This weekend I get to look forward to Anti-American day brought to me courtesy of all the anti-American college students here in Korea who want Yankee to Go Home. Yet another weekend lost to protecting our camp from protestors. Personally I’m hoping it rains because last month while securing Camp Red Cloud some protestors came but quickly left when it started to rain. I guess the college students only hate US soldiers on sunny days. Check out the video clips on this anti-US site showing when the protestors who broke into Camp Red Cloud a year and half ago (Article).

Notice how they made sure they showed the soldiers with weapons as if they are about to get shot by the oppressive Americans. More of these type of activities are expected in the coming days as the anniversary of the accident that killed the two school girls approaches. The Korean attitude toward what happened to the two school girls is just mind boggling. I have had Koreans tell me that they think the Korean girls were ran over on purpose and that the Americans backed the tank over the bodies again to make sure they were really smashed. The fact of the matter is that the tank that ran over the girls had to get over on the right side of the road to avoid on coming traffic from another American armor column. The type of tank involved in the accident, the driver cannot see to his right and is dependent on the person in the turret to notify him of anything to his right. The person in the turret tried to warn the driver about the girls but could not be heard due to radio traffic on another frequency on the drivers head set.

By the time the driver heard the warning it was to late. Very tragic accident and there was definitely some things that could have been done to prevent it from the American side but also the Korean authorities have blame in this too. The routes for American convoys are approved through Korean authorities. Plus the road they were traveling on is very narrow as are many of the roads in the 2ID area where we train. To make matters worse there are very few sidewalks which causes the civilians to walk in the roads and since they are so used to tanks up here civilians do not get out off the road when tanks are going by. Then to top things off you add in crazy bus drivers, clueless civilian drivers, aggresive semi-trucks, and adashis in tractors all on these narrow roads and you have a plethora of potential traffic accidents. It is amazing there hasn’t been more accidents. Since I have been back in Korea there is an effort now to widen the roads in the 2ID area. To bad it took the death of two girls to get this done. Plus the safety measures American convoys take has gotten to the point of almost absurdity.

Just to go on a convoy we have to brief a general on our convoy plan with elaborate terrain models. Plus we drive 15-25 mph and get yelled at and honked by adashi for driving to slow. We just can’t win. I really believe that 2ID most likely has the safest driving program of any military. The division really goes all out to make convoys as safe as possible. However, even with all the effort into preventing another incident Murphy’s Law always comes into effect and sooner or later another accident will happen. With so many cars and people all using narrow roads that are being traveled on by 75 ton armored vehicles sooner or later something is bound to happen no matter how many prevention measure you take. I just hope I’m not here when it happens.