Friday, February 20, 2009

Korean Military Academy Cadet Visit




One of the big points of emphasis between the United States and Korean military is friendship. At least once a month there is some sort of event hosted by the Koreans or Americans. It's a critical part to strengthening the relationship between the two nations and part of the "gatchi gapsida" (We Go Together) military culture on the staff.

The most recent example of this was the annual event when U.S. military officers host Korean military academy cadets to their homes for dinner. The host families were told to serve "traditional American meals." Most of the military folks joked the "traditional American meal" would be hot dogs, hamburgers and Bud Light. Never mind the fact that most of the time "American" meals are things like lasagna, tacos, enchiladas and spaghetti. Anyway, the point was to feed the cadets something besides bean sprout soup, kimchee or bulgogi.

We hosted a senior cadet named Doo-Hee Lee. He majored in Chemistry and was going into the infantry after graduation. He showed us pictures of his pretty girlfriend and was a real gentlemen during his visit.

The consensus from the host families after the cadets visited was the academy doesn't feed the students very much. One family made steaks and their cadet ate three of them. Emma made the traditional Mitchell Italian casserole (if you've had a baby and we brought you a meal, that's what you got). Doo-Hee ate almost half of it by himself along with a bunch of bread and salad. We sent him back to the academy with a six-pack of IBC root beer and some chocolate bars. The general who's responsible for our division stopped by and said hello to the cadets too. We had a great time hosting him and we've told folks to take advantage of this program next year.


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