Life in Korea has come full circle….the boy scouts are coming back.

Ok, so yeah…that whole “oh look! They’re planting the rice again!”…is more of a full circle of life kinda thing. But hey, it’s late. I’m tired.

Work with me.

Because if you, like me, had no life back in June of 2009 then you’ll remember one of my initial posts about the boy scouts arrival.

I was still adjusting to life in Korea – I’d been here all of a month & a half and in my absolute & total ignorance I blamed the early morning reveille on the boy scouts.

Yeah…the sound wasn’t so much from the boy scouts as it was from the base…wafting over & across the rice fields straight into our open bedroom windows.

Turns out, if we listen hard enough, you can always hear reveille in the morning…and then retreat in the afternoon…and taps at night.

Reveille: The Army’s way of saying “rise & shine” at 0600 every morning & to signal they’re raising the flag, aka colors.

Retreat: A bugle call to signal the end of the official duty day when the colors come down. There’s a pre-warning blast that plays out at 1655. This is so that come 1700 when the full song plays every soldier – whether they’re in uniform or not, in a taxi cab or outside the commissary knows to face the direction of the flag, stand at attention & salute. And yes, if you’re in a car you stop & get out. The taxi driver will wait for you.

Taps: While it’s played at the end of a military funeral, it’s also played every night as a way to signal “lights out”.

So now you know…don’t you feel smarter already?

I mean, c’mon…that topic is bound to come up in a trivial pursuit question at some point in your life.