Brad’s Gambling Life – Part 8 – Trying to Get to Korea

Once in California, at an Army post on the outskirts of LA, Brad and his buddy were playing the waiting game, not knowing when the trip to free beer in Korea, for which they had volunteered, would continue.  But they were up for any adventure in the meantime.  Why not take the Army bus and go into the city?

A local self-proclaimed tour guide, just outside the base gate, offered to give them, for a fee, a tour of the city.  “No,” they told him, “We just want to go to Hollywood and see some movie stars.”

The wannabe guide walked away in disgust, “You guys will be lucky to see a picture of Lassie.”

They did get to Hollywood and a few other places in the city, but no sightings of anyone famous and not much of adventure either.  However, they didn’t have to wait long for action.  At 3 a.m. the next night, the small Air Force unit was awakened, taken to a dock, and marched onto a huge troop ship which was being loaded with thousands of soldiers and sailors.

Soon they were at sea – and Brad was doing what he always did, looking for a gambling opportunity.  The ship was super overcrowded, with servicemen crammed in every corner, and no place to organize card games.  However, on the open deck there was always someone with some dice and you could find pickup crap games.  Brad joined one of these the first night – and promptly lost the little bit of money he had brought onboard with him.  He knew he should have saved his tiny bankroll until he found a card game where his skill could overcome blind luck!  But he wasn’t bitter and even gave the crap players the 5^th of whiskey he had been given as a farewell gift back at Enid AF Base since he wasn’t much of a whiskey drinker himself.  (Yep, back then the Service Club was generous with liquor and cigar “rewards” for servicemen.)

However, an ironic turn of events came the next day.  The small Air Force contingent was put in charge of guard duty on the ship, and Brad was assigned to patrolling the decks at night, with orders to break up all gambling and drinking.  His crap shooting buddies from the night before just laughed at him when he came around – but they knew he would just step over the game and continue on his patrol.

Unfortunately, the Air Force provost marshal in charge of the security detail happened to be a chaplain who was fiercely opposed to gambling and drinking.   He soon heard that Brad wasn’t strictly enforcing the rules and called him on the carpet, saying that crap games seemed to be flourishing on his watch.  He insisted that Brad break them up, not just step over or around them.  Brad said he would try, but knew that when he did disperse the wrongdoers, they re-organized the game as soon as he was out of sight.  And so it went for 10 days – the fox was in charge of the hen house!

For the first week, the destination of the ship was a military secret.  Then the ship’s captain opened his orders.  The scuttlebutt was that there was going to be a stop in Japan before going on to Korea, but Brad and his Air Force buddies had no idea what their particular assignment or final destination would be.  But they soon found out when the ship docked in Yokohama and they were ordered to disembark. 

Well, here they were, not in the land of free beer, but in the land of swarms of beautiful women who were willing, even anxious to entertain American servicemen for just a few yen.  For a virile 18-year old airman from Connersville, Indiana, it was an acceptable switch.