Always Faithful – Part III: A Promise Kept

Always Faithful series: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

The sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains surrounding Pohang when I stepped outside for a run. The morning air was already warm and heavy with humidity. A thin haze hung over Camp Mujuk and softened the green ridgelines beyond the walls.

The base was already alive.

Diesel engines grumbled quietly in the morning air as trucks and tactical vehicles pulled onto the narrow roads. I settled into an easy pace and ran past them as the camp slowly came to life around me.

A group of Korean Marines walked toward me on the other side of the road. One of them waved as I passed and I raised my hand in return. A few minutes later, I passed another group of Marines gathered around a truck drinking coffee and talking quietly among themselves.

Camp Mujuk sits outside Pohang in the southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula. Mountains rise sharply from the countryside before falling away toward the sea. It is a beautiful part of Korea, green and mountainous, with the ocean never far away.

I followed the road through the camp as the sun climbed above the mountains. At the end of the road sits a nondescript collection of buildings. They are not part of Camp Mujuk, but they are a critical piece of Marine Corps history in Korea.

I ran past them and turned back toward the base.

Later that morning, I would return with a company of Marines from 3d Radio Battalion. The orphanage at the end of that road was one of the best real world examples I knew of our motto Semper Fidelis.

Always faithful.

The story began with an airfield and a few hungry children.

By the fall of 1950, the airfield at Pohang was abuzz with activity. Aircraft arrived throughout the day carrying food, ammunition, and equipment to support the Marines fighting farther to the north. Trucks rolled away from the flight line loaded with supplies while the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing worked to keep everything moving.

The bold amphibious assault at Inchon had threatened to cut the North Korean Army off from its supply lines, forcing it to abandon the fight around the Pusan Perimeter and retreat north. South Korea had been pulled back from the edge of destruction, but the war had left much of the country in ruins.

At Pohang, the supplies kept coming.

So did the children.

At first, there were only a few. They gathered along the edges of the airfield and watched the Marines work, their eyes following the trucks and pallets of supplies moving past them. Most were thin and poorly dressed, their clothes worn from months spent living in a country at war.

The Marines started giving them food.

Word traveled quickly. The children returned the next day with others, and before long small groups began gathering around the airfield whenever the Marines were eating. Some of the older children brought younger brothers and sisters with them. Others came alone. The Marines shared what they had and watched as the children ate before disappearing back into the countryside around Pohang.

For months, the war had pushed everything south. Korean families crowded the roads toward Pusan carrying children and whatever they could save from the homes they left behind. Somewhere along the way, families were torn apart. Parents disappeared in the chaos or died in the fighting. Children became separated from mothers and fathers they would never see again.

Then Inchon reversed the direction of the war.

The armies went north and Korean families slowly began making their way home. The same roads that had carried them south now filled with people returning to the cities and villages they had abandoned only months before.

The orphans had nowhere to return to. They remained scattered across the southeastern corner of the peninsula, surviving however they could. Around Pohang, many drifted toward the airfield where American Marines worked among stacks of food and supplies flowing north. In a country devastated by war, the children had found a place where someone would protect them.

The Marines began passing the hat, collecting whatever money they could spare to buy food, clothing, and medicine for the children gathering around the airfield. They eventually raised enough money to purchase land and build them a permanent home. In 1952, the Marine Memorial Orphanage officially opened in Pohang. The first orphanage was little more than a collection of tents and makeshift buildings. It wasn't much, but it gave the children a place to sleep.

They reached out to the Seabees working nearby and asked for help. The Seabees had lumber and construction materials intended to support the growing military presence around Pohang. They contributed what they could, and soon Marines and Seabees were building something that had nothing to do with the war they had been sent there to fight.

The war eventually ended, but the Marines kept coming back. For almost seventy years, they helped fund the orphanage and care for the children who lived there. Marines rotating through Pohang spent time with the children, played games with them, and helped care for the grounds. One generation of Marines eventually went home and another took its place, but the commitment to the orphanage remained.

One of those children was Jung Min Park.

Park lived at the Marine Memorial Orphanage during the 1960s. He remembers the American Marines who came through the gates to spend time with him and the other children. Decades later, he returned to the same place as its chief. The buildings had changed and generations of children had passed through the orphanage, but Marines were still walking through those gates.

Today, they would come from 3d Radio Battalion.

A few hours later, a company of Marines walked through the gates and quickly disappeared among the children waiting for them. Within minutes, Marines were scattered across the grounds playing soccer and chasing children around the playground. The language barrier did little to slow them down. Children climbed onto their backs and tugged at their uniforms while Marines laughed and tried to keep up.

By the end of the morning, it was time to return to Camp Mujuk. The Marines slowly gathered their gear while the children crowded around them for photographs and one last chance to play. Eventually, the company made its way through the gates and started down the road toward the base.

The buildings behind them looked much different than the tents that first stood there in 1952. The children were different too. So were the Marines. But more than seventy years after a few hungry children wandered toward an airfield looking for help, Marines were still walking through those gates.

Semper Fidelis.

Always faithful.

Cheer for the Home Team

That was four years ago.

Today, I am sitting across from first base with a beer in my hand, watching another summer evening unfold beneath the stadium lights.

There are few things more American than a baseball game.

The smell of food drifted through the stands as players moved across the field below us. Vendors worked their way through the crowd carrying beer and snacks while music played between innings. Families filled the seats around us wearing jerseys and ball caps, rising together whenever a ball was driven into the outfield.

Baseball has been called America's pastime for more than a century. The game is woven into our culture in a way few sports can match. Fathers teach their children to throw in the backyard. Kids grow up collecting gloves and baseball cards. Generations of Americans have spent summer evenings sitting beneath stadium lights watching nine innings unfold in front of them.

It could have been a summer evening almost anywhere in America.

But we were in Korea.

I left my seat and worked my way down the stands toward the concession area. The smell of fried chicken grew stronger as I reached the bottom and joined the line. I ordered a chi-maek, a combination of Korean fried chicken and beer that had become one of my favorite discoveries in Korea.

The beer came in a large plastic cup with a small tray shaped like a sombrero fitted over the top. The center held the beer while pieces of fried chicken filled the brim around it. It was an absurdly effective piece of engineering.

I carried it carefully back toward my seat while the crowd erupted somewhere behind me.

I have been coming to Korean baseball games for seven years. The first time, I came with my partners from the Republic of Korea Marine Corps. Years later, I returned with Marines from 3d Radio Battalion. Now I was sitting in the stands with classmates from Georgetown, watching my Doosan Bears play beneath the lights in Seoul.

I still can't understand most of the chants. I sing along anyway.

Baseball feels at home here.

So do I.

Full series: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3

Byron Owen is a Reconnaissance Marine with tours as both a platoon commander and commanding officer at the elite 1st Force Reconnaissance Company. He also had the honor of commanding several intelligence and cyber units to include Cyberspace Warfare Task Group 1, and 3d Radio Battalion. He writes about leadership at www.rucksackleadership.com, information warfare at keyterraincyber.com, and is the author of the upcoming book Bury my Heart in Baghdad.