My wallet in Seoul
One of my shortest military assignments was in Korea; I was there for a few days until I got cabin fever. I needed to go out and explore. My assignment prevented me from making any American friends, so I wandered off by myself. I was taking in the sights and with my curiosity on full, and my New Yorker awareness switched off, a kid, no more than 12 yrs, ran past me as he snatched my wallet from my back pocket.
My wallet was my lifeline and link to my own world. I started thinking of the consequences: I heard stories about ameri-asians trying everything to prove to the embassy that they were American citizens. I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t just go to the embassy and say, “hey! I’m an American, and got my wallet stolen”…first of all, the circumstances at the time prevented me from going through the regular channels to get back to my neck of the woods, and all my money was in that wallet. Ok, I did make it clear, that my usual NY paranoia mode was off…
All it takes is one little boy, to go back into that reality. I have always been a runner…but wow, it takes a certain skill to go from standing still, to a sustained sprint through the crowds in the ghettos of any city. That boy could run and weave….why not? He was in his turf, and I was the fish out of water, desperate. I was focused on him. Now my paranoia was on full mode, and I saw the boy do the hand-over of the wallet to a guy, standing at the threshold of the alleyway.
I kept running to make believe that the boy had fooled me, right up to the point that I was in front of the guy. Now, I was no longer thinking of any consequence other than the speedy recovery of my wallet. I made a very big mistake by putting a wallet on my pocket, and I was willing to do anything it took, to recover it. While I was chasing the boy, I was thinking how I would try to go back to the U.S. when no one would believe I was American. If you know me, it is very easy to think that I am not. This was an asset for my job, but not personally. Especially at that moment; the world took a very surreal tone.
I stopped dead on, as if I had hit an invisible wall. Without wasting any precious seconds, I immediately began dishing out as many body punches, as fast and as hard as I could. I could hear his breathing becoming laborious, and as the adrenaline was pumping, I began to chant inside, “I have to put him down now!”
This guy was taller than me....even in Asia, there are taller people than me. At the risk of further sounding wrong...he was Korean...who knows if he studied right out of his crib, to kick butt...I was worried that someone coming into or out of the alley would help him, so I kept on….punches up and down his torso…I leaned my head against his body to put more weight into each punch. My desperation, took away his fighting chance. At first he tried to pry me off, but I stuck to him. Slowly, he stopped grabbing, pinching and trying to hit me. He wavered and fell. I took my wallet.
I took one breath of air, as if that’s all I needed for the full-on run back to safety. I pictured in my mind the whole town running after me. I ran hard. I kept thinking of what prompted me to be so careless, but now, that didn’t matter…I think I had strayed off about 4 or 5 miles from my base. Luckily, there are signs all over the place pointing to the right direction. I was doing what we call in running, “negative splits” where each mile is faster than the last. My hands were pulsing as the feeling returned to them, and I was in pain. I decided to stop, one block from the front gate, to calm down, and look normal as to not hint that anything was wrong.
Now I walked through the front gate, and was stopped, as I had to go through the formalities. They noticed something was amiss. I told them, someone tried to mug me, but I got away. After a few minutes of paperwork, I was released, and this was my only chance of seeing Korea.
Too bad my fighting debut in Asia was not pay-per-view….
