It wasn’t a pretty picture but not unheard of in the U.S. Army. Some lower-level officer or NCO-in this case probably Warrant Officer Fred Bufford-is given the responsibility of setting up the meeting. The honcho-probably Colonel Alcott-says something like, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” Bufford’s not given any money so he uses the resources he has. That is, MPs, MP jeeps, and whatever influence he might have over the businessmen in Tongduchon. Jill Matthewson picks up beer contributed by a local TDC black marketeer and she also picks up a stripper contributed by Kimchee Entertainment. Why would these men contribute such valuable commodities to a mafia meeting? Because the colonels who run the 2nd Infantry Division exercise huge influence in Tongduchon. They can decide, for instance, if GIs are to be given overnight passes on payday or if an entire battalion of 1,200 men should be restricted to compound. Or which contractor will be awarded a bid to build a new officers’ club annex on Camp Casey. Also, they can decide how to utilize the provost marshal’s finite resources. For instance, should they have MP investigators chase violent criminals or should they assign them to spend their time trying to interrupt the smooth operations of the TDC black market? Faced with this kind of power, Korean businessmen-especially the ones involved in corruption-would contribute to the mafia meeting and contribute gladly.
So Corporal Jill Matthewson transports the entire load over to the WVOW Club. When everything’s set up, the honchos arrive: staff colonels from the 2nd Infantry Division, every one a full bird. Then, according to Brandy, Jill was forced to stand outside the front of the club, in uniform, and make sure no uninvited guests entered.
She didn’t like the duty. She didn’t like what was going on inside the WVOW. She didn’t like the additional business girls who were brought over by Pak Tong-i and other local businessmen. And she didn’t like the photographs that were shown to her later, photos taken secretly by Miss Kim Yong-ai. Photos of most of the honchos of the 2nd Infantry Division engaged in various compromising positions with the Korean business girls who tended to be less than half their ages.
Actually, I’d heard of mafia meetings before. They’re a tradition in the U.S. Army. Staff officers get together during off-duty hours in an informal setting and exchange ideas concerning the best ways to improve operations in the division and the best ways to effectively implement the policies of the commanding general. Nothing wrong with that. But apparently the participants at the 2nd Infantry Division had lost sight of the original intent of the meetings.
Maybe a male MP assigned to the same job as Jill Matthewson would’ve laughed the whole thing off. Maybe he would’ve slugged down a few bottles of the free beer and grabbed one of the business girls for himself and pulled her into a back room when none of the honchos were watching. Instead of joining the frivolities, Jill had been forced to listen to the complaints of her friend, Kim Yong-ai. And witness her tears.
“She stripper,” Brandy told us indignantly. “Not supposed to be business girl. But honchos grab her while she dance. She say stop but they no stop. Pretty soon her clothes off, she on floor, and they do her same-same business girl.”
Ernie didn’t laugh although for a moment his eyes twinkled as if he wanted to. But quickly he realized that the distinction between a dancer and a prostitute was an important one, at least to the women involved. In a Confucian society, status and position in society is everything. And when it’s violated, especially when it’s violated by foreigners, the loss of face hurts almost as much, and sometimes more, than any physical abuse suffered.
You could bet that the young Korean business girls at the mafia meetings didn’t really want to be there either. Poverty and neglect had forced them into their world of shame. But at least when they walked into the WVOW, they knew what to expect. Kim Yong-ai, according to Brandy, was outraged by her treatment. But who could she complain to? Not Pak Tong-i; he was beholden for his living to the powers that be. Not the Korean National Police; they worked hand in hand with the honchos at the 2nd Infantry Division and certainly knew about, and maybe even participated in, the mafia meetings. And she couldn’t complain to the 2nd Infantry Division Military Police, they were the ones who had set up the party. Miss Kim Yong-ai had no one in the world to complain to. No one, that is, except Corporal Jill Matthewson.
I thought of the two thousand dollars Jill and Miss Kim had paid Pak Tong-i and I asked Brandy about it. “Did Jill ever mention money to you?”
“Money? No. I just know she pissed off. So was Kim Yong-ai.”
“So what were they going to do about it?” Ernie asked.
“I don’t know,” Brandy answered. “Next thing, they karra chogi.” They ran away.
What Brandy told us was something I should’ve figured for myself. It was a missing link that stitched a lot of disparate elements together, that showed us how Corporal Jill Matthewson and the stripper, Kim Yong-ai, and the booking agent, Pak Tong-i, and the honchos of the 2nd Infantry Division were tied together.
It had all the elements that so often lead to crime. Money: two thousand dollars that suddenly appeared to pay off Kim Yong-ai’s debts. Sex: the daily sexual harassment of an American female MP and the forced sexual degradation of a Korean stripper. Power: the wrath of the 2nd Infantry Division power structure that someone would have the temerity to disappear and cause them embarrassment. An embarrassment that rose not only as high as 8th Army headquarters but all the way to the United States Congress.
9
It was too dangerous to drive Ernie’s jeep back into the Division AO. The MPs would’ve taken note of the unit designation and jeep number stenciled on the bumper. Instead, Ernie left it in the care of a buck sergeant with grease-stained fingers at the Camp Red Cloud motor pool, promising him a free pizza dinner at the Papa-san Club upon our return.
Staff Sergeant Riley made us promise once more that we’d be back at 8th Army headquarters for duty Monday morning. “Tonight and Sunday,” he said. “That’s all the time you’ve got. If you don’t find Matthewson by then, you’re back in Seoul where you belong.”
We agreed. Then he nodded goodbye to Brandy and drove his sedan back to Seoul.
In front of the Camp Red Cloud main gate, Ernie, Brandy, and I waved down a kimchee cab. Brandy gave directions to a village east of here known as Koyang. We traveled on back roads, avoiding the MSR. Our goal was to dodge all 2nd Infantry Division checkpoints, to sneak back into the 2nd Infantry Division area of operations without being noticed.
Koyang was a small cluster of buildings, one of which featured the Chinese characters for sokyu-“rock oil”-overhead: a gas station. The little town also had a noodle shop and a transshipment point for produce. We climbed out of the cab, shivered in the cold February wind, and after we paid the driver, we watched him make a U-turn and speed back toward Uijongbu.
The shadows of quivering poplar trees began to grow long; evening would soon be upon us. Ernie and I checked our pockets. We each had about forty bucks on us, plenty to last us until we returned to Seoul Monday morning.
Brandy entered the noodle shop, chatted with the owner, and within five minutes another local cab pulled up, ready to transport us north to Bopwon-ni. Legal Hall Village. We climbed in and the little sedan sped north. The two-lane road followed a meandering valley. Fallow rice paddies spread on one side and elm-covered hills rose on the other. Swaths of snow clung to the hills although, since we’d arrived, there’d been no new snowfalls. Unusual for February. Atop many of the hills were burial mounds and atop one of them was an elaborate stone-carved statute of an ancient king of the Yi Dynasty.
“It’s like another world back here,” Ernie said.