Yongsan Legacy Returning to Yongsan, in search of long-lost family
As the U.S. military relocates out of Yongsan Garrison, Yongsan Legacy aims to archive the living memories of those who served, worked and lived there. This is one of them. ― ED.
By Marsha Altvater
Richard S. Mead, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, passed away in 2010. / 2018-05-24 (The Korea Times)
I was born in Yongsan to an unwed Korean mother and an American GI. But unlike many other Amerasian children, mine was an atypical story. I was brought up in a Korean family home, unlike so many like myself who were either abandoned or put up for adoption. For this, I will be forever grateful to my grandmother, since I know my birth brought great shame to our family. Also unlike many of the others, I have always known who my father was and what he looked like from pictures. He, too, did not abandon me.
My father was a young MP during the mid-1950s assigned to Yongsan when he met my mother. Toward the end of his tour, he finally got his command's approval for their marriage. However, my mother decided she didn't want to leave her family to marry him. After he relocated to Germany, she discovered she was pregnant. When she contacted him to let him know, he promised he would return and take me back to the U.S. She corresponded with him and his family about my birth and sent pictures over the years to let them know how I was doing. He returned after eight years, and I went with him to the U.S. in 1965.
Marsha Altvater is pictured as a baby in the arms of her mother. / Courtesy of Marsha Altvater / 2018-05-24 (The Korea Times)
To me as a Korean-American child, Yongsan Garrison was a place that was forever behind an impassable gate. One day, I decided to go in search of my father. From the outhouse window of my home you could see the road and the gate leading to the garrison across a gully between the two. One time, my mother held me up to the window and told me my father had worked at the gate.
In my mind's eye, I can still see myself as a little girl walking down the main road where I lived, crossing a bridge over the gully and coming around the corner to the short road that led to its entrance. When I arrived and tried to get through the gate, the Korean MP stopped me. I told him I needed to find my dad so I could go to America. Of course, he informed me my dad was not there and told me not to come back. It became my daily ritual for a while to walk to the gate, but not to get too close and have a staring contest with the Korean MPs on gate duty.
After my dad returned, I finally got through a gate into Yongsan Garrison. He took me to the PX to buy a new winter coat and scarf the night before we flew to the U.S., leaving my Korean family behind and losing all contact with them.
When someone turns 60 in Korean years, it is a special hallmark and time of celebration. I promised myself I would follow the Korean tradition and return to Yongsan when I turned 60, if I had not returned by then. I will be returning this September, a year later than I anticipated, to track down my long-lost Korean family. I am elated to finally stay on Yongsan Garrison at the Dragon Hill Lodge and go in and out any gate as much as I please. After 53 years, I am finally coming home to Yongsan!
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