The Gabilans to Chosun: A Novel – June 10, 2021

Alongside the run up to full-scale war in Vietnam in the late 1960s tens of thousands of American boys were also sent to the Republic of Korea. Colloquially termed “South Korea,” it was a rugged and desolate land. Americans back home knew little about it other than a war had been waged there a generation before. The public as well as the news media were ignorant of the ongoing American military struggles below the 38th Parallel.

A young soldier embarking for Korea in those benighted times, running into a soldier who had been stationed there, would ask, “What’s it like?” the response invariably was, “Sure beats Nam!”

The following pages are one man’s story of service in Chosun, the Land of the Morning Calm.