Koreans Protest Outside USFK’s Rodriguez Range

US and ROK military forces need live fire training to maintain readiness and there is no where in Korea to do this as well as Rodriguez Range.  I look at this as I would an airport.  People need airports just like the military needs a live fire range.  Should airports be closed as well because of noise and the remote chance of a crash?  How come I have the feeling this has a lot to do with money?

A united group of villagers set fire to bundles of straw near the U.S. military firing range in Pocheon on Wednesday in protest against stray bullets from the range.

The Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, about 24 kilometers south of the tensely-guarded demilitarized zone, has been a source of grievances to the residents of neighboring towns following a series of ricochets that have come out of the firing range and landed on residential areas.

Most recently in October, a 105-millimeter anti-tank shell flew from the shooting range before ricocheting off a house in a neighborhood and landed on a farm.

Earlier that month, a practice projectile was found in a pine field following three similar cases of ricochets in proceeding months.

“Day and night, the sounds of firing never cease in Pocheon, the home to dozens of military bases, camps, a military airfield, ammunition dumps and the Eighth U.S. Army’s Youngpyoung (Rodriguez) firing range as well as the South Korean Army’s ranges,” the villagers’ committee on the ricochet issue said in protest.

The residents near the range started to desert their hometown in fear of stray bullets, they claimed in the protest rally near the U.S. military range.  [Korea Herald]

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