A/N: The first two drabbles from the 'Colors in Korea' series. Neither is exactly 100 words ('Red' is 118, 'Green' is 106), but enjoy anyway!
Red in Korea:
To those in Korea, red meant only one thing: blood.
In the far-off USA, red meant far more. It was the color of the holidays, tied into great big bows on presents, the color of Santa's suit, the color of faces whipped by the wintry winds or the color of anger and love.
But in Korea, whether at the front or 3 miles behind it, red meant none of that. The word red could only mean blood.
And blood had it's own meaning: death. Too much of it around you, too little of it inside you...
Death.
That was what blood, and thus red, meant to the temporary denizens of Korea.
All it could be, and nothing more.
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Green in Korea:
Green.
Like red and white, it was a holiday color, and in Korea it too meant something totally different. Green here was a drab, gloomy gray-green that sucked the life from everything. There was no 'the grass is always greener on the other side', no decking 'the halls with boughs of holly', but there were 'greenhorns'.
Yet they lost their shiny white patina of wide-eyed innocence and became veterans in fatigues of gray-green. They went from white, wood-frame houses to cloth tents in the same monochromatic color scheme.
The Army disliked variety, and green gave them uniformity. Why be different when you can be the same?
