Fallout of ROK Army Shooting Rampage
Some very disturbing details are beginning to emerge from the ROK Army shooting rampage. The soldier named PVT Kim apparently planned the attack 2 days prior due to bullying from senior soldiers. After he got off his guard shift on the DMZ he didn’t turn in his weapon. He instead decided to take his weapon to his barracks and attack his own platoon.
With guys like this pulling border guard is it any wonder whyrefugees have been able to sneak through the DMZ? Does this sound like anybody you know?:
“Kim is a very timid person who is easily hurt by trivial words,” the investigator said, adding the private was found to be allegedly addicted to a computer game, including online gun-shooting games.
I have felt that the country’s youth has slowly been becoming softer and softer. Next time you are in a Internet Cafe look around. Those mindless drones playing Starcraft for 18 hours a day are who are going to be defending this country. Plus you add this inactivity with the current mind set that North Korea is not the enemy and this is causing the youth here to question why they have to do their mandatory service and it is making them bitter. Why should they be drafted if North Korea is not a threat according to their own government? With the USFK forces slowly withdrawing that is only causing the youth here to further judge North Korea as not being a threat if even the Americans are leaving.
I have been chronicling the generational problems with the ROK Army for sometime now. You would think the corruption scandals, draft dodging, and increasing suicide rates would tip people off to the problem. The conscription system is slowyly faltering due to the cultural change in the youth. This incident has finally gotten the Korean media to take notice. This from the Korea Times:
The ideals of the young generation, with high value on freedom and individuality, conflict greatly with the military culture that gives priority to discipline and regulation.
Imagine that discipline and regulations in the Army!
The younger generation, with fewer siblings and many of them being the only children in their families, feel less comfortable with group life than older generations. Soldiers have to share a single room with many others for 24 hours a day, sleeping and eating together, and they are simply not used to it, Lee said.
To young people who are used to a variety of activities, the military’s simple routine, such as getting up and going to sleep at set times, is also stressful. Their freedom is limited and they are even punished if they do not eat their meals.
So in other words they are not allowed to play Starcraft 18 hours a day and eat junk food while doing so.
In the case of privates, they have to study the subtle communication of a senior’s face to avoid being punished. Many young people have never experienced harsh punishment or insults from their parents or teachers.
Just go to a elementary school here and watch the kids run wild.
But he also pointed out that inordinate hierarchy and abusive language still prevail in the army, even among young soldiers.
Cursing in the military? Say it ain’t so:
Critics say commanders should change their approach and recognize soldiers as their partners, not as those who must passively follow their command.
“Leadership is required for officers and ordinary soldiers so that senior soldiers can make junior soldiers follow their command without physical violence or abusive language. Soldiers have to learn better communication skills and build respectful relationships with others,’’ Lee pointed out.
If the ROK Army follows this advice they are even in bigger trouble. Trying to be buddies with all the soldiers is not how to run a military thats got a legitimate threat just 30km North of Seoul. Any war on this peninsula will be fought primarily by the ROK Army in a tough infantry fight focused on capturing hills. It takes strict discipline to get a soldier to run up a hill under machine gun fire. Being buddies with the soldiers will not a way to enforce strict discipline. Neither is beating the soldiers or making them eat feces.
More analysis on today’s Korean youth from the Chosun:
The armed forces don’t exist outside the flow of social change. Above all, the young who join the military today are not the young of the past. There exist some fundamental differences that cannot be glossed over with conventional reference to the generation gap. These are new people: their thinking is quite different from their parents’, as are their patterns of behavior and values. Most of them, for instance, are only sons who lack the socialization larger families provide. Though they have enjoyed parental love, they have never shared the love of brothers and sisters. Such youngsters put themselves above anything else in setting their values, and they are that much less likely to think of sacrificing themselves for an organization. By the same token, they are less skilled in resolving conflicts with their comrades-in-arms.
Korea at some point is going to have to swallow the pill and look at an all volunteer force though the amount of money to raise on volunteer force would be sizable. However, soldiers that want to be there are how you can enforce strict discipline without abuse in a generation of youth that have been raised to not want to defend their own country. This from thethe Chosun:
Our military is now unable to explain against whom the soldiers should defend the state. Last year a Navy boat was reprimanded after repulsing a North Korean naval vessel that had crossed the Northern Limit Line into South Korean waters. Last week, meanwhile, a sizeable South Korean delegation took part in what was touted as a festival of “national unity†in Pyongyang.
