Comments on: GIs help on farm of father of killed middle school girl

By: railwaycharm

railwaycharm — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:35:45 +0000

I kind of lost track of this story over the years. Did the media ever come out and explain that the girls closed their eyes, plugged their ears, and walked into the middle of the convoy? They did this because the convoy was so noisy it was bothering them. I feel badly for all involved in this accident, but I hope the record gets set straight. I also feel the US military railroaded the soldiers.

By: James

James — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:09:58 +0000

Good form-I think this is a great story that despite the fact that there is a motivation on the part of ASFK to get the Koreans to forgive the accident, this is certainly the type of story that happens alot more often than most people are aware of.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 14:27:21 +0000

kimbob,
i’m not sure if the whole western and korean culture caricature you presented up there is entirely correct… for example, germany is clearly not about forgiving and reconciliation.. they’re still not allowed to be proud of their own country.

meanwhile, korea’s lovely neighbour japan is clearly the opposite, controversially either justifying or reconciliating with their past..

i dont’ think it’s appropriate to generalize like that, although i cannot agree with you more, “the turds” are definitely pissing all of us off.

By: mizar5

mizar5 — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:25:11 +0000

God bless USFK, the greatest benefactors our nation has ever known. If most have forgotten to thank them lately, it’s because our nation is going through a rebellious adolescence. With age just might come wisdom…

By: usinkorea

usinkorea — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:18:53 +0000

Part of what I meant is that it would do wonders for the ROK-USFK /US relationship if the memories weren’t so short on such matters — and that includes non-Koreans.

These kinds of helping days are not all that unusual, and you can’t get a good sense of how frequently or not they happen, because there isn’t a consistent set of outlets that let you know about them, because in general, we don’t consider them that big a deal.

The website blog by a GI I used to check out who did a pretty good job collected some of them and putting them together is now no more. I guess the guy finally rotated out of Korea, so I’ll see publicized examples even less.

But, there is also a type of willingness to forget about such examples too.

I think it is somewhat natural. Who remembers for a long time when so-in-so does some small scale community service thing?

By: kimbob

kimbob — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 07:37:22 +0000

Baduk I didn’t say “Koreans”.
I said “ungrateful turds in Korea”.

By: baduk

baduk — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 06:15:07 +0000

Kimbob,

Koreans do appreciate it. They do. People are basically the same.

By: The Marmot

The Marmot — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 05:58:47 +0000

I was thinking about the ?��we sent?�? phrase too.
Don’t read too much into it — the Korean phrase was:
??�2?????� ?��??� ?��??�??�??� ??�??�??� ?��?�??????? ?��?��?�� ??�?��?????? ??�?�???� ?��?��?????�??� ?????�??? ??�?�? ?��???????�� ?????�?�??�? ?�???�??�.
Which means something like, “We learned they were short of hands, so we came to help them.”

By: usinkorea

usinkorea — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:55:24 +0000

I was thinking about the “we sent” phrase too.

I can’t really think of one of these stories where it wasn’t a volunteer effort unless it was major, heavy duty assistance after a typhoon or severe flooding or such that hit a region and USFK was brought in for aid. I think in all the small scale stories like this, just like with the trips to the orphanages and old folks home, it is volunteers who come.

If it isn’t in this one, I’d like to know why the command sent so few…

It is also a small point, but I would have liked the articles to mention that this isn’t the first time soldiers have done such things or that such things are even very rare. The Korean media, at least the English language versions, print news of one about every 3rd or 4th blue moon, but you can find examples there, and the Stars and Stripes runs a story or two every so many months. I seem to remember catching them a little more frequently on AFKN, but I haven’t been in a position to watch that for some time.

The reason I want to see a note of the fact USFK has voluteers who do this kind of thing, or like going to a park and picking up trash, in this articles is

By: kimbob

kimbob — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:48:28 +0000

This is the difference between Western and Korean culture.

Western culture: forgiveness and reconciliation

Korean culture: unforgiving with long memory.

Read the father’s statements and this typical differences in cultural thinking comes all too clear.

What those US soldiers are doing is very touching. But those ungrateful turds in Korea will piss on it.