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In a terrible incident at a front-line guard post in the DMZ, an enlisted man threw a grenade and sprayed random fire on his comrades, killing eight of them, apparently because he was driven out of his mind by habitual abuse at the hands of a senior fellow soldier, the Defense Ministry explained.
Nothing can compensate for the unfulfilled dreams of the young men who joined the Army at the call of the state and met such terrible deaths. Parents across the nation who have sons in the military must be sick with worry.
The guard posts are very close to the military demarcation line: there above all military discipline must be impeccable, and yet it was there that this tragedy was allowed to take place. That speaks of an unimaginable deterioration in discipline. Only two days earlier, a North Korean who had made his way through the wire fence of the DMZ to Cheolwon, Gangwon Province in the South was discovered four days after he made the journey, by a civilian. In the same place last October, a South Korean defected to the North by cutting holes in three wire fences, an incident which resulted in military authorities vowing no such thing would ever happen again.
Some may argue that since all these incidents happened because discipline has eroded, education and training can ensure they will not happen again. But that is too simplistic. We need more: we need a thorough study why the discipline of frontline units has got into the state it is in, and why officers can do nothing about it.
The incidents took place fundamentally because the enlisted men have no idea what they are sacrificing their youth for and why on earth they should forgo a good night¡¯s sleep to stand sentry duty.
Our military is now unable to explain against whom the soldiers should defend the state. Last year a Navy boat was reprimanded after repulsing a North Korean naval vessel that had crossed the Northern Limit Line into South Korean waters. Last week, meanwhile, a sizeable South Korean delegation took part in what was touted as a festival of ¡°national unity¡± in Pyongyang.
Is it any wonder, under these circumstances, that no order to carry out their sentry conscientiously can appeal to the frontline soldiers? Outside the military, it is not uncommon to hear that the U.S. is a greater threat to our national security than North Korea. Many of the frontline soldiers must feel that what they are doing is pointless.
The question is if we can hope for military reform and the restoration of discipline. The day after the breach of the wire fence became public, the president played golf with the defense minister, the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs. It was to encourage them, we hear ? and offered a picture of a supreme commander who simply does not care about a trifle like a breach in his country¡¯s defense line.
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