By GI Korea on July 17th, 2011 at 3:49 am

ROK Drop Open Thread – July 16, 2011

» by GI Korea in: Open Threads

Please leave any story links or anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Tags: Open Threads

- 143 views

Simo3870
4:47 am on July 17th, 2011 1
Did I see a story about a SSG in 2id get caught trying to attack an old lady again on Saturday? This is going to be a stereotype for all the anti USFK people in Korea.
Leon LaPorte
5:08 am on July 17th, 2011 2
ahh crap, really?

I saw some interesting stories recently:
Self-commissioned study exonerates Samsung in multiple leukemia cases
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/tech_view.asp?newsIdx=90906&categoryCode=129

A group of five men and women in their late 20s and early 30s jumped off a bridge into the North Han River in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi, yesterday, after failing their first suicide attempt of taking sleeping pills while intoxicated, according to Gapyeong …
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2938394

A high-speed train from Seoul was forced to stop in the southeastern city of Miryang yesterday after passengers complained of smoke rising from the back of the train, railroad officials said. The KTX-Sancheon, the first locally made high-speed train
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2938940

…and something for most of us… especially the last paragraph:

The changing military culture
The military life of our sons is not the sole responsibility of the military, and criticizing the military won’t resolve the problems.
July 16, 2011
Korean women hate men taking about the military and football. And the most horrible topic is the memory of playing football while in the military. Whenever talking about their military service, men – both young and old – become bold.

All of them say their units were particularly tough, while they suffered greatly from an especially awful senior soldier and many of their comrades were injured or killed during service.

Let me talk about my experience without exaggeration. I was in an infantry unit about 30 years ago and two died during my service. One was a sergeant of an artillery platoon. During a firing drill, the sergeant looked into a mortar gun’s barrel when it appeared to be jammed and was hit by the belatedly fired shell.

Another was a private first class who joined the military around the same time as I did. He became very sick and suffered all night long in the barracks and was taken to a hospital. He died a few days later and the military explained that he died from hemorrhagic fever. But the unit members could not erase their doubts because the private had been brutally beaten by the platoon leader the day he got sick.

The Ministry of National Defense issued statistics on military deaths a few days ago, and that made me remember the deaths of the two young soldiers that I witnessed. According to the ministry report, 970 soldiers died in 1980, when the two members in my unit died. Of the total, 497 deaths were linked to military discipline ,such as suicides and assaults, and 473 deaths were from safety accidents.

The number of deaths went down significantly to 721 in 1985 and 330 to 1995. In 2000, there were 182 deaths in the military and last year there were129.

During this time, the military also made efforts to reduce the deaths. A guideline to root out brutal disciplinary actions was published in 1987 and a reform of the military culture also took place in 2005. In 2009, the military introduced the comprehensive suicide prevention system and this year, a measure to root out verbal abuses was established. As a result, the soldiers’ suicide rate is far lower than for civilian men in their 20s.

The military’s efforts are important, but we must pay more attention to the fact that the military is society’s “mirror.” The military is not a desert island. And, it is not a paradise or a hell. Members of our society who grew up in our homes and schools are in the military to serve as officers and soldiers.

In any society, there are people who have trouble adjusting to new situations, and the military is no exception. There is an old saying that the military makes a boy become a man, but that really does not apply anymore.

Youngsters who fail to fit in at home and in school do not mature just because they were in the military. A friend of mine, who has served a long time as a commander, said the draftees these days are the youngsters who were born after 1990 and are of the new generation, which has not experienced violence and brutal words.

Unless, after the recent fatal shooting rampage by a marine, the Marine Corps outright ends the old-fashioned, harsh treatment of marines, it will be tough to embrace the new generation of youngsters.

The problems of the military come from the problems of society. The Marines’ culture of giving the silent treatment to some of the marines, which triggered the recent disaster, is similar to the culture of Japanese youngsters’ bullying. Experts said the silent treatment of the military first appeared around 2000, when Korean youngsters influenced by the Japanese culture joined the service.

Also, of the newly recruited 824 soldiers in Army boot camp in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, 61 percent were an only child and 89 percent had their own rooms at home.

The only son of the family who has his own room is forced to eat, sleep and live together with tens and hundreds of others the moment he enters the military.

It is wrong to treat them in the same way as the older generations of our fathers and grandfathers, who lived in such small homes and with so many siblings that they actually felt relieved going into the military.

