korea DMZ X corps artillery 1954 145th bn bloody ridge heartbreak ridge korean war

Military Scrip -- The army overseas, at least in Korea and Japan used scrip rather then US greenbacks. I suppose this was to control black market sales. The above are ten cent notes. They are 4 1/4 x 2 1/8 inches. The dollars were larger. The two on the left (front and back) were issued sometime in early 1954. In July they came out with a new issue (the two on the right). We had four hours to exchange all the money we had into the new series. During those 3 hours we were not allowed to leave our area or talk with any koreans. After the 3 hours the old issue was worthless. This was done all over Korea and possibly Japan at the same time.

Our unit had about 15% korean soldiers and we had 4 korean KP's. They were being paid in korean money. Any scrip they had became worthless.

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