Is it any wonder, under these circumstances, that no order to carry out their sentry conscientiously can appeal to the frontline soldiers? Outside the military, it is not uncommon to hear that the U.S. is a greater threat to our national security than North Korea. Many of the frontline soldiers must feel that what they are doing is pointless.
I find it funny that people are more upset by this than when the North Koreans attacked and killed nearly as many ROK sailors in the Yellow Sea. No wonder the youth doesn’t want to defend the country in anymore.
GI,
The Korean fragger was as "soft" as a suicide bomber: there is nothing soft and effeminate about cold-blooded murder when the fragger knows the full brunt of consequences will fall on him; nor, is this an example of extreme individualism the media tries to villfy — the world, in fact, needs MORE individuals.
Neither is this a generational difference in Korean society: this was a case of provoking to rage the narcissistic character structure of the typical Korean – old and young: the result is a BESERK phenomina of murderous rage peculiar to Asian culture. This fragging is the same as the Korean arsonist of Taegu, or the once and a while rampages of disgruntled Korean males stabbing children in classrooms.
GI, you must open your eyes to the peculiar darkness within Asian tribalism — a situational awareness that will benefit USKF.
Running Amok (going Berserk)
There is very little information on this phenomena, but what we do have seems to suggest a somafera type of frenzy. In Malaysian, amok signifies a violent outburst usually leading to homicidal attacks – hence, our borrowing of the term into English, similar to how we now use "going berserk".
In the 14th century, amok was observed as an act of religious fanaticism in Malaysia. It was still a problem by the 18th century, when Captain Cook's officers had to capture Malaysians who were running amok.
Only men seem to run amok, though there has been one record of a woman doing so. Often, the mass killings would bring fame and recognition, even if the killer died in the process. It may have been preceded by a period of brooding and then followed by exhaustion and amnesia.
Let's not discount the heavy shamanistic influences within Korean culture that leads to pathological narcissistic personality disorders — resulting in recreational-rage we see in Korean demonstrations.
For the life of me, why does GI see this as a result of feminine softness? Does he consider the suicidal terrorists effeminate girlie-men?
Why is GI suddenly trying to distance himself from "effeminancy"?
Hey "SillySally", just take out "Sally" out of your name, it fits better.
On the contrary, I suggest you delete the "silly" from your handle, as it most certainly doesn't lend credibility to your attempt to make a sophisticated psychological analysis. (Of course, if you are a psychologist or psychiatrist, or have advanced training, then say so; maybe that will compensate).
Unless in the future you want to confine your observations to those of the type you have previously posted (which I have found to be seemingly cynical and sardonic, in a very obscure way; but, I didn't comment on this, since I assumed you would be derisive of one who frankly failed to understand whatever point it was you were trying to make).
This time though, you make some interesting and understandable points when you refrain from the psychology and delve into history to provide solid examples. But, no matter how many "berserkers" someone puts together, to do however much damage, I can assure it's not the same thing as putting together an effective army of combat soldiers.
Individual qualities of "macho" or "effeminacy" aren't the key driving factors, but rather the ability of leaders to apply appropriate leadership techniques (authoritarian, egalitarian, or even permissive) to build a team out of a group of individuals. Ones who will come to the leader with all the normal strengths and weaknesses one can expect to find in any group of human beings.
Your derision of GI for his seeming lack of respect for the quality of "toughness" reflects a very shallow understanding of the dynamics of combat leadership. If individual macho bullshit was all that mattered, we'd be hiring Hell's Angels types off the streets of the US to go to Korea. (I must admit it would provide me a certain momentary and vicarious satisfaction to do this and live up to the worst Korean xenophobic image of Americans).
I'm not a psychologist, but it seems to me the appropriate psychological analogy here is to the American high school student killers who compensate for real and/or perceived slights by bringing guns to school and "running amok". All the notorious examples of recent years that I can think of offhand were Caucasians, which implies that there is nothing exclusively "Asian tribal" about the phenonmenon.
