Tony Marchant's life 

August 29, 2005

15 Days left in Korea!!!

August 28, 2005

This morning was one of the hardest rains I had ever seen. The air force weather guys told us to expect heavy rainfall this morning and they were right for once.


This is one of the pictures I took during the rainstorm.


This is a crazy picture because under that water is a 3 foot ditch that is supposed to carry the water away from buildings. Well the ditch filled up pretty quickly and started coming towards the buildings. Luckily the rain slowed down some and the ditches were able to go down a little before that happened.


After all the rain went away, I went with the Chaplain and SGT Jung to a place to have a religious service. We just did a service outside and it was very small. We had 5 people show up, including the Chaplain. My chaplain walked around while we had our service. It was better than not going to church at all though, so at least I got some message for the day and was able to have communion.


On our way back from the church service, Chaplain Horovitz asked if we knew of any rivers where he could put some pans in the water. We looked at him a little crazy and he explained that it was a Jewish tradition to dip new pans in a river or stream and to ask God to bless them before using them. So we found him a creek that he could wash them in. Here he is dipping the pans in the river and asking God (or G-d as he writes it) to bless them.

August 26, 2005

Well bad news folks. I got some bad news in my Email today. It appears that the Army is having problems with soldiers putting up classified materials on blogs. So to insure that I don't break any rules I will not be posting any more military related material on here. All you'll see is the happy-go-lucky Tony Marchant in his activities off duty. I don't know what is considered innapropriate, so i don't want to take any chances.

Other than that though, today has been a very easy day today. I just got back from lunch. Sent a few emails to the wife today and have been reading my new book "Secrets of the Vice" by Bruce Wilkinson. he the same author who wrote The Prayer of Jabez that was really popular for a while.

We might go visit some soldiers today. Not much other than that. I have a little bit of work to do in the office, but actually it's just one of those days that there isn't much work to do. It's nice to get those once in a while. I've been working on getting my stuff together to get out of here. ONly 18 days to go!

August 25, 2005

Today was fairly uneventful. We didn't go anywhere today becase it was raining and the Chaplain isn't a very good driver with a stick shift. He didn't want to take any chances with driving in the rain, so we just stayed on post today. He went to go visit a soldier who's wife was having a baby around 3:30 and we all went home. I made a certificate for Jung that I am going to give him when I leave.


It's a fake certificate of appreciation that I made for him. Inside it says "Eun Chang Jung has successfully acheived the title of "Ddaeng Bo" (that's lazy in Korean). Your dedication to many hours of internet browsing, emailing jokes to your fellow KATUSA's, ability to talk on the phone for hours, and disappear from the office without anyone knowing where you were has entitled you to receive this great award as SHAMMER OF THE YEAR. Congratulations."

I even made a set of orders for him. Well sort of......



Last weekend I went shopping in Osan with my buddy McGraw. We found so many deals down there it was insane. Like all of these shirt above, I got for $5 each. And they are all name brands like Billabong and Quiksilver. I don't know if they are fake or not, but if I can't tell then nobosy else can either.


I also got me a couple of really cheap watches. I bought 2 bed spreads for our bed at home too. They are made of really soft fabric and were only $20 each. I'm going to have them shipped home with my household goods when the Army mover's come and pack my stuff on 8 SEP, which is getting closer and closer every day. It's not long now. A friend of mine gave me a cool program when I got here with a countdown clock on it.


The program counts down the minutes, seconds, weeks, days, etc of how much time I have left here in Korea. Onl;y 19 more days to go now. Less than 3 weeks left. I know Sherry is getting excited about me coming home too. She has been sending more and more emails lately than she normally does. I can't wait to see her again. I really miss my wife, especialy these last few agonizing weeks. It won't be much longer though. See ya soon sweetheart!

August 24, 2005

Today started off OK, but took a turn for the worst. We drov e up to see some soldiers at Camp Red Cloud and Camp Stanley today.


Here is Jung in front of the Company at Camp Red Cloud. We visited with soldiers there, which we hadn't planned but once the Chaplain stops anywhere he has to talk with everyone he sees. I don't think he's ever been on time to anything yet. What was originally supposed to be a breif stop for lunch on the way to Camp Stanley took over 2 hours.

Well we got to Camp stanley and the Chaplain has another thing that he has to do wherever we go. The guy has to go to every library we see and ask them for free books and magazines. We have 6 boxes of free books in our office taking up space on the floor and he still asks them for more. He says they are to give out to the soldierfs, but so far we've only given away 6 books out of about 200. Anyway, the Chjaplain went to go visit the soldiers there and wound up diasappearing for an hour with some chaplain he met there. We'll it's about a 2 hour drive back to Yongsan from there and it was already almost 4:30 when the Chaplain finally came back.


