An ex-girlfriend of mine here once told me she could spot the ex-Marines on the street by the way they walk - it’s like they fear no man (as opposed to me, who must walk like he’s afraid of getting the shit kicked out of him by everyone). Anyway, now we have Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Hong Sa-deok, who left the Corp in 1963, saying, and I quote, “When the ROK Army sends its troops to Iraq, I will serve with the first array for a month as an enlisted man.” Explains Hong, “I think it’s noblesse oblige to share, even if it’s only partly, in the danger if we decide to sent our young men and women to a dangerous place.”
And to think that my Mom always said that the politicians should send their sons and daughters off to war first.
Anyway, the 60 year old rep from Yeongju, North Kyeongsang Province (I dated a girl from Yeongju once, and she’s a pretty tough one, too) claims he’s up for the task. “I can still make it to the top of Dobongsan (a mountain just north of Seoul) in an hour,” he said. “Since it looks like the government is leaning toward the dispatch, I’ve made public my decision,” he added.
Tough bastard - should be interesting to see if he puts his money where his mouth is.
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I’m not just saying this because I think Hong’s an opprotunist with no principles, and not because he’s a real big fan of Park Chung-hee & his wife Madamme Yuk.
I imagine he’s just saying what he’s saying because there are calls in some quarters that Hong or any sons he has be sent.
He does have a clean image, though. He wasn’t originally GNP, but was offered great things and “brought in” (the old ???????move) expressly to be head of its campaign committee. Imagine that, you’re independent one day and the next morning you’re running the GNP’s 2000 Nat’l Assembly campaign central. It needed someone with a respectable image for that position so had to go shopping outside the party.
Left the Corp? What corporation was that?
OK, OK, I know you mean left the Corps but I had to persnickety and pedantic. It’s who I am.
Oh fer… After all that I left out the word “be.” I hereby retract the above post and am going to find my sword upon which I will fall.
An acquaintance of mine who spent a lot of years in the US Marines said that the toughest, hardest bar fight he ever saw was a threeway between himself and his buddies, some ROK Marines, and the crew of a Norwegian merchant vessel. It all ended in concussions and more drinking, and everyone involved agreed that the others were tough SOBs.