The wife of a sailor killed in the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle with North Korean warships has reportedly left the country.

Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk, who was killed in a June 2002 naval battle with North Korea in the West Sea, turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight bound for the United States. Before getting on her flight, she said, “If the indifference and inhospitality shown to those soldiers who were killed or wounded protecting the nation continue, what soldier will lay down his life in the battlefield?”

In the battle on June 29, 2002 — one day prior to the closing ceremony of the Korea-Japan World Cup — six sailors were killed and 18 wounded when a North Korean patrol boat that had crossed over the northern line of control ambushed a South Korean naval vessel. The bereaved have spent the last three years in an atmosphere where it was difficult to even grieve. Nervous government officials, worrying that the incident might cast a pall over the Sunshine Policy, even warned the families to please be quiet.

I posted on the neglect the families of this tragedy have received last summer. The point of my post last summer was how hippocritical things here in Korea are when USFK is still having protests about the two girls killed in an accident in June 2002 which everybody up the chain of command including President Bush apologized for and we the military have made huge improvements to further improve safety and reduced total convoy movements to prevent another accident in a country where thousands continue to die from domestic traffic accidents anyway while in the same month a few days later the North Koreans diliberately kill six South Korean sailors in an ambush to draw media attention away from the World Cup finale the next day and nobody cares. Where are the candle light vigils, demands for apologies, demands for compensation, and calls for a more equal relationship? Obviously the North Koreans are getting the better end of this relationship and the families of the victims are getting a cold shoulder from their own government.

Here’s a quote from an article last summer that really really stood out to me.

The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal. Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”

Frankly I can’t blame her for wanting to leave Korea after the treatment the families have received.