A little statue I saw at Camp Stanley. Notice the Swastica at the bottom. Actually it's a backwards swastica, which is a Buddhist symbol. And now that you've ad your cultural lesson for the day, on with the rest of the story....

So we leave and we wind up getting lost and having to make 3 U-Turns, and ask every taxi driver we could find for directions. It took us almost 3 hours to get back to post. I was so mad, but I kept calm and didn't say anything. When we got back I told the Chaplain that Jung needed to eat since he missed chow at the DFAC. He told Jung to just eat an MRE. Now I'm not saying that was illegal or anything, but I think that if we were going to make him eat that horrible food, then we should have to eat it with him. I didn't think thatw as right, so I wound up buying dinner for the both of us. I don't mean to complain but I've been really getting frustrated at work lately. Things were so much easier and better organized when Chaplain Wead was here. It's Ok though, Only 21 more days in Korea and I get to leave! Woohoo.


I saw this huge gate when we were lost somewhere in Seoul.

August 19, 2005

Today we really didn't do much of anything. And when there is nothing to do, I get bored. And when I get bored, I usually wind up doing something stupid. Kim came by and was fixing a problem I was having with my computer.


Jung was there to. We were just messing around taking pictures.


And this was the result of my boredom. Being bored is painful. We decided to move everything out of the middle of the office and roll the chair with wheels on it as fast as we could from one end of the building to the other. The only problem is that in the middle of the building is a wall with only a narrow doorway that you have to squeeze through. I did pretty good a couple of times. But the last one I nailed the corner of the doorway and then bounced off a few things (A bookshelf, clock, desk, the top of the chair) until the tile floor finally stopped my fall. I don't know which object that my leg had impact gave me this nice bruise, but it did a good job. Let this be a lesson to you kids. Don't race chairs inside unless you take proper safety precautions.

Later on we went to lunch and they had some table reserved for a general and his sergeant major. They went through the trouble to have some wooden plagues with a star on it just so the guy wouldn't have to sit with anyone else. Now it just so happens that his wonderful little sign was at the seat that I nowmally sit at in the dining facility. I don't know why in the hell a General needs his own seat reserved. Is he too good to sit with every other soldier? Well I thought it was a bunch of bull-shit, so one of the KATUSA's and I made our own reserved seats. Here is mine------>

And here is the KATUSA's


Now we have our own reserved seating.

August 17, 2005

Today we hiked up to the top of Camp Madison. I didn't want to go up there, but we had some soldiers that were working up there so I had to go. I hate that climb. It is so hard to get to the top of that thing, especially when you have all of your gear on your back and a weapon in your hands, not to mention all of the chaplain's stuff. It's a half a mile straight up. By the time I got to the top, my shirt was soaked with sweat all the way down to my pants. This is a picture I took from the top.


Here is another view from up there. It really is nice once yu get to the top. You can see the entire city of Suwon up there.


Jung stayed at the bottom while we went up, so that's why he's not in this picture. That's me on the far right and Chaplain Horovitz next to me.

18 AUG 05

OK, so there's no flashy cool stuff to post tonight. No awesome pictures for you to check out. Just this simple little post with my witty humor and awesome sentence writing abilities. OK, so that wasn't too funny, but hey. Soooo, nothing new to write about. I am still in this rediculously long exercise. There's 3 more weeks to go too! Woohoo! I can't wait to get out of this place and back to the states. I'll miss the friends I made, but that's about it. I'm tired of Korea. Especially the drivers. Man, Koreans have no respect for the laws of the road. I almost was hit by 2 cars today alone.

I'm really missing my wife these past few days, and I think I have found the culprit behind my mood changes. It's that dang O.C. show! It's making me crazy! Just seeing all those couples kissing and hugging (well except for when they aren't fighting, punching someone, or cheating on someone). I need to find a new show to watch, but it's sooo good. Well, I only have a few more episodes of the second season left, and then I'll be all caught up anyway.

This morning I went for a run at 7 AM with Jung. We ran our usual course of 3 miles. He wants to run with me again tonight. I think I'm getting Jung to start liking running too. I've noticed that if I can just get someone to come running with me, tnat they tend to like it. I've made runners out of about half a dozen people now.

Tomorrow is the same ol' thing. Just driving somewhere to go visit with some soldiers and coming back. I'm trying to make as many appointments as possible so I can have something to do during this exercise. Our office is kind of crazy still right now. I am getting ready to leave, and I've been trying to teach Jung enough so that he can take care of our new chaplain when I'm gone. I don't know what the chaplain did before he came here, but he seems to be having trouble adapting to military life here. I keep trying to help him, but he doesn't listen to my advice and I find myself getting so angry at him more and more frequently. I just hope that Jung can keep the office squared away when I'm gone.

