<영문자료>Korea's Military(3)

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11. At the Guard Post. The Jeep chugged over dirt roads for about two hours. It was mid-May and everywhere else Korea was verdant with new grass and dazzling with the hues of spring flowers. But not the desolate areas along the road to the demilitarized zone (DMZ). I couldn't even spot an dandelion along the road. Farmers working the fields were mostly older men; no young men were to be seen. With no flowers blooming and no young girls promenading, I found it difficult to tell whether it was spring, or winter. There are no seasons at the DMZ. The battalion commander, KMA graduate LTC Sin, briefed me personality. We sat in a ROK Army Observation Post (OP) located on a high point in the DMZ, but a North Korean Puppet Army OP located to our front on even higher ground, about 1,000 meters above sea level, kept us under constant surveillance. Inside the DMZ, enemy and friendly OPs confront each other across a scant few hundred meters of hilly terrain. LTC Sin said the enemy has 75 percent of its total personnel strength positioned within 50 miles of the DMZ, and that it is possible for them to attack the ROK with no further redeployments. The Northern Puppets fired onto this OP last year, Colonel Sin said with obvious tension in his voice, wounding one soldier and causing the division to raise its combat readiness posture. LTC Sin seemed to be the typical field officer, stubborn but sharp. After he finished his briefing, I had an opportunity to converse privately with him. We quickly developed a difference of opinion regarding my article in May's Wolgan Chosun, Chon Tu-hwan: His Network of Men, His Network of Money. "You seem intent on dividing officers into two groups," noted Sin, "political officers and pure field officers. But I'm not sure that's possible. When I read your article, that was the first I'd heard about the 'Hana-hwe.' I think you're trying to weave too much political interpretation into your description of the Army. I oppose exploitation of the Army for purposes of commercial Journalism." "It seems to me that you're trying to shove responsibility for all society's problems onto military government," he continued. "Even problems that antedated military government. In any event, December's presidential election settled the question of whether of not Korea was to have military government, so I'd appreciate it if you'd stop adding to our problems. As you can see, we DMZ Soldiers are suffering enough as it is." Although the content of Sin's remarks was biting, his tone was humility itself. The colonel's views on the Kwangju Incident and the 12 December Incident were diametrically opposed to those widely held in press circles, but I drew the impression that LTC Sin was expressing those views from personal conviction and not merely because he was speaking to a reporter. He sincerely seemed to believe them. 12. "Please Let Us Go." Three Chungpuk University students were at the OP undergoing their sophomore-year, front-line military training. They all said the same thing: "When we came up here for this training, we were all set to have some fun. We thought the whole thing was a lark. But as we talked with the enlisted men we were working with on the fence along the DMZ's southern limit line, we changed our minds pretty darned fast." one student who said he had worked so hard he had grasped what the term "walk in your sleep" really meant, said, "I've begun to understand that in spite of it all students and soldiers have got to understand each other." LTC Sin said nervously, "You know. When I'm in uniform and pass by a place where a demonstration is underway, I get extremely self-conscious. Its tragic when you can't feel comfortable with your fellow countrymen." On the way back from DMZ, I stopped by the quarters of regimental commander who hails from Chonju in North Cholla Province. It was late at night. When the colonel said he'd served for fifteen years in the SWC, I asked him what he thought about the Kwangju Incident. His response follows. once a mission is levied on a military organization, soldiers have no choice but try execute that mission. one can quibble with the methodology used, but when an order is given to suppress a demonstration, that is what one must do. Without fail. If one tries to pass judgement on this military doctrine from a civilian point of view, there will never be mutual understanding." According to this regimental commander, after the Kwangju Incident the Army adopted tough new training designed to teach SWC troopers to treat civilians courteously. The colonel turned the conversation to Song Chung-hak, one of his sergeants who lived next to an old civilian who was partially paralyzed. The sergeant treated the old gentlemen as if he were a father, and the colonel asked me to say something about Song in my article. The colonel believed Song's story could help improve the Army's relationship with the Korean people. "This is an example of the fact," the colonel said, "that this is the people's Army." The regimental commander, an OCS graduate, said that he had purchased a 40-million Won (55,000 dollar) apartment in Seoul's Kaepo Subward in 1984. This was possible, he said, only because he served with ROK forces in Vietnam and was able to save the extra money he made there. The colonel explained that with more than 20 years of Army service, if he retired today he could elect to receive his retirement as an annuity or as a lump sum of about 27 million Won (37,000 dollars). During most of his years in the Army, the colonel had lived in rented quarters and been the object of scorn by a series of landlords. The colonel spent a considerable amount of time reminiscing about especially egregious disputes with landlords. LTC Chang was also present and added his own