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Many unanswered questions remain after the Army announced the results of its investigation into Sunday morning¡¯s killing spree at a guard post in the DMZ in Yeoncheon that left eight soldiers dead and wounded two. These are the main areas of concern.
¨çAccording to the Army announcement, 26 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks when 22-year-old private Kim Dong-min threw his grenade. Six were killed when it exploded while two later died of gunshots outside the barracks. Given the confined space, the power of the grenade and the wild firing of some 40 rounds, some say the fatalities are surprisingly low.
¨è With the exception of the platoon leader, who was a captain, the other seven killed were all corporals. While corporals made up the highest number of men of any rank at the post -- 14 -- there were also eight first-class privates, two sergeants and two second-class privates. If the killer used a grenade and fired at random, it¡¯s hard to understand why only those of a specific rank died.
¨é The Army says verbal abuse alone goaded Kim into running amok, while there had been no beatings or other physical cruelty. Some say it must have taken much more horrific acts to set the killer off.
¨ê Some suspect the low casualty figure from the grenade blast was due to the fact that most of the men were out watching the World Youth Football Championships, which was on until 1:00 a.m. There are also rumors on the Internet that since the new and old platoon leaders were on duty together, perhaps there was a drinking party after the football to send off the old platoon leader.
¨ëThe killer spent 13 minutes moving from barracks to lounge to situation room lobbing a grenade and firing wildly. While 10 were killed or wounded in the process, the 20 others including the new platoon leader and three men on duty at the guard post survived unharmed. Why were they unable to subdue Kim?
¨ìHow could Private Kim Dong-min, who just committed such a terrible crime, return to the guard post as if nothing happened? The Army explains that he was left to return to the guard post because the division that commanded the post was in a state of confusion, unsure whether the incident was a North Korean attack or came from within the unit itself. Many Army officials are surprised at Kim¡¯s composure.
¨í Why were no other units sent? In an emergency at a guard post, a division search party is supposed to head to the post to deal with the situation, but this did not happen. The incident was reported to the commanding unit at 2:39, when it was just starting, as a North Korean attack, and the regiment and division formed crisis management teams and alerted all men at all frontline guard posts. But when it emerged that it was not an enemy attack, no search party was sent.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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