Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

Survivors Recall Tragic Silmido Uprising

In the summer of 1971, Yang Dong-su lay on an operating table in a military hospital, bleeding from his neck and on the verge of death.

He unconsciously heard an order by an army surgeon that he needed to move to the mortuary because, the surgeon judged, Yang was dead from his gunshot injury.

Yang, now 55, panicked, and using all of his energy said, "I'm still alive!"

His life-and-death injury, during which he lost 10 kilograms in 12 hours due to heavy blood loss, happened during the Silmido uprising; a tragedy in which 24 South Korean would-be espionage agents killed 18 of their cadres in Silmido, an isolated island in the Yellow Sea, and finally themselves in Seoul 34 years ago. Yang is one of six training officers who survived the bloody uprising. Others survived by hiding in bathrooms, in between mattresses or among the rocks.

For more than half of their lives, Yang told The Korea Herald, he and other survivors have been living in the backwash of the Silmido uprising, suffering mentally and physically ever since. Promising the government that they would never tell their stories made them even more miserable.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/08/24/200508240014.asp

[Hollywoodaction]

I not sure I understand how the families of the people that were responsible for the human rights abuses on Silmido could argue that they deserve some compensation. I was thought while serving in the armed forces that a soldier has the moral obligation to disobey immoral orders.

[Aleatory]

[Hollywoodaction]