Right, Paul H. Agreed. How come "Asian tribalism" doesn't make Korean postal workers to go bonkers and go on a shooting spree?
I also don't subscribe to the Korean media theory of spoilt only child brats who get all sensitive to verbal abuse from their officers, and go on a murdering rage. Of course that demographics may partly explain military indicipline, but I don't that was the problem in this case.
It was bound to happen, and it will happen again as long as Korea is militarily divided. We're talking about putting away bunch of young men, on an isolated heavily militarized location, locked away for months, 24 hours a day, surrounded by barbed wires, knowing that if there's a war in Korea, they'll be the first ones to die – worse than prison. Is it any wonder that someone cracked??
Soften the Korean military? That's a joke. How are you going to ask Private Kim to march and be a soldier? Ask him with a "please and sugar on it"?. The loosening and "democrization" of Korean military will do exactly the opposite thing – it will cause more lives lost. You can't even say the four letter word in the military causing the soldiers to feel pain? What kind of joke is that?
Like GI Korea said, it's time for Korea to open up the purse, cut down on manpower, abolish the draft, professionalize the military (and pay them well), and compensate that with heavy technological reliance (which will be very costly, but that's the only way now in a country where it has the lowest birth rate in the world).
I don't know if anyone else out there has had the same experience, but every time I have been working closely with a ROK unit, it seems they are haphazard with their muzzle awareness. Most soldiers can be seen flagging each other or poking at each other with the barrel of their rifles.
I just think a little more safety needs to be implemented in the ROK Army, especially after this and the accidental discharge killing of an Iraqi policeman a few months ago.
Paul H.
I appreciate your reasoned response.
For the record, I am never derisive of an exchange of ideas based on a sincere attempt to ascertain the truth. When someone disagrees with me, I put my ego in my pocket — and learn. My sardonic and cynical undertone is an attempt to subvert the mental "insularity" of true believers(the ideologically brainwashed)who replicate socialist memes on the internet.
There is nothing so impregnable as the human mind slammed shut with bliss. Take a look at the GI.
You suggest my attempts to subvert is not effective — I think it is. I recently suggested GI is "morally effeminate" and now we see him projecting effeminacy onto young Koreans as a way of distancing himself from a self-doubt.
The GI is in sore need of self-doubt.
Now,I have never questioned GI's masculinity as a functionary. As you have pointed out: an American soldier, these days, can be a neutered-fungible and still be an effective cog in the military machine. One's macho-factor, esprit de corp, and fidelity is less relevant in the new Army. I do, however, question the lack of values GI exhibits(military moral eunuch): if you notice, he parrots the latest non-solutions he absorbs from his environment — the salvific efficacy of Communitarianism.
I quote GI: "(This generation of Koreans)Though they have enjoyed parental love, they have never shared the love of brothers and sisters. Such youngsters put themselves above anything else in setting their values, and they are that much less likely to think of sacrificing themselves for an organization."
GI advances the new "fashionable" thesis that the major woe facing western culture(and an increasingly westernized-Korean society)is a SURFEIT of personal freedom ("extreme individualism") with a lack of concomitant responsibility. GI suggests it is the family, the “community†and other values-giving institutions — not the individual — which are the building blocks of society. The notion of "volunteerism" always goes hand and hand with this new panacea.
“Communities of Character†reflects the growing popularity in government and religious circles for a philosophy broadly labeled “communitarianism.†It incorporates features which can appeal to both liberals and conservatives, a reason why such figures as former Reagan administration culture guru William Bennett and Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman find common cause over issues like the status of religion in American life, violence and sex in media, and the need to involve churches, corporations and government in the fight to address social problems.
This philosophy is the foundation of Korean Confucianism.
Communitarianism is strongly preached by Korean mega-churches(institutions of shamanistic Confucianism dressed in Christian doctrine) and exported to the gullible USA via unwitting vectors such as the GI.
I contend, however, the prime building block of society is not the "community" but the individual. The quality of one's individual relationship to reality within the conscience is the key factor.
By the way, the Columbine High School killers were perfect examples of "Asian tribalism". Running amok is revenge against those who refused to recognize one's own sense of positive self-regard — an instinct to kill unrestrained by higher principles of justice.
The Korean Dokto Island hysteria is a Korean parallel to the Columbine debacle.