Pacific Stars and Stripes, September
21, 1953
Pusan Port
By PFC William Bullivant
HQ.,
KOREAN BASE SECTION, Pusan, Korea, Sept. 21
- Susie Q, an 8 year old Korean orphan, has accomplished what most military
strategists would claim impossible - she took Pusan Army Port by storm.
The brown-eyed, pigtailed imp began her campaign by allowing Col. Ralph
B. Garretson, San Antonio, Tex., port commander, to find her asleep
in a jeep packed on Pier 1.
AFTER THAT, things came easy. While Garretson was
making arrangements for her future, Susie Q was busy winning friends
in the staff sections at Port headquarters. She hammered on typewriters
and delved into the contents of filing cabinets with the finesse of
a private secretary. The variety and intensity of her studies could
have won her a dozen MOSs.
The judge advocate and the Navy's Military Sea
Transportation Service capitulated within a matter of minutes. The entire
port fell in two days.
THE "BARGE HOTEL" provided showers and meals for
the little waif and practically every female employee of the port chipped
in with suggestions on her hairdo, makeup and skirt length. Now, Susie
has new friends to conquer. She is living at the Chong Duk Won orphanage
on tiny Ka Duk Island 20 miles south of Pusan. She was taken there
by a party of port officers and enlisted men who have adopted the 130
"babysan" of Chong Duk Won in the name of the entire installation.
In the future, Susie will be kept busy learning to integrate her American
slang and soldier's ways with the customs and speech of her little Korean
companions. Can she do it? In her own words, "Ya better believe it."
SSA-680