The military life of our sons is not the sole responsibility of the military, and criticizing the military won’t resolve the problems. It is an issue that the entire society must contemplate. I am worried that military commanders will become trapped in self-protectionism by feeling intimidated about the recent shooting. The military is not a Boy Scouts activity. Creating a military with high combat competitiveness and reforming the military culture are the same topics, and the outside society must support the efforts.
Denny
5:33 am on July 17th, 2011 3
Korean American Teacher Charged With Sexual Assault On Student

http://iamkoream.com/korean-american-teacher-charged-with-sexual-assault-on-student/

A Pennsylvania Korean American man was charged last week by police with multiple counts of sexual assault on a 15-year-old student from Korea who was a student at the cram school where he taught, according to The Morning Call.

Police say Richard Kim, 33, forced oral sex on a female student at the ACE Academy, a foreign exchange program in eastern Pennsylvania that hosts students from Korea and is owned and operated by Kim’s parents.

Kim was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, indecent assault and indecent assault of a girl under the age of 16.
kangaji
5:13 pm on July 17th, 2011 4
I remodeled my site to make it REALLY REALLY ROKDROP user friendly since I’ve been spending a lot of time on ROKDROP these days. I just translated an article from Ye Olde Chosun which may or may not get translated by them on the Korean Defense Minister’s Visit to an Experimental Aircraft Testing Base. So, check it out.
kushibo
9:48 pm on July 17th, 2011 5
Kangaji, I’ve had a ridiculously busy weekend because of family and work stuff, but I’ll check out your site and give you some suggestions if you want.
kangaji
4:17 am on July 18th, 2011 6
Yes, please. I installed a new smiley program and I’m trying to cut down on the ridiculous amount of smilies displayed right now.
Tbonetylr
9:48 am on July 18th, 2011 7
Korea’s gets its Takei Pride on…
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/07/117_91135.html
“We will charge those who want to experience the forest bath nude an entrance fee. But we have not yet decided on the amount. The visitors will receive disposable panties and gowns free of charge. But they can also wear their own clothes if they want to,” the official said.
“With clothes on, visitors can go anywhere they want to. But those who want to take part in the experience naked should remain inside the huts or in a designated outdoor area. Men and women will be also separated from each other,” he said.”
Tbonetylr
9:51 am on July 18th, 2011 8
Nude Forest in S. Korea – cool! Men and women separated – not cool. But what the hell do you expect in Takei Korea?
kushibo
9:53 am on July 18th, 2011 9
tbonetylr, with the chance to be naked but around a bunch of people of the same sex, it sounds a lot like a 목욕탕, but set among the other kind of 목 (木).
kushibo
9:54 am on July 18th, 2011 10
Dangit. I spewered it. Only 목 was supposed to be in bold.
kushibo
9:54 am on July 18th, 2011 11
Spewered again. I’m posting on four hours’ sleep.
kushibo
11:57 am on July 19th, 2011 12
Some recent military-related stories from PBS’s Newshour. I thought the one on suicide was especially interesting, though I’m coming at it also from a public health perspective.
Glans
5:23 pm on July 21st, 2011 13
With no increase in the debt limit, federal taxes cover just four programs:
Social Security
The hospital part of Medicare
Defense and veterans’ benefits
Interest on the debt

That leaves: ‘No Medicaid, no FAA, no border patrol, no FBI, no embassies, no highways, no disaster relief, no SEC, no court systems, no prisons, no national parks, no CIA, no school lunches, no medical care for children, no SNAP, no flood control, no student loans, no medical research, no nothing.’ Here’s the comment by Kevin Drum at MotherJones.
JoeC
7:57 pm on July 21st, 2011 14
DADT repeal may be certified today or tomorrow. Might be a pretty gay time in the ville this weekend
kangaji
8:08 pm on July 21st, 2011 15
Dammit, it’s peanut butter fradulent enlistment kuso tsunami time…
kangaji
8:14 pm on July 21st, 2011 16
Ah, Military Certification Friday, then Presidential Cert then 60 days… the fraudulent enlistment Kuso Tsunami is still being held back…
Not convinced
9:56 pm on July 21st, 2011 17
anyone notice that cabs are getting harder and harder to convince to take you home after the buses and subway stop running? I waited from just after midnight until 4AM in itaewon until a taxi would finally take me home, and even then I had to offer three times what I should pay to him. I am going to start carrying around a pocket camera and reporting taxi’s…. seemed to help a couple of years ago, I saw a few korean groups doing this in Jongro…. It’s not just in itaewon either, and not just to foreigners. I’ve seen this in lots of populated areas…

time for action?