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Right, Tommy -
The PX and C-rations were gold mines for the
natives.
In contrast, ROKA soldiers had no such resource and
the Korean military brass had to improvise. The ROKA operation was puny in
comparison to the Japanese operation that had as many as 200,000 women from
Korea, China and other conquered nations (there were a handful of American women
as well).
The ROKA had 180 to 240, at least officially,
women; they served only 6-7 men a day (vs. 10-20 men per day for the
Janapnese comfort women). An ROKA report shows that about 204,000 men were
served by 89 women in 1952. Who were these women? On the records, they
were "prostitutes" (why would they work for dirt-poor Koreans when there
were so many rich horny Yanks?) but it is most likely, they were
prisoners. There were some 10,000 women prisoners and as I recall, there
was a POW camp for women at Koje-do.
ysk
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 11:18
AM
Subject: Re: ROKA Comfort Women
At 17:06 2/22/02, Cookie
Sewell wrote:
Young,
Since
the turn of the century to the best of my knowledge the US military has not
run any brothels anywhere, although from time to time the MPs have raided
them (and the medics have mass treated the girls).
Rumors about
"roundeyes" in Vietnam were also rampant, but there were not that many women
over there outside of medical channels so few examples of any hanky-panky.
US Red Cross and USO ("Donut Dollies) were always suspect, but in Can Tho
most of the workers I met were either in their late 50s-early 60s or men.
Korea has always had a booming business in "boom towns" and the
reputation of the ones today is legendary. Many GIs discuss going down to
the "Ville" as they call at least one of them and prices were quiet
reasonable -- one of my female (!) sergeants quoted me a stock phrase of
"F***y s***y one bucky" as the norm.
I think it more likely the US
dollar has a more corrupting influence on host nations than on the American
women, though.
I attended college in the late '50s
& knew several men who had gone into the service after high school, were
stationed in Korea, & attended college after separation. Almost to a
man they had a local girl friend, who, presumably at least, was shacking up
with no one else. A favored form of remuneration was, they said, to let
them order merchandise from the Sears catalog. The time frame for this
would be mid-'50s.
FWIW,
Tommy
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