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I read something that disturbed me today. A guy who subscribes to kexpat (whose server is down so I won’t link to it) posted the url of an article written by some guy who had a bunch of stuff behind his name that was supposed to give him credibility as a journalist. The article title was about the US military and Itaewon, which made me a bit curious so I checked it out. At first it wasn’t so bad; it was just another guy writing some pretty biased stuff about soldiers and the military. Nothing new there. Essentially, he was portraying the nightlife in Itaewon as one big brawl and sexfest, which it is but not like he made it seem. He made it seem like there was a hooker every two feet and soldiers brawling or puking in between. I’ve been to Itaewon at night and while I’m not a soldier, nor have a spent a lot of time on hooker hill, I’ve never seen anything like that guy described. In fact, on a weekend night I’m always surprised by the noticeable lack of people. I mean, you’d think there’d be more people given that Itaewon is the area adjacent to the big Army base.
OK, so I realized right off the bat that the author was going to prove some point about how seedy this whole scene was and he was going to embellish just to make it poignant. But then he went beyond what I expected. He started talking about rapes and murders. About gangs within the military and corruption. It wasn't that he talked about it so much, but that he made it graphic and failed to present another side, all of which made the Army in Korea seem like some dark hellhole within which murders and assaults occur nightly and go mostly unreported and in which most members are compelled toward anti-government sentiments because of the poor treatment they get as soldiers. His detailed accounts were very disturbing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not buying the whole story. I’ve known far too many military people to believe the crap this guy’s slinging, yet I can’t let go of the power of imagery. While proving his point about how monstrous soldiers are toward the Koreans, especially women, a picture was displayed of a murdered woman’s body. It was taken as she was found and it was brutal. This isn’t USA Today folks and there was no warning at the head of this article either. I can’t get it out of my head. I thought it was odd that throughout the rest of the piece there are no other photographs of people, only that one. The remaining photographs are of benign propaganda leaflets from the North. Shock value: really high. I’m angered by the fact that this man had to share the brutality of this woman’s murder on the web. Sure, it’s free speech, but what about respecting the dead or just plain decency?
So then the guy goes on to interview a whole bunch of soldiers, all of whom are saying that being stationed overseas is like some prison camp for them. They’re all disgusted at how poorly they’re being treated by the military and how horrible a place Korea is. They’re angry at doing the same thing day in and day out and angry at the petty things that armies make their soldiers do just for the sake of never letting them forget who’s really in control.
The part this guy (the author) isn’t stating, however, is that the majority of his quotes come from guys whose job is to do stupid stuff like that. If they had tested better at basic training they wouldn’t be sitting in motor pool or they wouldn’t be in the infantry and sleeping within spitting distance of the DMZ.
To the author’s credit, I’ll say that I didn’t read the whole thing. The clock was ticking and this article was insanely long. I skimmed. He did talk a lot about what kind of people are signing up to be soldiers and I guess he’s indicating that that is part of the problem. Nevertheless, the image of the military he portrayed was nothing like I’d ever experienced and his evidence was so graphic and… just evil, that I really felt weird all day as the military helicopters continually flew overhead. I thought about all the people I knew who have been in the military and even my friend who is currently stationed just 20 miles or so from where I live. And I thought about how powerful an impact this guy's article had on me even though I knew he was really biased.
I don’t think I can ever forget the image of that woman.
After I read the thing, I realized there was no where to go from there. No links, no way to find out the source or where this thing was originally published. Then I noticed that the URL was in Korea. I didn’t have time to check it out, but maybe I’ll go back there and see who’s posting this thing. My first thought was that it was a Korean group, because it’s no secret that many Koreans want the US military out of their backyard.
I don’t know. The whole thing gives me the heebeejeebees.
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