Carnett: For better or worse, things constantly change

The older I get the more I realize things never remain the same.

Everything changes. In fact, some things change rather drastically over oh, say, a 50-year interval.

Proof? No matter how old you are, take a look at your senior picture from high school. If it’s been a while since you last looked at it you’re in for a shock.

The universe is in constant flux. My world is in a state of flux. I’m in flux.

We’re told that things are either getting better or they’re getting worse –- never do they remain constant.

Half a century ago, in June 1965, I and 4,000 other American G.I.s steamed across the Pacific aboard the troop ship, USNS Gordon, bound from San Francisco for Incheon, South Korea. By ‘65, the Gordon was a weary World War II anachronism. But it was our home for 23 grueling days.

As I recall, we pulled into Incheon Harbor on a sparkling early summer’s morn. It was a busy, but less-than-impressive, port. The buildings ringing the harbor seemed ancient, squat and depressing. The air was pungent with the odor of summer rice planting.

We anchored offshore, then loaded up — 100 or so at a time — in launches that took us to an unloading dock. Because of our number, 4,000, the sun had passed its zenith by the time I was finally hauled ashore.

I was on the pier in the sweltering heat long enough to find my duffel bag (in a mountain-high pile) and board the back end of a 2 1/2-ton Army truck headed for Seoul. That was my introduction to an exotic and beautiful land.

The only thing I knew about Incheon at the time was that it was the site where, during the Korean War in 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur made his brilliant tactical landing behind enemy lines.

I was to spend the next 18 months in Korea. For a year I’d be in Seoul, 30 miles east of Incheon. The final six months I was just a few miles north.

Today Incheon shimmers like gold in the morning sun and is South Korea’s third-largest city with nearly 3 million people. A commentator for the Golf Channel’s coverage of the President’s Cup held there a couple of weeks back told his audience that the city now has more than 400 skyscrapers and high-rises.

Four hundred!

I watched much of the tournament on TV, live from Korea, and was amazed.

The President’s Cup was staged at the breathtaking Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Incheon. Rather than focusing my eyes on golf shots, however, I found myself mesmerized by the spectacular cityscape in the background. Incheon’s buildings seemed to loom majestically over the 7,300-yard course on two sides, while the waters of the Yellow Sea caressed the other two.

This wasn’t the Incheon I remembered.

The crowds for the President’s Cup were huge and enthusiastic. I was reminded of Korea’s love for golf.

I was sports editor of the Eighth Army Support Command newspaper, The Frontiersman, in 1965-66.

In August of ‘65, I covered the Eighth Army Golf Tournament, which was played on the beautiful Eighth Army Course in Seoul. Jack Nicklaus’ Incheon dazzler was not yet even a dream. But Nicklaus was an up-and-coming young “phenom” who would soon make his mark.

I spent five days on the Seoul course following the golfers.

Thirty-one-year-old Sgt. Orville Moody — a future PGA champ — won that tourney in an 18-hole playoff.

An All-Army and Interservice champ, Moody was discharged the following year after 14 years of service. His buddy, Lee Trevino, a Marine, convinced him to leave the Army to join the professional tour.

Moody’s tour nickname became “Sarge,” and he won the 1969 U.S. Open.

Sarge died in 2008, at age 74.

My impression of Moody after following him for five days on the U.S. Army course in Seoul was that he was a gentleman’s gentleman: soft-spoken and gracious.

He never changed, unlike the universe around him.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.