I’m not surprised at all that the Korean military is finding plenty of people to volunteer for overseas service:
Applications have been pouring in for overseas military service at the Zaytun Unit in northern Iraq and the Dongmyeong Unit in the southern Lebanon. Far more servicemen than the required number of soldiers for the Korean military’s units overseas are consistently applying.
“A total of 1,146 servicemen recently applied for 65 vacancies for the first recruitment for the ninth contingent of the Zaytun Unit, producing a record-high competition ratio of 17.6 : 1, a military spokesman said Tuesday.
Some 275 officers applied for 52 vacancies, creating a 5.3:1 competition ratio. Newly recruited soldiers and officers will be dispatched to Irbil, northern Iraq next month
For recruitment for the third contingent of the Dongmyeong Unit, which was dispatched to Tyre last month, 1,230 servicemen applied for 114 vacancies, creating a 10.8:1 competition ratio, and 637 officers applied for 91 vacancies, a competition ratio of 7:1. During recruitment for the second contingent, the competition ratios were 15.3:1 for servicemen and 7.7:1 for officers. [Chosun Ilbo]
It may be hard for non-military people to understand but people in the military want to do their jobs and not just stay at their home base. There is of course also the financial angle because the personnel serving overseas make about an extra US $1,340 a month. However, something I found interesting about the ROK personnel wanting to serve overseas is the jobs they are applying for:
Among all service branches, army drivers, logistics specialists, and PX soldiers are the most popular jobs, with an average competition ratio at 50:1. During the first recruitment for the ninth contingent of the Zaytun Unit, as many as 103 servicemen applied for a single vacancy as a PX soldier.
Surprisingly it appears toilet specialist which reportedly the ROK Army has excelled at in Kurdistan is not on top of the list of the most coveted jobs. Neither is any reconstruction or civil affairs jobs that the Zaytun unit is supposed to be in the country primarily to do in the first place not that this is the real reason they are in Iraq to begin with.
The most humorous aspect about ROK personnel wanting to serve overseas is that they have to get their parent’s permission:
The spokesman said soldiers who want to serve with overseas units must get their parents’ consent in advance. During the early recruitment process for the Zaytun Unit, some soldiers were recruited but had to drop out because they failed to get their parents’ consent, he added.
If the viability of an overseas military mission is contingent on what mom thinks about it, maybe your military shouldn’t be there in the first place?
Popularity: 2%
:mrgreen:...
6:32 am on August 29th, 2008 1
If American units in Iraq were filled completely by volunteers prior to every rotation, how would the statistical break outs appear in comparison to those sited your write up? The truth is that they wouldn’t be able to fill their ranks. Not in infantry units and not in bath & laundry units. It is true that American Soldiers are quick to accept whatever mission is handed too them, but how many would be competing to go to Iraq. Sure, you get some volunteers for every deployment, but not 17.6 volunteers for each position. You crack wise about the financial incentive given to the ROKs, but I banked $90,000 in the year of my last deployment, compared to a much smaller amount in other years.
The fact is the the US military is full of pansies who are too selfish to take their turns on deployment. Only 60%+ of the Army has ever completed a deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan. The majority of that is by choice, not by fate. How many officers and senior NCOs do you see in Yongsan, Pyeongtaek, and Daegu who’ve never deployed? When I in-processed through 1RC last year, a battalion commander from the 501st MI BDE briefed us on EUSA standards and policies. The jackass had the nerve to brag that he’d been in Korea for seven years. Shame on him, shame on people like him, and shame on whomever selected him for battalion command.
4:33 am on August 30th, 2008 2