Customer Reviews

Kimchee Days, or, Stoned-cold Warriors

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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I first read Kimchee Days back in 2000 before it was published. I read it cover to cover non-stop! And have re-read it several times. I laughed. I cried. I cheered! It felt like home to me.

In a time when super-power rivalries defined the direction of nations and the destiny of America's youth, KIMCHEE DAYS takes us into the Cold War of 1970's South Korea at a time of coming of age for a crew of young American Cold Warriors manning Foxtrot Battery, one of America's most advanced anti-aircraft missile system. It is a modern voyage into our ancient souls, into our very essence on which we embark, it is M*A*S*H with nuclear tipped missiles, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER in combat fatigues, with a touch of COLD WAR reality to keep you from putting it down.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have.

"The light above him clanged red and the BCO reported, "Red status, battle stations!" "Patty was stunned! There had to be a mistake. The B scope showed them what the BCO was looking at..." "He could see the north-south border. On the south side he saw two or three targets. The north side had about two hundred!" -all headed south.

In a book noted for its humor, I found this incident the most CHILLING. A routine drill known as "Blazing Skies" had just morphed into a potential nightmare that could have started a North -South Korean "hot" war and perhaps warmed up a chilled Cold War into World War 3. And so was life in the Nike Hercules antiaircraft batteries in the 1970's near the DMZ. As a veteran whose sole experience of the Cold War was state side, this was all new territory to me, and I found it fasicinating!

The trials, tribulations and "free enterprise" opportunities of a young, new recruit are spelled out in graphic detail in Tim Gatto's EXCELLENT book, "KIMCHEE DAYS or Stoned-cold Warriors" a fictionalized account of the author's - and others - experiences on the front lines of the Cold War. Populated by a cast of weird characters and with Gatto's usual sparse, no fluff or frills writing style, "KIMCHEE DAYS" is Tim Gatto at his finest -and leaves the reader hungry for more - much more. From the officious First Shirt to the highly admirable guard dog Fred and his fine "taste" in Commanding Officers, I promise the book will please and delight the discriminating reader of historical fiction.

And really, like so many others, I want to know... What became of FRED?

I served at "E" Battery which was the most southern nike missle site in Korea. I was there in 1967 & 1968. While stationed there The Satus Of Forces Agreement was enacted and the USN ship Pueblo was captured. That said I couldn't believe how much had changed at the sites from 68 until the 70's. The seemingly total disregard for authority be it from nco's or officers I found to be a bit over the top, and the percieved daily use of pot and pills was something I never experienced. I know that in our battery rank was not much of an issue off duty, but on duty it would have been somebodys Nads on the table if someone acted in the manner described. The exploits of the main character in the story, both on and off duty reminded me more of stories told by a recruit just home From basic, than that of a seasoned vet. I'm sure that life for an off duty serviceman stationed near a large city like Inchon was much different than what we experienced in the "one road through it village" we knew. We had three small clubs that held maybe 50 people,crude would be an understatement. Entertainment was supplied by a couple of speakers and a turntable that spun the latest bootleg copies of the current hits. There were ladies that would cater to the needs of those who needed and lots of beer and booze to supply a lifetime of memories. There were some very belieable instances, in the book that certainly brought me a smile and peaked some memories. I wasn'nt there in the 70's so I cant'say that it wasn't that way , it just wasn't that way at Echo Battery in 67 & 68. I know the book was written as as fiction based on life at a nike site in the 70's, but as a nike crewman at sites in Korea, Florida, and Germany it just didn't depict what I experienced. I did enjoyed reading the book , just couldn't wrap myself around it.

Timothy Gatto's book reminds us that the U.S. military has been a presence in Asia for a very long time. The book that reads as a memoir is about a young man, really a teenager of eighteen, who serves in Korea long past the war there. With humor and sympathy he describes how he managed to survive his 13-month long tour of duty in the early seventies, at the height of the Cold War. I recommend this book as both a historical document and for an understanding of how our sons and now, daughters, live from day to day, away from their families and homes, in foreign countries, guarding their borders.

Rerceived the book in about 11 days and found pleasant reading about subject and country where I was stationed in the past.

A young man in the `60s had to face three life-altering choices upon graduation: get a job, and wait for the military to draft you; join a branch of the military that you could only guess would not have the dreaded words "Vietnam" attached to your name; or enroll in a university to get a deferment. While each choice contained its own experiences, being in the military was probably one of the most unique.

As I read Gatto's book, my own military experiences came flashing back from over forty years ago. Besides being a master story teller, I suddenly realized that he'd written a generic book that tells the story of a whole generation's experience. While hundreds of thousands of young men went to Vietnam, millions of others that were in the military were sent to some of the other hundreds of U.S. bases worldwide. And even in Vietnam, something like only one out of seven actually saw combat. So in the vast majority of cases, being in the military at that time was truly an adventure that civilian life could never duplicate. Movies like "Platoon" did not speak for the majority of us, but here, in this masterpiece, Gatto has saved our memory for us. While Kurt Vonnegut told his tale of being a P.O.W. in WWII Germany, I'm sure that wherever he is now, he's nodding his head in full approval.

For all you veterans from that era, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this book. Consider it a gift to yourself. And to those non-veterns that want to know what it was really like then, get a copy. This is the true picture of that momentous time.