Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  This was proven to me during my lengthy TDY back to the states.  I mentioned before that I really didn't want to leave, and I will emphasize that now.     I DIDN'T WANT TO GO!!     How's that for emphasis?  I was really enjoying my girlfriend, and was anxious to unpack and settle in with her.  (To this day I still can't find some of my stuff)  I also didn't want to spend that much time away from the unit, it is amazing how quickly things can change when you aren't around.  Also, some people, who are just wrong, will have entirely too much time to cause trouble.  I won't get into specifics of the mission, but I will say that it would have been used to justify keeping the linguists and analysts we already had in the unit in place, and to help procure more of them in the future.  Suffice it to say that things did not turn out that way.

    At any rate, I was in the land of no ration control, and really had little to do except make it to work in a state that would allow for airsickness.  Wow, it really is amazing what I can do with a fifth of Jack Daniel's!  Towards the end of the TDY, we moved down to Savannah, Ga. for the limited user test on the system we were evaluating.  For the 2 weeks I was there I was required to fly one 1 -hour  orientation flight.  That's it.  That is all I had to do.  Besides drink.  And party on the river.  When we went into one week shifts I drew the last week, but we had already determined that we were not satisfied with the system by the time it was my turn to fly.  So, I actually weaseled an extra week of uncharged leave out of the deal! 

    At one point I got quite schnockered (the hotel provided free beer and wine from 1700-1900), and I wasn't far from the base (ergo the Class VI)!  I don't recall much of the evening, but I do know it was spent with a  friend from the unit.  I woke up the next morning and noticed that my phone card was sitting out beside the telephone.  Oh, shit!  Who did I call?  Looking around for any indication of who I may have called and at what ungodly hour, I couldn't find any evidence to point to anyone in particular.  This is not uncommon.  Even now I have a habit of getting drunk and wanting to talk to someone, usually far away, and I'll just call.  Fortunately now my cell phone keeps a proper record!  I just assumed that I had called Chong Mi, so I called her back to find out how our conversation had gone.  God it was good to hear her voice!  Even though she was extremely angry!  WTF?  What the hell did I say?

    She recounted parts of the conversation we had had the night before, most shockingly the bit about my meeting up with the blond in the hot tub!  That and what, I had apparently described in excruciating detail, had happened later, once we were no longer in the hot tub, or our clothes!

    Strange, I don't recall ANY of that...  I do remember being in the hot tub, but the only blond had been a male who was shipping out somewhere the next day.  Not interesting to me at all. 

    She kept me on the hook for quite a while, amused by my vehement denials, I'm sure.  Finally she told me she was kidding, and that we had had a very touching conversation.  I had told her how much I missed her, then that I loved her, then that I never wanted to be apart from her again.  Then I had suggested a more permanent relationship, one that involved rings.

     Wow!  That was unexpected!  Fortunately we discussed the situation and decided to talk further when I got home.  She then told me that the conversation had taken place entirely in Korean.  She had had some friends over for lunch, but spent the entire time talking to me on the phone.  Her friends were very curious as to who she had been talking to, because they knew her boyfriend to be an American, and also that I was out of country.  She recalled laughingly their expressions when she explained that it was me that she was talking to, and that yes, he is an American!!