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Politics The role of the Unification Church in Japanese politics

むかし、むかし、あるところに。。。

I was in korea, mid '71 to early '73, mostly in Seoul. Probably mid '72, among some of the people allowed on base were some young folks who came to "talk", their words, and one thing led to another and at one point, with a couple other fellow soldiers, I was invited downtown. So one evening in some unknown building in downtown Seoul, we continued our talks. I have no memory of what led up to that--what they'd said, or what I'd said, and so on--but there we were. At one point during the couple hours that we were there, some Korean guy came into the room, not for us (and he more or less just walked thru), but on his way to another room or something.

After this, it came up that that was Reverend Moon. These other guys and I had been talking to Moonies. In retrospect, kind of a Forest Gump moment. Of course they weren't called that at the time, and whatever else happened that evening, and later, I didn't become a Moonie.

But I remember one fellow from their group, even his name (which I won't give here, but initials JP), a british guy, maybe a year or two older than I was.

Oddly (or not?), after the army I went almost directly into the peace corps, which sent me back to Korea. Some time after I got there, and this was ~2yrs later than the above, so '74, I was in Seoul and had looked up some of the guys I had known from before, in the itaewon/hannam-dong area. Of course off base. Kind of a party environment, with beers and so on being out and around.

And who should then come in but this guy JP--still there in Korea. He didn't remember me, but I remembered him, asked what he was doing and so on. He said he'd met me before he "left the church", and seemed to be offering that more to the people he'd come with than to me. Kind of like they didn't know his full history there in Korea. I don't think he drank (or smoked) anything there, so he hadn't completely flip flopped. I wonder where he is now.

Not Moon/Unification-related, but as a peace corps volunteer I also once had dinner there with another fellow, Philip Habib, who the time was the US ambassador to Korea. A woman from a peace corps group that came a couple cycles after mine, later become the ambassador. Gee, maybe I should have pushed on a career in the foreign service* after all...


* actually, no. In the army, you only have to do your job; in the foreign service, you have to adhere to the US ideological POV. Whatever that might be at the time.
 
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