Back at GW, I am a member of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME), and I made a few contacts in contracting as well as in uniform. One such uniformed contact is a colonel with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). I knew that there was a large US military presence in Seoul, so I sent him an email asking if he knew anybody in the Far East District that I could meet with while studying abroad.
Boy, did he ever. He put me in touch with the commanding officer of the Far East District. Yeah, I couldn't really ask for a better connection. I had emailed with him a little but before heading to Seoul, but I finally set up a meeting with him this past Monday.
The Corps of Engineers base is not attached to the main garrison in Yongsan, it has its own separate site in Dongdaemun. The garrison was easy to find with the map the Colonel's secretary sent me, and it was even easier to spot in person. Not too many buildings in Seoul are surrounded by a 10 foot concrete wall with barbed wire. I got to the gate and told the guards that I had a 2:30 appointment with the Colonel. The first thing that surprised me was that the guards were Korean civilians, not uniformed personnel. I would soon learn why. The male guard didn't speak much English, so he referred me to his female counterpart. She asked me if I was the Colonel's son because we both had, "Handsome hair." I explained that I had a meeting and so she called the office to send someone down. She held onto my drivers' license and I went to the Executive Offices with an escort from a Korean guy from the office. I entered the office, walked up stairs, and saw the picture of the Colonel with the flag background in the hall. Yup, this was his post.
I sat down in the reception area, but first I thanked his executive secretary for helping me set up the meeting. We exchanged about 15 emails since I got here to get the time right, and I couldn't thank him enough. He said that the Colonel was excited to meet me and that he was looking forward to the meeting. Excellent, that was one fear down. I was petrified he was just begrudgingly doing this. Whew.
While sitting down I noticed a nice big grease mark on my pants from the hinge on one of my classroom desks. Classic. Luckily it was small and situated right below the curve of my wallet, so I wasn't all that worried. Then it hit me that I was meeting with a guy who has a $15 billion dollar budget to deal with. What. My shoes weren't even shined well and my pants were too big. I felt like I had no business being there whatsoever. It's a good thing I had my kickass SAME shirt on to keep me focused and remember that everybody's a young punk at one point or another.
I heard footsteps and then figured the time to not fuck up a handshake was swiftly approaching. Sure enough, "You must be Anthony" hit my ears and it was go-time. Colonel Donald Degidio couldn't have been nicer. Or taller for that matter. He was about 6'4" (1.93m for you godless savages). We shook hands and we went into his office. I'd never been in an executive office before, but this is pretty much what I imagined it to be like. A bookcase, personal cabinet, long table for meetings, big wooden desk with a dual-monitor setup, leather couch, huge wall-mounted TV, a projection screen. It had it all. And that was just the non-military stuff. He had about 9 swords on the wall, three full sized US, ROK and USACE flags behind his desk, his helmet and body armor on an armor rack next to the flags, 4 shovels from groundbreakings, and some personal decorations like degrees and pictures of his family. It's good to be the king.
We sat down and asked if I minded the game being on; the Phillies game was on. First time I'd seen American TV on a TV instead of a computer. I said the game wouldn't distract me, the Yankees weren't playing. He then pointed to his Red Sox ball on the shelf and asked if we were gonna have a problem. I could tell this was going to be substantially less stressful than I had previously imagined. We then had a sports talk. I said I support NY teams, Yankees, Giants, Knicks. He then said that casual Fridays on base mean no uniforms, but you have to wear an article of clothing from your favorite sports team. He then opened his cabinet and said , "I grew up in Rhode Island." Inside were jerseys from all New England sports teams. Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox, and Celtics, all customized. This really stood out to me. Individuality and the US military aren't really two things people tend to group together, but it is a testament to what makes America great. They may all be united by the same uniform 4 days of the week, but they're united in a different way on the 5th. Not as soldiers, but as sports loving Americans. Also, seeing your boss walk around in a rival team's jersey has got to lead to some slightly relaxed fraternization rules if there's a big game coming up. Trash talk is just one thing that cannot be contained.
Then he noticed my shirt. He made fun of it for having a submarine on it, but I told him not to worry; our t-shirt had the tank on it. He laughed and said he liked the sub more because it reminded him of his dad who built subs with Electric Boat at Groton. Engineering runs in the family. Heavy duty military engineering. He said his dad's world was turned on its head when they made the switch to nuclear. That must have been one hell of a meeting.
We then talked about engineering here at KU, GW, and here in on the base. He said the individual work aspect of things is pretty familiar to him, he went to The Citadel for his civil engineering undergrad, that's how he became an officer. We talked for a little bit longer about his and my personal lives, his son, my family, and a mutual distaste for multivariable calculus. I asked him about internships and he said they offered them to undergrads and recent graduates. I know what application I'm filling out the second it opens up.
He then offered me a quick look around the base. First, he told me that the base was half US and half Korean nationals. This explains the guards, as well as the huge number of Korean scientists I met. The soils lab was cool, but no experiments were going on, so we kept moving along. The main engineering building reminded me a lot of Tompkins, lots of CAD going on. There were also all kinds of different engineers. Financial, civil, electrical, mechanical, systems, you name it, they had it. He then said he wished he had this in college, he did all his diagrams by hand. I then made a joke about miter lines and he laughed. He said I had it easy with CAD, he had huge portfolios of floor plans and diagrams. And I thought small scale construction lines were a hassle... Then his engineers showed me a program that could be used to essentially map out an entire building's layout. A 3D model with a separate layer for each part. One for electrical wiring, wood beams, steel beams, pipes, gas lines, if a building needed it, it could diagram it and see how each and every part would interact. I really liked this part. Seeing what I could actually be doing with my degree is what I wanted to do the most. Although I'm a mechanical engineer, it is highly unlikely I'll only be using Matlab, AutoCAD and Pro-E until I retire. So yeah, a glimpse into adulthood was much appreciated. The demonstration was also in a computer lab so hot that I had a flashback to the 4th floor of Tompkins, the hottest computer lab on the face of this earth. He said that I'd never been inside a computer lab in the South Carolina summer. I don't know, GW could probably give them a run for their money.
Unfortunately, his time was very short because he had another meeting, but I couldn't complain. I just got a site tour from an engineering executive. I was pretty thrilled. Even more thrilling were all the things he gave me.
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| Hat, Shirt and Command Coin! |
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| Amen to that |
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