Delta Company was doing its three month rotation on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a kind of no-man's-land separating North and South Korea. We lived in tents at a place called Warrior Base and participated in night patrols within the DMZ as well as a lot of live fire exercises, guard tower duty, and something called QRF or Quick Reaction Force.
One of many surreal experiences included being on a guard tower in the middle of nowhere and hearing music playing throughout the night. The South side blasted mostly American
pop music from huge speakers directed at the North. While on patrols in the DMZ proper you could sometimes hear the speakers from the North blasting their own kind of music and propaganda. One memorable night we were patrolling in our single file line somewhere along a shallow ravine and I heard the music coming from the North side for the first time. The song featured a female soprano and tuba with absolutely no other accompaniment. I felt like I was in a Stanley Kubrick film.
In the months leading up to the Bradleys arriving there was a lot of training that involved practicing fire commands, learning about vehicle maintenance, and studying its specs to include things like what kind of engine it had, what kind of fuels it could run on, the range of the various weapon systems, etc. For a few months, the gunners and BC's in our unit followed a 3rd shift schedule in order to get time on the Bradley simulator which resembled a small white trailer with no windows. Inside was a compartment which mimicked the turret of a Bradley and could take the gunner and Bradley Commander through a number of video game type scenarios in order to practice using the controls to engage enemy targets. All of the scenarios had to be successfully navigated as a team in order to move on to the next step of qualifying as a Bradley crew. It was a lonely routine, getting up in the wee hours of the morning to walk a quarter of a mile in the cold and dark to the simulator, half asleep and stumbling along dirt trails. During the morning we slept while the rest of Delta Company followed the regular training schedule.
When the Bradleys actually arrived, we continued this qualifying process of gunner-BC pairs. Sergeant Carmichael had already been through the simulation process at Ft. Benning and so we were paired to continue the qualifying process. All of our time training together culminated in a live fire exercise at a massive firing range near the Northern border of South Korea which was built at the base of a mountain. The qualifying runs occurred at night. The targets were large wooden cutout figures shaped like vehicles and set on tracks between us and the mountain. They were heated so that they would show up on our thermal scopes in the turret. Off in the distance they would pop up and move along tracks at which time the BC would identify them, ask for confirmation from the gunner, and then give the command to fire. I would open up on whichever weapon system was appropriate for that particular target at that particular distance. Some of them were a kilometer or two away. At the end of our two weeks we were a fully qualified Bradley crew.
There have been at least two memories from that two week stint at the firing range that have stuck with me most clearly over the years. The first one involved an unexpected interaction with the Korean guard sitting at the front gate. I was on my way to visit a makeshift tent set up outside the gates where you could trade an MRE (food sealed in plastic that you were issued each morning) for a hot bowl of noodles and a drink from an elderly Korean woman or "Aju-ma". As I passed the guard house the guard waved me over with a concerned look on his face and gestured at his small television set. On the screen was a helicopter's view of several city blocks burning in the night. He said something in his thickly accented English that I could not understand. After a few more attempts I figured out he was saying something about Los Angeles being on fire. I watched in horror and fascination having no idea what was happening. It wasn't until returning to our base a week or so later that I learned there had been rioting and fire setting in the wake of the Rodney King trial.
The second memory involved a Korean snack bar in a cinder block building located inside the firing range compound. Due to the nature of it being a live fire range, any time you left your tent you had to be in full gear, ie, kevlar helmet, flack jacket, web gear with full canteens, and your M16 rifle. Lumbering into the snack bar was made easier by bidirectional doors that swung inward and outward with just a push. The booths were made out of unfinished wood. You could buy hot noodle or rice dishes as well as some knockoff sodas, cash only. In the corner of the room was a large TV with a VCR and a few hundred bootlegged VHF movies stacked all around it. Whoever wanted to could choose a movie and pop it in. If you were there when a movie was ending a soldier or two would shamble forth and dig through the piles calling out movie titles to reach a consensus for the next movie to be seen. People would yell out things like, "Nah, we saw that one yesterday" or "That one sucks!" The day I visited the snack bar, the movie playing was "When Harry Met Sally." I watched Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan interact in a very un-Korean like manner while mortar rounds impacted on the nearby range every few minutes. Each time one exploded the doors would fly inward from the pressure and the glass in the window panes would rattle loudly. Encased and encumbered by my heavy gear, an orange soda in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other, I wondered how on earth I'd ever come to be in such a situation.
***
After qualification the winter came and the time for field training exercises arrived. In Korea, due to the large number of rice paddies, almost all field training occurs in the winter when there is less chance of vehicles getting bogged down and stuck in the mud. It was the received wisdom that any major conflict on the Korean Peninsula would occur in the winter months and many of the most famous battles in the Korean War were remembered as being fought in freezing temperatures. The Army motto in this regard is "we train as we fight" which, to my dismay, meant living out in the field for long periods of time cold, hungry, dirty, and stressed out.
Probably one of the most miserable nights of my life occurred during one of these field training exercises. We were all bedded down for the night in sleeping bags on frozen mud in the middle of some farmer's field with the wind howling and the temperatures well below freezing. We had to sleep with our clothes on and have our boots somewhere in the sleeping bag with us otherwise they would freeze. To make matters worse, we had our cold metal rifles between our legs which was exceedingly uncomfortable.
