When my husband was in Seoul, S. Korea, there were three clubs on base. The clubs had slot machines, music, and bars, and two of the three clubs had about 200 prostitutes actively soliciting soldiers. Organized crime probably did manage these clubs, but why didn’t the U.S. military keep the prostitutes out? The U.S. military allowed these women to work in the clubs as long as they had clearance cards.

As for my sexually transmitted infections, yes, I’m angry. I’m angry at my husband for acting so irresponsibly. My son’s autism, learning disabilities, and developmental problems could be linked to these infections and the medications used to treat them. I went through years of physical and mental anguish coping with my problems. But my husband was sent to a foreign land as part of a military that encouraged his irresponsible behavior during a war which was a mistake.

Organized crime syndicates have a tight lock on the prostitution market in Asia. If a woman tries to leave that life, she is beaten or killed. Women are also imported from other countries to fill the “need.” Prostitution, like prison rape, has been used as a look-the-other-way, hush-hush, smirk-smirk form of societally condoned social control. The military looks the other way because the alternative is risking disciplinary problems. Those women are scapegoats. Your burden was on their backs, too.

As much as you can pity these “poor” prostitutes, I also look upon the poor, dumb, young, ignorant GIS as the victims. There was no forced prostitution in 1967-1968. These military prostitutes were willing participants and the military was their cash cow.

Seems the military has some schizo ideas about sex. Adultery is a criminal offense, but raping or molesting your fellow, female, servicemembers often results in the woman getting drummed out of the service (unless the media gets wind of it, such as in Tailhook).

Their domestic-violence policies are similarly weird. When my sister was hit by her first husband, who was in the Navy, she didn’t report it because even though he would have been put in the brig, they would have also cut off his pay, which would have punished his family. The situation with the Marines (her second husband is a Marine, and no less problematic than her first) seems to be somewhat better, at least on an official level, but unofficially, they’re closing ranks and vilifying her.

To make a long history short, my husband lied to me about his past. The “so called” Korean girl friend whose picture was in a box of old papers, was in fact, just a friend and acquantance. My husband had at least fifteen other “girlfriends,” “one night stands” in Korea, all military prostitutes, who worked in clubs right on base.

Soldiers’ only forms of entertainment were these clubs on base and they were actively solicited there by the prostitutes. Find someone you like at the club? Just stroll on down the street to a free room for a half hour of unprotected sexual intercourse.

My husband claims that he didn’t impregnate any of these women, but who knows for sure? He never used any protection. You have to wonder if the prostitutes did, but I doubt it. How many of these S. Korean women work while pregnant until they show, then dump their newborn babies in the local orphanage? How many of them have abortions?