From the Winter Games: Time to say 안녕 annyeong

One of the few Korean words I actually learned is to say goodbye. That’s odd for me because goodbyes are always hard. I won’t have trouble bidding adieu to my alarm sounding at 4:00am, waiting on the bus in the cold darkness, working 15 hours days and sleeping on a mattress that I’m confident was made in the town of Bedrock for Fred and Wilma Flintsone.

What I will miss is the camaraderie of working with the best road crew in the business! Kathryn Brown, Richard Adkins and Jamie Munden have done the work of twice as many and they’ve made me look good.

I will miss the games and the excitement they produce.

Most of all I will miss the South Korean people.

From the moment we landed near Seoul 23 days ago, the people have been gracious beyond any I have ever seen and that includes all of those in the 16 countries from which I’ve traveled and reported in my career. In what could have been chaos in managing tens of thousands of people, the folks who call this beautiful land home have been welcoming and hospitable every day.

Smiles greet us. A Korean accented “Good morning” greets us several times a day. A genuine appreciation for us foreigners being here is felt. Yes, we are spending money and assisting the economy, but it goes beyond that. When strangers walk up and say, “Thank you for coming to see our country,” or at the DMZ, “We welcome you and thank you as Americans for all you’ve done for us,” or as a teenager said to me last week, “We are not at war here, don’t worry about us all the time…life is good…”…when these thoughts and ideas and ideals come to you unannounced or solicited, wow, what a reminder of humanity and its greatness.

Thank you South Korea for welcoming me. Thank you for creating a lifetime of experiences and memories.

Most of all, thank you for the reminder while we may look and sound a bit different, inside we are all the same.

All created equally.

All seeking peace.

Another reminder.

We are one.​