Anyone who's been to a show in Korea in the past two and a half years has certainly witnessed Paul. Whether he's smashing bottles on his head for spare change or playing guitar for Suck Stuff or Rux, Paul is hard to miss. So it was a surprise when he announced he was leaving Korea. He had previously announced his engagement to his girlfriend Yumi, and now his plans have been carried out. I conducted one final interview with him on his last week in Korea.

BROKE: Where are you going?
PAUL: First of all Fort Leonard Wood Missouri for Basic Training. I'll be there for about 11 weeks of Basic training but around Christmas the Army has something called Exodus which is a 10 day period where you can take leave. I'll be spending Christmas with my Father and Sister in Tucson Arizona. That can be denied if I have any huge fuck-ups while in Basic and fuck ups are always a possibility with me. My dad's taking leave from Iraq to come in so it's a big deal.

Basic Training was lengthened the day I signed and goes into affect in November. It was 9 weeks of hell and now it's about 11 weeks of hell. They also increased the field excersizes because most of us -will- be seeing action.

Oh yeah, and no smoking in Basic. Fuck.

After Basic Training I'll be heading to Fort Sam Houston Texas for AIT which is Advanced Individual Training. That's where you get your book learning for your MOS (Military Service Occupation, your job in the Army). Fort Sam is the Army's medical command. My MOS is 68Whiskey, which is combat medic. I will be there for 16 weeks learning about providing cover fire, first response to casualties, triage, polytrauma, evacuation and emergency battlefield life support, preventative medicine, field sanitation, and training other solders to be combat life savers. It's pretty intense now and when I finish will have my EMT-B license.

BROKE: Why are you doing it?
PAUL: A ton of reasons. I am a lot different than most of the English teachers here. First of all I'm not legit. Second of all and most importantly, I don't have a home town. You all have somewhere you can go back to. You know the names of the streets and shit. Other than Korean, Utah, Washington and Mississippi I never lived in one place for longer than a year. I need to get some roots. I gotta build a future for Yumi and I and the dog. People ask me where I'm from and I don't know how to answer.

I think I have a hero complex or something but I really want to help people. Actually I signed on for medic and hopefully I will never have to shoot anyone because I don't want to hurt anyone. But I do want to help someone. My father asked me on the phone a few days ago if I would treat insurgents or terrorists. We all bleed red.

Also I want to serve my country. I had always told myself before that I couldn't handle it. I thought about it a lot and I need to distinguish myself from these college grads idiots out here in Korea. I used to want to be educated and book smart and shit but after meeting some "intellectuals" that's the last fucking thing I want to be. My hands have gotten too soft.

All the men of my family have served. My father retired as a TSGT in the Airforce. 2 other uncles of mine retired from the Airforce and I have an uncle that never came back from Vietnam. I have a cousin that was hurt in the 2nd battle of Fallujah as a Marine. 3 more cousins of mine are serving in the Airforce. My father has in storage my Grandfather's M1 Garand that he took with him to the shore to Iwa Jima. It goes all the way back to American Civil War (sorry, my family fought for the South). I guess I have to live up to all that.

BROKE: Where will you go?
PAUL: It's the needs of the army. I will put in for a CONUS (Continental US) duty station then Yumi and I will get of- ficially hitched up. That way she'll be living on base housing and taken care of.

After that I hope to be deployed and ship downrange. Medics are in high demand and are deployed all the time. I won't do no one any good in Korea treating VD. Hopefully I won't be going to Iran but that's another story.

After all that I think I might want to go to Drill Sgt school. I reckon I could make a pretty good Drill.

BROKE: What will happen to Suck Stuff?
PAUL: Suck Stuff will continue. Bu-il (bass) will be moving to guitar and the lead singer of Ska Sucks will be taking over bass. Ska Sucks and Suck Stuff will be merging. Suck Stuff will rock the fuck out.

BROKE: What's going on with Sukie and Yumi?
PAUL: My girls are going to be staying here at my old apartment until I can arrange it to where Yumi and I get married with all the X's. Then they'll be coming to live on base with me. They'll stay there even when I'm deployed.

BROKE: How supportive has everybody been, Yumi, your parents, your band, your friends?
PAUL: My parents are tickled pink. The war saved my father really. He gets paid in the 6 digits out there so now he's getting ?ip hookers and sailboats and all that shit. My mom wants me to join but isn't so keen on me being deployed but she knows the money is good out there.

Yumi has been less than thrilled. She doesn't want me to go and really doesn't want me to go to Iraq. But she's been babying me lately, I guess I deserve it, I won't be getting anything like that for a long time. I don't know if she really understands all that it entails but she'll see. We won't be eeking by the way we have for the past year. I'll do her good and make her proud. I told her to be happy she didn't get no weak wristed little Kangnam boy. She is a bit worried about paying the rent every month and everything but I think she'll be OK.

The band was a little worried and Chul-hwan said he wanted to stop making music after I left but I pushed him to keep going. The Korean punks have been very supportive of me and expect me to be stationed back here. I hope not.

My friends have all been great. They've all reassured me that if Yumi needs anything while I'm away to just ask. Some of my "myspace friends" have said things like "How dare you join the genocidal blah blah blah" but they don't have a fucking clue. Here in Korea though, most have been more surprised than anything else. I have made some of the best friends in the world over here and I won't be able to forget anyone of them.

BROKE: What will you miss about Korea? What are you happy to leave behind?
PAUL: I'll miss my friends the most. I've had some amazing experiences out here in Korea that I wouldn't trade for all the oil in Kuwait. But I'm sick of saying goodbye, I won't miss that at all.

I'll miss the scene. Kinda.

I'll miss tea in general too.

I'll miss that. Waking up and saying to myself "You know what? I'm going to drink tea and watch cartoons all day".

I'm happy to leave behind the people here that have been told all their life that they are special and unique and expect everyone to pay attention to them. I will not miss people that call themselves artists. I will not miss people that tell me about my aura being negative that pork has negative energy. The fucking idiot waeguk bands here too, they can all go fuck off and die. Kyopos too, those Sex in the City watching morons. When I filled out my army papers I put my race down as white. I might get the god damn surgury just I'm not confused for one of you lot.

If any of the above are ever reading this: You are not special or unique. If you take any exception to anything I'll be more than happy to go fistycuffs with ya while I'm on leave. I can out smart you over the table (with no college education assholes!) and drink you under the table. You douche bags don't got nothing over me and never will and I intend to back that up.

BROKE: What are some things you wish you had done here?
PAUL: I wish that I had gotten to know my Korean friends better. I also wish that I could have fought the Seoul Penetrators at least once.

I wish I could've kept Yumi a little better. It's no good when you're roaming around the sidewalks looks for butts to smoke. It's no good eating fried dough for days and days on end. That's all about to end though.

BROKE: Will you keep making music?
PAUL: Oh yeah. I would like to start a real meat and potatoes kinda punk band with some heavy country in?uences once I get all settled down and shit. So I plan on laying waste to rich kids and emo for the rest of my life.

Until then I'm going to write more country kinda stuff. I'm not very good at it and I've got about 12 or so songs kinda written but not ?eshed out very well. I've never been a crazy good songwriter and arranging words so that they'd make sense to anyone else has always been a huge hurdle for me.

But I can't see myself NOT playing music anywhere. When my tours and duty's done it's time for me to be drinking acres of tea and playing music. Punk is way too loud really, the message is often lost in the fashion and egos and shit. Country has been taken over by pretty boys that never have had no dirt under their nails. Punk and country have a lot more in common than most people think.

See ya'll when I'm all grown up.