PX Christmas
By Martin Limón
When a routine black market bust exposes the seedy underworld of Seoul, two military GIs must take matters into their own hands to rescue a fellow soldier’s wife from a crime lord.
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Plot Summary
With Christmas approaching soon, the U.S. military has decided to implement a Suicide Prevention program for its soldiers stationed in South Korea. While most military police are directed to the new program, George Sueño and his partner Ernie are kept on the black market detail. The army has a PX outpost in which they sell soldiers living goods at low prices, but oftentimes Korean military wives will resell their purchases to the black market to provide for their families. Sueño and Ernie don’t feel strongly about their mission, so they arbitrarily pick a young woman to arrest that morning. Her name is Sooki, and her husband Roland Garfield comes to pick her up soon after the arrest. The Suicide Prevention program is so successful that Sueño and Ernie are reassigned to pick up soldiers and transport them to watch housing. One of the soldiers on the list is Garfield, and to their surprise he asks for their help. His wife needed to make money to send back to her family, so she went to work in the nightclub district, but he hasn’t heard from her since. Sueño and Ernie agree to help find her, and that night they go to her nightclub. They locate her, but are unable to get her out and start a fight in the club, leading to their arrest. The next day, their contact in the Korean police helps them locate the crime lord who runs the nightclub and explains that Sooki has been taken to a brothel. He can’t assist them in the take-down because the crime lord, Huk, is protected by the corrupt police. Sueño and Ernie get help from a couple of their fellow soldiers and together carry out a successful raid on the brothel, rescuing Sooki and taking Huk prisoner. They tie him up on train tracks until he agrees not to go after them or Sooki again. After their success, Sueño and Ernie return to the PX, where they talk about continuing their enlistment and find Sooki once again.
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