Sleep was almost impossible, but when it did finally come I was soon awakened for my turn at guard duty around 2am. My survival instincts kicked in and refused to let me out of that bag! After a few more jabs from the guard's rifle and some foul-mouthed threats I began to rub all my limbs vigorously to get them warmed up and prepared for opening the zipper of my sleeping bag. When I could stall no longer, I zipped it down to my waist, sat up, and quickly put on my coat. The boots came next and then the gloves. The time from unzipping to being fully clothed was only a minute or two but seemed like an eternity. The next hour was pure misery as I stumbled around in the dark stamping my feet and rubbing my gloved hands together to try and keep them warm while keeping an eye out for a nonexistent enemy.
***
After field training exercises we looked forward to getting hot showers, warm food, and sleeping in an actual bed. It was comical to ground your gear, peel your clothes off, and then look in the mirror before stepping into the shower. My head and neck would be dark brown from all of the accumulated grit and sun exposure while my torso would be bone white. The time not spent in the field was referred to as being "in garrison." It was not as exciting as living in the field, but a heck of a lot less stressful.
Many weekends were free to do with what you pleased which was not something you took for granted in Korea. I mostly spent them traveling to Seoul in violation of the Two Kilometer Rule which stated a soldier could not leave a two kilometer radius of the base without a special pass. This was easily circumvented by learning some Korean and familiarizing myself with the public transportation system to include the passenger train which connected to the northern most extension of the Seoul subway system one town south of ours.
One of these Saturdays I was hanging out in the small town outside of our base instead of traveling to Seoul. I returned to our barracks sometime around noon and there were people that I did not recognize standing around the front entrance to our barracks. They wore black clothes and had on sunglasses instead of the ubiquitous Army camouflage. A Sergeant I knew well saw me standing on the road unsure of what to do and came down to greet me.
"Hey Haney, are you OK?"
"Yeah, I guess so. What's going on Sergeant?"
He looked at me as if he didn't exactly know how to proceed.
"No one's told you what happened?"
I told him I'd been out all morning and had just returned.
As it turned out, after I'd left that morning Sergeant Carmichael's Korean wife had come to his room on the bottom floor of our barracks and knocked for awhile without an answer. When the CQ got the keys and opened his door they found him in his closet hanging by a cord. My roommate later told me she was crying and screaming, refusing to be consoled. I can only imagine what it must have been like for the majority of the soldiers in my unit who were sleeping off hangovers.
Things were eerily quiet as I stood there with the sun beating down on my back, unsure of what to do. I wandered back down to the front gate in a kind of daze. I left the base and I remember making my way to a small bridge on the other side of town. I don't know why I chose that particular spot but I hung out there for awhile just feeling the breeze blow down the river and trying to sort things out. Closer to evening I made my way to Shalom House. It was there that I sometimes attended Saturday night meetings of "The Fishermen", was a volunteer English teacher during the week, and hung out with my Korean friends playing ping pong and shooting pool.
After that I likely went out to a local coffee shop that my Korean friends and I had adopted as our after-hours spot. It was called "Gurim Madang" and the owner was the sister of one of my English language students. I must have been their token foreigner because I don't recall seeing anyone there other than Koreans in the nearly two years I frequented the place. It wasn't unusual for us to stay there until after midnight and then for me to make the long lonely trek back to my base and barracks in the wee hours on foot. This particular night I stayed out even later than usual.
When I eventually arrived at the three-storied barracks housing Delta Company there were no room lights on. It was probably two or three in the morning. I walked around back to the entrance that was nearest my room. When I came around the corner I saw some light spilling out into the darkness coming from a room on the bottom floor at the far end of the building, Sergeant Carmichael's room. I stood there for a moment and let the strangeness of the situation soak in before deciding to walk down the sidewalk and see what there was to see. I half expected to see him sitting on his bed spit shining his boots. Instead, the room was devoid of activity or occupation. A box of cornflakes sat on the bedside table beside a bowl. The door to his locker where he'd hung himself was open and revealed an empty interior. Someone had not thought to turn the light off after his body had been removed earlier in the day, and so I stood there in the grass awash in the room's shared light surrounded by darkness.
***
The next few days were spent in preparing for the funeral. A handful of soldiers from our platoon were chosen for the gun salute and rehearsed to a reasonable uniformity. Because of my sidekick status of being his gunner, I was chosen to be one of the people sitting on the platform in the front of the chapel along with the Commander and First Sergeant. I do not remember clearly what my role was for the service, but I seem to recollect reading the 23rd Psalm.
The Chaplain's message was exceptional. I thought to myself as he approached the podium, "How in the world does one give a Christian message for someone who has committed suicide?" I do not remember his sermon, only the impression that his words left, words that were gracious, humble, comforting, full of sadness as well as love. While he spoke, you could hear Sergeant Carmichael's wife sobbing and saying words to herself that were indecipherable, probably in Korean. When the Chaplain said "He was a good man..." she wailed, "MY man!"
In the week after the funeral I was required to go and speak with an Army psychiatrist at the base hospital to see how I was handling the situation . We chatted for awhile and I told him about how much I'd enjoyed my time in Korea. I talked about teaching English, my Korean friends, and some of my adventures, but nothing about my clandestine travels to Seoul and elsewhere. I was at the beginning of my second year tour in Korea, an extension that I'd requested, and they were offering to let me out of it and return to the States. I had no inclination to serve in the Army stateside and asked to remain in Korea to the end of my commitment. I must have checked out OK because they allowed me to stay in Korea and fifteen years later I became an Army psychiatrist myself.
The Bradley Fighting Vehicle
back ramp down revealing troop compartment
Sergeant Carmichael after our Bradley broke through
the ice and got stuck during a field training exercise
PFC Long, our Bradley driver, at Aju-ma's tent
my home during field training exercises
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