LaPorte’s Parting Shots in the Stars and Stripes

Outgoing USFK commander General Leon LaPorte has two interesting articles in the Stars and Stripes that can be accessed both here and here. The first thing I would like to comment on is the part of the first article that talks about the 2002 armored vehicle accident:

Forty-four days into his command, two teenage girls were crushed by a 57-ton armored vehicle on a narrow road in Uijeongbu, about 15 miles north of Seoul.

The deaths quickly came to symbolize how little the Americans understood the country they were trying to protect, Korean analysts said this month. LaPorte and other USFK officials made repeated apologies, but they were denounced as late and insincere.

“It should have been handled more smartly,” said Assemblyman Yu Jae-gun, chairman of the Korean assembly’s Defense Committee, in a rare criticism of USFK under LaPorte.

Many, including Yu and Oberdorfer, say USFK has learned its lesson and responds more appropriately when tragedy occurs. Even President Bush made a statement right away about a Korean woman who was killed by an Army truck last summer, noted Kim Woo-sang, a professor of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul. “That’s a big difference,” he said.

USFK actually did make immediate apologies, held a candle light vigil on Camp Red Cloud, and offered compensation payments, but the Korean press was not interested in publicizing this. The Korean media was more interested in building as much xenophobic hatred as possible against American GI’s by publishing every wild and crazy conspiracy theory possible. The xenophobic hatefest of 2002 was more a product of the Korean media and their political accomplices than USFK public relations mistakes after the accident.

Here is another example of how the media is not eager to report any USFK good news stories:

LaPorte initiated a Good Neighbor Program shortly after the accident to promote more exchanges between Koreans and American servicemembers. The volunteer program encourages servicemembers to adopt orphanages and nursing homes, teach English and collect food and goods to distribute during Korean holidays.

General LaPorte actually didn’t start this program because GI’s have been adopting orphanages and volunteering in the local community long before 2002. General LaPorte to his credit was the first command to better organize and promote the Good Neighbor activities. Yet even his increased attention to this program has drawn little reaction from the Korean public because they don’t know about it:

It’s unlikely that many average Koreans know about the Good Neighbor Program, or even LaPorte’s name, many interviewed said. But they praised his efforts to reach out, noting there is now a USFK Web site in Korean for this Internet-driven country.

What I most remember about the xenophobic hatefest of 2002 is how the media buried the blatant attack and murder of six South Korean sailors patroling the Yellow Sea just days after the tank accident in order to draw public attention away from South Korea’s surprising World Cup run that year.

A traffic accident in the country with the world’s highest traffic accident rate draws mass protests, discrimination, and assaults against foreigners while a planned murder of six South Korean servicemen by the North Koreans barely draws a whisper of media attention. President Bush apologized for the traffic accident that resulted in the two girls deaths while I’m still waiting for Kim Jong Il to at least even say, “My bad” for killing the six South Korean sailors.