Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Army deserter found with bullet wound in head
Lee, 20, was returning from guard duty when he abruptly went on a shooting rampage around 1 a.m. Friday, killing one soldier and injuring another. The motive for Lee's shooting isn't known yet. After the incident, Lee fled his unit in Gapyeong, a city just south of the demilitarized zone, with a K2 rifle and 13 rounds of ammunition.
Yonhap News (August 10, 2006)
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060810/610000000020060810150702E0.html

[Juregen]

Well i am all against conscripts anyway.

Poor guy, i wonder what made him tick off.

[Guri Guy]

Being in the army is a dehumanizing experience. You really have to lose your humanity to want to kill another human being I think. I guess the guy just snapped. The Korean army like any army is not a good place to be.

[animalbirdfish]

[matthews_world]

Ah, that's why the news showed Korean MPs patroling northern Kyonggi this morning.

[kimchi_pizza]

Were you ever in the service Guri Guy? Then how would you know the experience of it? Wanting to kill another human being means they never had any humanity at all, let alone lose it. Just check your own local hometown news. Military service probably brought out (outlet?) what was already in the person.

As for not being not a good place to be in, try the county jail, welfare office, or a stool at Murry's tavern with your name on it.

Though it isn't be best of occupations, it does present a chance for low income, under-educated youngsters to get a start in life. I should know because I was one. No money, dropped out of community college, constant fights with family. Only route open? Military Service.

Now, I've earned my BA in TESOL (whole other explanation!) at a distinguished private university, taught in Japan, Taiwan and now Korea over the past 5 years and I am darn proud of all my students.

As for wanting to kill others? Well, I was an MP in the U.S. Army for 5 years and only once came close to killing another and that was in Bosnia during a mission to capture a war criminal. I served honorably and proudly, but don't talk about it and most definitely don't throw it in anyone's face unless I hear or read comments like yours. (Won't even find an American flag/sticker/picture anywhere in my classroom.)

I'm not upset and this isn't a personal attack. Don't get me wrong now. Just every once in awhile the educated needs to be educated.

[Guri Guy]

No offence to military personal. I apologize if I offended anyone. However, I firmly believe that killing another human being is not natural. The army knows this and has to condition people to be able to do this. This conditioning is dehumanizing to an extent. Some people take this conditioning well and others don't. It seems this particular soldier didn't. Unfortunate.

[Juregen]

hmm
let me try to express my ideas on conscritpion vs proffesional army.

If a country has conscription (amateurs), then they rely on the people to sacrifice some of their time, and safety, in order to be trained to be able to fight in a war. Correct me if i am wrong.

I have no knowledge of a country that does not have an army, apart from silly ones like Rome and Nice...

If a country has a proffesional army, these people are actually paid to do so.


Now in conscription, the "youngsters" will be trained how to use a gun, incease physical aptitude and will likely learn how to rob anyones life. There is also a lot of stress involved because a lot of people just don't want to be there for a lot of reason. Then we have the cases of bullies. And so on and so forth.

So imho, conscription is a waste of resources in the broadest sense possible.

The proffesional army indeed provides a lot of underpriviliged individuals to still make their way in the world, not taking into account their past. But that at the same time is a weak point imho. Why only the underpriviliged? In that sense it is only the less advantegous whom have to protect the well off. Ofcourse it is more then just that, but it still is a valid point.

Still, i prefer a proffesional army any day, apart from protecting the country, they are also great help when disasters happen. They are well equiped to deal with stress situations, theyare trained to do so. I prefer to see a proffesional army as an aid institution that can operate in dangerous situation. Not as a killing mechanism.

[Guri Guy]

Good point. As far as Korea goes though, I don't think they could afford a Professional Army as they would actually have to pay them a decent wage instead of 10,000 won/month plus cigarettes. Conscripts are much cheaper in that way.

[kimchi_pizza]

I would rather have 1 professional soldier rather than 10 or even a platoon (40) of conscript soldiers. For the simple reason of having a choice and a motivation for joining and making a possible career out of it.
Funny, or not so funny, thing about it is that most threats/close-calls to my life were by the foolishness of other U.S. soldiers and half of those by other members in my own platoon!

For this ROK soldier, I feel some sympathy without knowing the real cause for all this. BUT for a U.S. soldier, I have absolutely NO sympathy and almost anger for a soldier to pull a stunt like that as he(she!) has no one but himself (or herself!) to blame.

I've heard of the hardships that ROK Army soldiers go through and pity them to a small extent. I worked with KATUSAs (Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army) before and they had it much easier since they had U.S. leadership, but still got paid very little.
I'm not sure now, but I remember being told something like they get paid as much as U.S. soldiers but only receive something like 10,000 won a month. The rest goes to the government. Something odd like that. This was in '93, so I may be a little more now, like...12,000?

[seoulshock]

back in 1995 i was in the ROKMC (my dad is a former ROKMC, and he somehow got me in there), at a time when i spoke korean at an elementary level. on top of that, i was never much of a physical guy, and even a bit overweight.

if any of you saw full metal jacket... you can figure out which character i was. and just like the movie the only thing i was somewhat decent at was shooting those K2 rifles.

i remember i would cry myself to sleep almost every night in the beginning... and to top it off, all the other guys in my unit would mess with me while sleeping... whether covering my body in shaving cream, or putting toothpaste all over my body and even squeezing it into my ear... or removing the nails from the wall so that i wouldn't be able to hang my net to protect me from mosquitos... where while everyone slept peacefully, i woke up with 80+ mosquito bites in one night. i remembr that day.

i really wanted to just shoot everyone.

the hardest was the language barrier, because they were always screaming at me and beating me, and just making me the big fool of the ROKMC. but the thing was, a lot of times these superiors didn't know my korean was bad... so they took it as an insult that i was ignoring them and they'd start beating me even more.

ugh.

but i didn't kill anyone.