There are two things about Korea you never forget.

The first is the roiling mishmash of stinks. That May, there was the bitter stench of tear gas, an essence of spring and fall, since Korean students are what you might term fair-weather protesters. There was the ripened aroma of kimchi, a spiced and aged cabbage that makes your nostrils think your upper lip’s plagued with gangrene. On top of that was the acrid odor of garlic, the lifeblood of every Korean. Finally, there were all the smells of careless progress: smog, construction, and human sweat.

The second thing you never forget is exactly how miserably steamy a Korean late spring day can be. My shirt was pasted to my back before I got halfway across the tarmac to the flight building of Osan Air Base.

I dashed straight through the entry and shoved aside a sputtering Army captain who was rooted like a potted plant waiting to meet and greet me.

“Major Drummond, I, ooof-” was all he could manage before he crashed up against the wall. Then I heard him skittering along behind me.

I moved my stiff legs as fast as I could, till I spied the door I so desperately sought. I lunged through hard enough to blow it off the hinges; the captain scurried right behind me. At the urinal I got my zipper down not a moment too soon. Another millisecond and the jig would’ve been up.

My escort propped himself against the sink and studied me with an awed expression. “Jeez, you should see your face.”

“You got no idea.”

“Long flight, huh?”

I put my left hand against the wall. “Long ain’t the half of it. Know whose neck I’d like to wring? The miserable bastard who broke the only toilet in the C-141. I’ve had my legs crossed since the Alaskan border.”

“Well, you’re finally here,” he consoled, grinning like a fool.

“I guess I am.”