story. "My father came to visit me one time. We lived in a rented room and our situation really was kind of pitiful. In fact, dad took my oldest son home to live with him just to ease our burden somewhat. He raised the boy for about two years, but I was too busy in a DMZ assignment to visit them. He didn't recognize me. as I rushed up to him, he turned toward me and said, 'Hi there, older brother!' That almost broke my heart. So I brought him back to be with on the DMZ." 13. A Warning from Chong Pyong-chu. I have talked with many men who condemn the key generals who run the Army. Chong Sung-hwa(former CSA), Chong Pyong-chu(retired major general who commanded the SWC on the night of 12 December 1979), Kim Po-Ki(retired brigadier general who was Provost Marshal General at Army Headquarters on the night of the DSC's predecessor unit, the Army Defense Command), and a number of DSC officers who investigated the Hana-hwe. Before I started meeting them, I naturally assumed that they would hold views that diverge sharply from those of active duty general officers. But I found instead that their views on the Kwangju Incident and the relationship that must prevail between the Army and the Korean people were virtually identical. Former SWC commanding general Chong Pyong-chu is highly regarded for comporting himself cleanly, and in a mainly and soldierly manner in spite of a number of provocations he has experienced. Chong supported the ROK Army Headquarters side on the night of 12 December 1979, but in fact he was much closer personally to the network figures who supported the Joint Investigation Headquarters cause that night, Chon Tu-hwan, No Tae-u, Pak Hui-to, Choe Se-chang, and Chang Ki-o. Chong commanded the SWC for five years, and during that time he raised the SWC to world standards for special paratroop units. Chong was known as the "godfather of the SWC network" and personally brought into the SWC as brigade commander Chon, No, Pak, Choe, and Chang. He was advised during the night of 12 December 1979 to join forces with the Joint Investigations Headquarters, but refused, "Why should I go there?" (By "there" he meant the Capital Defense Command's Security Regiment located on the precincts of Kyungpuk Palace). At the time of the 16 May 1961 coup d'etat, Chong Pyong-chu initially refused to support the coup, stubbornly saying he would "take commands from nobody but the Chief of Staff." But the main coup forces eventually obliged him and others of his Pre-KMA Class 9 classmates to support the coup. on the night of 12 December 1979 the stuck to his convictions one again: "I stand on the side of the legally-constituted chain of command." But he was shot for his trouble, wounded as his own SWC subordinates burst their way into his office. His close side, SWC Secretary of the General Staff, Major Kim O-rang was shot dead at the scene. Chong was forced out of the Army in the spring of 1980, and although he received a number of employment proposals from the Chon Tu-hwan administration, he chose to reject these and remains in seclusion. "I eat three times a day, and stare at the sky," Chong told me. "The ground is there, so I walk on it, and of course I sleep. I really enjoy going for walks. When resentment got the better of me there at first, I'd take a bottle of liquor and stagger around by myself all day in the Five West Tombs area at Kupabal, and then fall down anyplace and sleep it off. I did that for a while, and then when I passed a check point north of Seoul I wondered how Mr No Tae-u passed that place… The instant I took off my uniform, I retired not just from the Army but from life itself. I'm saying I just don't want any other job in life. The way I was retired caught me unprepared, and I've haven't been able to adjust to it." General Chong broke his silence and expressed his convictions only once. When the 12 December 1979 Incident became an issue in the presidential campaign in late 1987, Chong called a news conference in conjunction with former Army Provost Marshal Kim Po-ki. Chong adopted a conciliatory attitude, telling reporters, "For the sake of history, the truth about the 12 December Incident must be precisely told, but a number of the main actors remain on active duty in the Army. I don't want to name these men because to do so might undercut the process of democratization. And if the press were to carry their names, I think it would vastly complicate their task of command. I don't want to see that." Chong's ideas about the Army and politics are distinctive indeed. "The Army has only one reason to exist, to obey lawful orders issued by the constituted chain of command, and obey them absolutely. If you are ordered to go die, you must go. Why did I refuse to go along on the night of 12 December 1979? on the human level, I was closer to General Chon's group, but was it not irrefutably true that the constituted chain of command through Army Headquarters was active and functioning? The foundation for Korean democracy and the key to rekindling trust between the Army and the Korean people are one commands or whether it will not. "Military people have very simple mentalities. They are continuously trained to blindly obey commands. As a result, they are constitutionally unable to comprehend the complex society Korea has become today. My wife still complains that I govern our family in a martial style. No professional soldier can doff his uniform one day, enter the political world the next, and possibly expect to be free of these ingrained habits. In military society, the group does what the senior officer wants it to do. Take that mentality and see what kind of trouble it leads to in economics or politics." 