CHAPTER ONE

Someone once said, “Time waits for no man,” but when Shane Brennan decided to revisit the past—he postponed the future indefinitely. Shane was an old man in his seventies who had lived a full life but not without regrets. He was a native New Yorker who now made his home in the warm climate of Nevada. Now, however, he sat on a 747 as the giant bird climbed over the huge mountains that spread across the South Korean countryside. Shane had convinced his wife of fifty years it was a trip he just had to make to confront the ghost of his youth. He peered down at the ground and noticed the imperfectly cut green rectangle rice paddies that covered the otherwise barren topography. Then he caught a reflection of himself in the window. He was mostly bald, and he looked so damn old. As the 747 made its approach to Incheon International Airport, on wheels down, Shane felt tightness in his gut. He was about to embark on a trek back in time, a journey to cleanse his soul and find the forgiveness he so desperately sought.

Shane grinned when he recalled his first impression of South Korea back in the summer of 1963. He was one of twenty-three U.S. Airmen, aboard a C-47 Transport plane, on their way to begin a thirteen-month tour of duty at Osan Air Force Base, South Korea. Shane remembered gazing out the window of the “goony bird” when he caught his first peek at the sterile land down below. It was a treeless landscape of rocky hills and sculptured dirt mountains. A flat terrain crowded with checkered rice paddies and populated by farmers; peasants who lived in squalor with little hope of escape. They called it “The Land of the Morning Calm.”

A precarious truce was signed between North Korea and the United Nations Command on July 27, 1953. Finally, the South Koreans would be free of all oppressors and tyrannical rulers. They would have their independence, and a chance to live in peace. But the ill will between North and South Korea, lingered. The threat of war remained a constant. The United States and South Korean military were on permanent alert. It would be many years before South Koreans enjoyed the prosperity and self-respect most other democratic states took for granted. But for now, its fate as a new republic was in question. South Korea was a destitute country with a needy population. Starvation and disease plagued the new nation. Many of the impoverished South Korean people took menial jobs at U.S. Army Camps and Air