Here. I’m linking this because you’ll never hear the American or Korean press, other than the Stripes, breathe a word about it or project its significance upon thousands of other people.
(Those of you (a) have no irony gene, or (b) who don’t get the reference, click here before you spit fire in my comments.)
I was actually there when this happened. It was during our 2nd Infantry Division Warfighter and some soldiers from the ROK 60th Mech were bunking with us. The entire exercise billets was locked down and we all went through a line-up. I had to talk to one of their LTCs earlier because a lot of ROK soldiers were making inapropriate comments towards some of my female compatriots like “You have very nice chest” “I like your S-Line” and things like that. Then early the next morning before the AAR, this happened.
bigblair, if you can answer a few more questions … and you can answer them or not answer, your call:
* Has CID or MPI taken your statement?
* Was the American chain of command aware?
* Did the unit post fire guards or CQ’s?
* Did the ROK officer take, or promise to take, any corrective or preventive action?
No surprise that this is being kept quiet. The things that happen to US personnel and their dependents at the hands of the benevolent Koreans are never widely published… and when they are, the perpetrator is always found to have had “a history of mental illness”…
[…] Anyway as OFK points out the irony of this rape is quite evident when you consider all the righteous outrage from sectors of Korea over the US soldier who is alleged to have a raped a Korean woman a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t seen anything about this case in the Korean media yet compared to the instant headlines the US soldier made after his arrest two weeks ago. This is just the continuation of a trend of when crimes are committed against US soldiers little if any articles in the Korean media are written about it compared to instant headlines every time a US soldier commits any crime no matter how small against a Korean civilian. The soldier doesn’t even have to commit a crime, it just has to appear he did to make headlines. This is how the Myth of GI Crimes is cultivated in Korea. […]
Just to broaden what has already been said so far, here and at GI Koreas and Lost Nomads (the sites I have caught wind of this story on so far)….
…if I try to look for other reasons why this is not making the Korean news or has been handled as we have so far gleaned from the limited coverage — I can offer a little…
I’m thinking back to a case in the late 1990s - where a Korean robbed a bank using concussion grenades and a machine gun - including the wounding of a couple of people on the scene.
This was extremely rare in Korean society, so it was huge news - and because the guy got away.
About a week later, he was tracked down - and the story had remained big until that time.
He was tracked to an ROK base and arrested.
And then I didn’t hear any more about it….
From that and a few tid bits here and there, I take it that once the Korean Military Court System takes a hold of a thing, it dives under the radar quickly.
That alone — when the USFK justice system does it — gets the editorial writers in the Korean press to cry out — but I take it the Korean press is used to getting stone-walled by the ROK justice system…
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