“The men and women who made up DoDDS Korea during the time I was there were an eclectic group to say the least, but as a group we were among the most talented, diverse, intelligent, fun, crazy, thoughtful, caring, and dedicated people in the world. We did important work, and we did it well. Better than that, we did it exceptionally well. We were experts in our fields, and we made each other better still because we depended on each other in ways that people who’ve never lived overseas could ever imagine.”

“But then we did not think of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. we thought we were superior people and other people that we looked down on and rightly mistrusted were rich.”

“It was better that we never apologized to each other. Then we’d be admitting that we were wrong and we owed each other something. That’s where people got into trouble.”

“We were anxious to begin our life as people who had no people. And it was easy to find an apartment because we had no standards; we were just amazed that it was *our* door, *our* rotting carpet, *our* cockroach infestation... We were excited about getting jobs; we hardly went anywhere without filling out an application. But once we were hired—as furniture sanders—we could hardly believe this was really what people did all day. Everything we had thought of as The World was actually the result of someone's job. Each line on the sidewalk, each saltine. Everyone had rotting carpet and a door to pay for. Aghast, we quit. There had to be a more dignified way to live. We needed time to consider ourselves, to come up with a theory about who we were and to set it to music.”

“We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.”

“What? Did we end up hating each other? Did we end up the way we thought we always knew would? Did I end up wearing khakis because of that fucking ad?”