Another Ambassador of Our Country
Give him style points, at least. A drunken Army private walking past the War Memorial near the Yongsan Garrison and Samgakji Station couldn’t pass up the opportunity he saw in a Seoul city bus. Seems he had gotten all the way to Seoul Station — and almost all the way back to the War Memorial — when the Korean Police caught up with him.
No word on whether he stopped for passengers.
The first good decision he made was to return the bus. The second was refusing the Korean breathalyzer test, since that got him brought directly to the Provost Marshal’s office, where he would have been offered the options of (a) the Intoxilyzer 5000 or (b) being strapped to a gurney for a blood draw at 121 Hospital.
I wonder what the soldier’s disciplinary record was. In other words, should this guy have been off-post in the first place?
I don’t hear about soldiers doing this kind of thing in Germany or elsewhere, and that might be because I haven’t served in Germany and tend not to follow events there. Neither does the German press, for that matter, at least to the same degree as the Korean press does. On occasion, I’ve wondered out loud why soldiers do stupid things like this, knowing the kind of impression it makes. Sometimes, the answer I got was that the Koreans are going hate us anyway. Like a lot of answers that contain a grain of truth, it’s simplistic, self-serving, and wrong. I cringe when things like this happen.
This is in no way an “exuse” — I’d like to use beatings for idiots like this — but – some factors that make Korea unique — it is a hardship tour. There is more stress and strain serving in Korea compared to Germany. SK requires a high state of preparedness. The people don’t like you but demand you defend them. The culture is different. The diversity is MUCH less and you are a small minority (if you get off the base). And so on….
And I would guess the increased stress causes (major) character flaws (like being an asshole) increase the stupidity.
Another issue with serving in Korea is that the primary means of entertainment outside of the walkthru gate is to get as drunk as humanly possible. 90% of Soldiers can’t have a car, so they’re pretty limited to things within walking distance. MWR does not do enough to set up frequent fishing trips, ski trips, trips to Everland, etc. If all that is outside the gate is a string of bars, guess what the Soldiers are going to do…for an entire year.
On that topic, the base information system is more at fault than anything.
One of the best things about Korea is the amount of fairly cheap and diverse transportation systems.
There is no excuse for not getting out and doing things all over Korea except the will to do so. The bases could help spike up the will if they put out a lot of information about places to go and things to see and keep the information current and the message put out in different ways —
—- because if a soldier wants to see something in Korea, transportation is not an issue.
You can taxi, bus, or train from just about any point in Korea to any point in Korea you want.
I wish Georgia here in the US had half as much transportation available as South Korea. I live in a very small community in between two large towns/small cities, and if you don’t have a car, you’re fucked.
It took a major influx of Hispanic immigrants before the one smaller town of the two got a taxi service.
If this were Korea, buses would be stopping in my tiny town and running between the two and you could catch a taxi too. If I wanted to get to Chattanooga or Atlanta or Savannah down south or Augusta or I wanted to catch a UGA bulldogs game in Athens, and I wanted to do so drunk off my ass, I’d have plenty of transportation options – without costing too much money.
The transportation system is something I really do miss about South Korea.
You’re right about the base not informing Soldiers of opportunities, but I think you’re missing something when you talk about Korea’s highly developed, overlapping modes of public transportation….99% of Soldiers don’t speak Korean and are thus disinclined to go out exploring. An American exploring Europe without speaking German, French, or Italian is one thing, but going native in Korea without speaking the language is an entirely different animal. Sure, Koreans study English through high school and most of grade school, but they still can’t speak or understand it.
Most American Soldiers get burned right away just trying to take a taxi from Humphreys to Osan AB, where the taxi drivers know they will be dealing with GIs. He/she surely will not try to take a trip further away from his/her base. For this reason, trips to “explore Korea†must be MWR driven with MWR provided transportation, and adequate advertising to let the Soldiers know they are available.
I would respectfully disagree.
When I wanted to go some place before I could speak basic Korean, I’d look up information on the place I wanted to go on the internet and jot down the transportation and location information. I would often get my Korean students or boss to jot down a note in Korean to hand a taxi driver or a worker at a train station or a bus driver.
I can see the point about getting ripped off from taxi drivers, but I wonder how much that happens once you get away from the bases where the sharks feed. I didn’t look like a soldier – but I didn’t have much trouble getting soaked by taxis.
Soldiers should be resourceful enough to take advantage of the plentiful transportation in Korea. It might take a little effort and a little thinking, but given the number of PC Bangs and Koreans with English skills around the bases or elsewhere soldiers go, it should be no trouble maping out an itenerary and then getting around Korea with next to zero Korean language skills.
You can learn the Korean writing system in half an hour – so even the signs in the bus stations and trainstations or bus stops that don’t have English on them (when many do) should not be an obstacle.
I’ve gotten into a taxi or on a bus or been at the train station plenty of times and just stuck out a handwritten note in Korean with the name of the place I wanted to go – and I got around fine.
Where there is a will – there is a way – and the transportation for the way in Korea is plentiful —— I’d look at the will of the GIs more than anything to explain why they don’t get around me.
Maybe the base could help encourage that will a good bit more.
I remember a Col. in a tank division talking about how he went around the city looking for interesting places and good restaurants and other places of interest that were not typical GI hangouts so he could have an info packet for new GIs. He was both trying to get the GIs to expand their horizens and get better relations with the locals who don’t meet soldiers everyday —- but he said after he left the unit, all that simply died with his absence….
It is easy to get around by train in Korea because the trains from the most part have English subtitles. Buses are a bit harder because very few have English subtitles but if you ask a KATUSA what bus number goes where, he should be able to help you out. Better yet learn to read Korean so you can read the bus signs to figure out where they go. However, it takes very engaged leadership to get soldiers out of the villes to see something different because of the cultural and language differences in Korea. The villes are so user friendly for GIs that is why they flock there. They would flock to other areas of Korea if they were user friendly as well but they aren’t. That is why leaders have to be very engaged to get soldiers out of the villes. KATUSAs are great sources to take soldiers on trips. My unit had fundraisers to raise money for the KATUSAs to take soldiers on trips. KATUSA make next to nothing so they usually sit in the barracks over the weekend if their home town is not nearby. So through our fundraising efforts we got them to take soldiers on trips by funding them to do it. It was a great way to get both the KATUSAs and soldiers out of the barracks and doing things together.
Thanks GI Korea for the help in explaining this one. I’ve been speaking Korean for 10 years now and have traveled quite a bit, more so in previous tours when it was less inconvenient and the people were friendlier.
USINKOREA, you’re obviously not a GI. You’ve come to Korea because you wanted to and feel the need to explore the country you chose to seek employment in. That’s great and I applaud your efforts.
US Soldiers, on the other hand, are made to come here regardless of their desires. They do so largely without their families. Thanks to the anti-Americanism in this country, if a Soldier wants to venture out more than walking distance away from base, he/she has to take a friend (good luck convincing someone else to go with you). If he/she plans to make it an overnighter, he/she and his/her buddy need an approved pass.
GI Korea is exactly right. Rather than go through the hastle of researching to explore a country that doesn’t like him/her or he/she didn’t want to come to anyway (and convince someone to tag along), the ville is a much easier way to spend the few days off that a Soldier gets.
Oops…forgot about the KATUSA’s. They are a great resource. However, most of ours go on pass to see their families (Seoul) every weekend. Are you up north? The fundraiser idea is a pretty good one, but I don’t know if we could consistently get KATUSA’s to give up family time to go on the trips.