I'm going to have a going away party on the 10th of September. I'm inviting a bunch of friends and we are going to grille out that weekend and then go bowling. I don't know what we'll do afetr that, but we are going to have fun. I know my wife is going to be upset when she hears that I'm going bowling, but I haven't done that since the time she visited me here for Christmas. Besides, I could use the practice. I've only beaten my wife once in the 4 years I've known her, so maybe a game or two will do me some good.

OK, well I need to get my running shoes laced up and stretch out before I go for my 8:00 run. Goodnight everyone. Talk to you soon.

August 16, 2005

This is the time I left for work this morning. We got alerted that the exercise was starting at 4 AM.Horrah horrah. I absolutely love working every day for a month without any time off and never being able to wear civilian clothes or even go off post. Nothing says freedom like being locked down like an inmate for 30 days of incarceration. Funny thing is I got a phone call from a recruiter today asking me to reenlist for 3 more wonderful years of this awesomely sweet job. I'll give you 2 guesses what my answer was. The 2 choices would be yes or no for those of you who can't count by the way.

But the day wasn't an entire disaster. It seems that God has shown mercy on the Chaplain's office today. It appears that the Chaplain wasn't feeling great after having a little operation at the hospital and so he had to go home for the rest of the day. And without our Chaplain, we don't really have a purpose for existence, so we dissapeared too.

Of course had my last physical therapy appointment today though, or so I thought. I stopped by and the doc wanted to check out ym achilles tendon one last time. Well, he was worried that I was going to just immediately back into my hard training and running hundreds of miles, which would have been correct so he left me on a profile. But this was no ordinary profile. This one is for 3 months!!!! Holy crap, who has ever heard of a 3 month profile? I told him there was no way I could not run for ANOTHER 3 months and begged the guy to at least me run a little. So he added a little note to the profile saying I could run 2 miles a day at my own pace. Chalk up one small victory for me. So what are my plans tonight? Watch a movie perhaps? TRy out one of my new video games I got for my X box? Hell no, I'm going RUNNING! Bwahahaha. And I even got Jung to tag along with me. He said he wants to lose a few pounds and needed to go running. I told him he could tag along with me and I'd just run at his pace until he got tired and then keep on running once he got tired.

We also had a good long deep conversation tonight. I honestly can't remember it all, and some of it is none of your dang business. Just kidding. Actually I think it started form me talking about ow much I've been missing my wife lately. It's been so hard to get through this past year without her with me. I mis my buddy. Sherry is my best friend. The only thing that kept me going was by counting down the days on my calendar until I left this place. But even that isn't helping me anymore because now I just have to start over again. I had planned on PCSing from here and taking Sherry with me wherever I wound up. That was our plan, but now that plan has changed. It seems that Sherry has a job now and doesn't want to leave her wrestling hobby that she has discovered to move with me to Colorado. I told her that it was her decision to stay or leave with me, and she chose to stay. SO these past few weeks I have been a little depressed because I realize that instead of only 28 more days left now I have 7 months and 28 days until we can be together again. We will have been married for 5 years in June, and of those 5 years we will have actually only been together for 3 1/2 years because I have been gone so long.

Now I know why the Army has such a high divorce rate. But this isn't some self-pity entry into my blog. Things will get better. I'll find something to keep me going. Even if it is running or watching another movie. Or maybe it's a lack of sleep from having to be at work so damn early this morning. Anyway, I'll tell you another story real soon.

August 15, 2005

Today I got to touch up on my landscaping skills. Jung helped me. Actually we spent al day in the baking sun cutting grass and weed eating. It took us all day to cut the grass in front of the entire barracks, but we got it done.


Here I am with my sweet ride. It's got low profile wheels, and a whoppin' 6 porsepower. Too Fast, Too Furious! Actually we really didn't get the grass cutting done. We missed one spot by the stairs, but nobody has said anything about it. Whoops.


And here is the final result. An almost finished lawn and one completely finished chaplain assistant.


....Well, almost finished. I still had enough energy to get into a cab and ride to Electronics Market. After all, tomorrow is the beginning of a month long exercise without one single day off. I need some sort of entertainment to keep my sanity from packing it's bags and heading out.


Sooooo, I got myself 7 movies and 2 new X Box games.

But I only had time to watch Dukes of Hazzard before I had to get to bed. DEfinetely not a great movie. Actually the only good thing about the entire flick was Jessica Simpson stripping out of her clothes into a bikini. Well, OK so that made it a GREAT movie, but other than that is sucked. WEll it's off to bed. I have to get up super early tomorrow for the alert. Goddnight all.