You’re one of the few in the Corps of Engineers in South Korea who wears a uniform.
People associate the Corps of Engineers with civil works … but since 9/11 it’s undertaken in immense role in the global war on terror, deploying not only uniforms but many civilians as well.
You’d retired when you were called back?
I retired in June 2001, with thirty years’ service, from III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas, as chief of engineer plans. Four months later, 9/11 happened. I immediately put my name back in. … In September 2005 I found out I was being sent to Korea.
After you tried to retire, you opened an Irish pub in the States. Was this a dream?
Just a thought but it became reality by accident. I met a Guinness rep at the Fort Hood Officers’ Club one day. We started talking. … He opened his laptop and applied what he called the pub-user’s profile to Fort Hood. We were both amazed that a pub could work in the area. … I was hooked.
Your favorite Irish beer?
Guinness, of course. When my mother was pregnant with my two younger brothers (and probably with the rest of us) the doctor would prescribe a half-bottle of Guinness a day as a high source of iron. It must have worked as I seem to like it a lot. Genetic??
You’ve been heard to say your pub is haunted?
One night after closing, I was in the back office when I started hearing a shuffling sound. … The office door’s top half was open halfway. I saw a face appear in the center window, then disappear. I was suffused by freezing cold. With goosebumps the size of peanuts, I got up and slowly started to search the premises, surrounded by that cold — but the place was locked.
What else?
We started having a rash of exploding glassware. Bartenders would see glasses slide quickly off shelves af if someone was flicking them with a hand. One exploded while a woman was drinking her first Irish Car Bomb.
Anyone else seen this chap?
The staff started to see a face appear in the Bushmills Mirror. … Then one night while closing … my wife saw the fellow … a short man in black suit with a hat standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Figuring someone did not lock the front doors and this fellow wandered in, she asked if she could help him. He stopped, turned around and faded away. My wife yelled for me then.
Any idea who he is?
We started calling him O’Brian. A couple of months after the “appearance,” two elderly ladies came in for lunch. My wife went over to say hello and one lady said to her: “There is a ghost here, you know.” … Then the other lady spoke up: “He’s a short little man wearing a black suit and hat. He’s Perky!” My wife said: “Perky?” and the lady said that he liked it here. “Has he always been here?” asked my wife. “No he just showed up,” replied the lady. We would have toasts for him on St. Patrick’s Day and the Guinness Society’s weekly meetings.
Lt. Col. George Campbell Shott
Age: 58
Day job: Plans & Operations officer, Security, Plans & Operations Office, Far East District, Corps of Engineers, Seoul
Pacific readers: Know someone whose accomplishments, talents, job, hobby, volunteer work, awards or good deeds qualify them for 15 minutes of fame? How about someone whose claim to glory is a bit out of the ordinary — even, dare we say, oddball? Call Sharen Johnson at Stars and Stripes with the person’s name and contact information at DSN 229-3305 or e-mail her at johnsons@pstripes.osd.mil.