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A Korean private trained to keep watch for North Korean infiltrators and spies walked into a W5 million reward in the shape of a beached whale yesterday as he was conducting routine patrol duty.
Private Hong Sang-hyeok, from an Army unit in Yangyang, Gangwon Province was awarded the sum for reporting a suspicious object on the beach, which on closer inspection proved to be a dead whale. The unit amassed the reward by selling the corpse through a fisheries cooperative.
A spokesman for the unit said that although the object was later identified as a giant sea mammal, Hong's attentive observation and reporting merited the cash payout, adding that the promptness of his actions should set a standard for other soldiers to follow.
Repositioning the creature required a crane, said the spokesman, describing troops' Herculean effort to haul the 5.3-meter-long and 3-meter-round beaked whale off the beach manually.
Beaked whales provide blubber and ingredients for the cosmetics rather than restaurant industry, which is why the carcass only fetched W5.3 million. Private Hong received all the proceeds minus a commission charge.
The unit said that he has yet to decide what to do with the money.
(Kim Chang-woo, cwkim@chosun.com )
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