14. If Army Officers React to Alienation. "The principal reason the military cannot preside over civilian government is that we generals have a strong tendency to perceive military orders to be identical to established law," Chung Sung-hwa has said. "No matter how honorable our intentions, we cannot do things that subvert the process of law." Chong's point was that many military officers fail to comprehend that in a constitutional state actions must be founded in law. Chong was noting that generals tend to overlook the fact that commands must always remain within the realm of legality, and because of this tendency when generals take political power, they inevitably degrade law to the level of a mere tool of power. The military mentality was the basis cause of the perversion of law that occurred during the Fifth Republic. "When there is an illogical regulation in the U.S. Army," one retired general officer told me, "American officers unswervingly obey that regulation even as they set out to change it. But Korean officers simply ignore the regulation while they look into it." The so-called Yushin Recruitment System was originated by Chong Sung-hwa when he served as KMA Commandant from 1975 to 1977. As Commandant, Chong noted that the quality of high school graduates applying to KMA was failing, and the Army was concerned. Part of the problem was decreased academic performance, but the percent of applicants from farming families and from the urban poor was also up sharply. Chong said he was concerned at the time that this trend could result in the forming of a group of KMA officers with roots in socially alienated classes that could be potentially rebellious. Chong reacted by inviting the principals of the nation's leading high school to visit KMA, not once but several times. He personally gave them guided tours of the Academy and urged them to send only their "top students" to KMA. Chong claimed that to boost the quality of KMA cadets he needed to be able to tell the applicants and their high school principals that the Army offered an alternate road into the civil service in the event a young officer dropped behind in his military career. Thus, Chong recommended to President Pak that the government adopt the Yushin Recruitment System. "Even now I think the Yushin Recruitment System is a valid idea," Chong says today, "but the Korean people have rejected military government and the Yushin Recruitment System with it. They have thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. Then too, abuses in the administration of the program triggered a strong backlash from the civil service itself." Chong went on, "Korea is still divided into south and a north. If our society continues to vilify the Army, then rebelliousness and negative reaction on the part of military officers can only grow. In the kind of free society we have enjoyed lately, no other profession is suffering the deprivation of freedom that the Army is experiencing." 15. A Progressive Military? Chong Sung-hwa said he told RDP presidential candidate Kim Yong-sam many times during last year's presidential campaign that, "When you censure the Army, limit your attacks to the few political officers. Punishing the simple soldiers who comprise the vast bulk of the Army will only boomerang on you." Chong Sung-hwa said that if the Korean people are to regain their trust in the Army, large numbers of former military officers must join opposition political parties. Not only would this approach build popular trust, Chong believes it would also serve to improve the negative perception a number of the opposition prevailing among military officers and not incidentally foster increased understanding of the Army among the opposition as well. "If the opposition parties continue to heap blame on the Army for being the hand maiden of power," Chong emphasizes, "and the ruling elite perceives the Army as nothing more than a tool of power, then the Army itself has no independent ground on which to stand. Opposition people have a duty to prevent the kinds of incidents which have caused the Army to be viewed as the DJP's private security guard rather than the armed forces of the nation. For their part, the opposition parties are rife with thinly-disguised prejudice against retired officers, but I think we have reached a point in our development where the man must be regarded as more important than his professional background." In 1984, this reporter undertook a study of the military backgrounds of the 11th National Assembly. Of the 185 deputies who were qualified for the draft, 50 members (27 percent) had not actually served in the military. In a number of cases, a Deputy failed to serve because of physical limitations, but a large majority of them seemed to have intentionally avoided mandatory military service. In developed countries, failure to pay taxes or heed the draft are absolute disqualifiers for public office. Under the concept of "noblesse oblige", social figures who enjoy the respect that flows from holding high office (noblesse) accept a corresponding measure of social obligation (oblige). But in Korea the "noblesse oblige" mentality has yet to take hold, and indeed there may be a trend in the opposite direction because of the people's animus toward military government. A DJP official who has shown himself to be insightful on national defense issues said the following: "Military officers in Europe had their roots in the nobility, and in Japan, in the Samurai class. Even in the United States only young men from the upper classes who receive the personal recommendation of a Senator can attend West Point. This provides the governing class with underpinnings rooted in the officer corps and guarantees a built-in predisposition to defend the system. In contrast, the Korean officer corps originates largely from the lower middle class, and far from being predisposed to safeguarding the system, it tends to seek power itself, and from time to time even displays characteristics of socialism."