Today was the Second Infantry Division's "Holiday Reception." As a member of the woodwind quintet, I helped to support the event as high ranking soldiers in Korea attended the reception held by the commanding general of the division, and I even got my first coin presented by an American general, GEN Sharp (as a 4-star, no one is of a higher rank-- only a higher position.) I have gotten a coin before from a general, but he was Korean and the head of the UN forces in Korea, which I find ironic since as a US soldier, for a while my only coin from a general was from a foreigner.
So we showed up at work kind of early in the morning, ready to get underway, but already we ran into problems. After the equipment was loaded onto the truck, our driver discovered that the parking break was stuck on! Needless to say, we did not take the truck... we emptied the truck and stuffed one of our two vans full of equipment, and stuffed both vans with people. Meanwhile, we sent one group by bus. The reception was held about an hour away at Yongsan, so they rode a commercial bus contracted by the Army. Already amused at the truck's misfortunes, I settled down in the van, but the day's troubles were far from over. Before leaving the parking lot, we tried to open the van's side door... but it was stuck. Maybe something had frozen; I don't know, but we didn't get it fixed until we got to Yongsan and at least 4 people had kicked, hit, pushed, and pulled the door until it finally came open.
We were there at the Dragon Hill Lodge, ready to go, all of our problems over... or so I thought. As I was putting on my uniform, I saw that one of my buttons had fallen off! The jacket has 4 sew-on buttons, while the rest are clipped on, and the one second from the bottom had dissappeared. We didn't have to play for another 35 minutes, but we were to be in place within 5, so I told my group leader and rushed down to the lobby floor where I knew of an alterations shop. I found the shop and explained my prediciment, and after he realized it was an emergency, the guy running the shop found a spare button. It didn't quite match (mine were shiny, it was the older non-shiny type), but it would do for the day. Unfortunately, as I took off my jacket, the next butten up popped off. At this point I had to be in place in three minutes. Another guy took out needle and thread and reinforced the first button before sewing on the second, though by this time I had to be in place in minus one minute. Not good. At that point, after telling the first (english speaking) guy that I was in the band and had to be in place, he spoke in Korean and the second guy did the fasted job I've ever seen and, though not the full quality he probably wanted to do, did quick job on the final button.
I threw on the jacket and hurried to the elevators, stressed because I was already a full three minutes late, but when I got inside, the mezzanine button would not light! The elevator closed its doors and moved up to the third floor where someone had called it. I got out, not thinking of staying IN the elevator, and pressed the down button to call another elevator. I waited and I waited. Then I waited some more. Finally, in desperation, I charged out the emergency exit to the stairwell (the stairwell had no alarm, and yes, it was an emergency!), but the mezzanine was locked from in there too! Eventually I made my way back to the lobby and was informed by a bus boy that the mezzanine level was turned off during the reception so people would go up the stairs across the lobby and go through the reception line. (Considering they were expecting some handicapped guests, I have to wonder at the intelligence of whoever made that decision.) I hurried over and up the steps and was able to make it to the ball room in time, though by the end of all my hurrying, I was a good ten minutes late.
In the end, though, nothing else went wrong, except for a pad falling out of my spit valve, but it went back into place, so it was ok. Talk about a stressful morning!
