Category: ROK Military

Chey Min-jung (R), the daughter of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, salutes to her mother at the Korea Naval Academy in Changwon City, South Gyeongsang Province, on Nov. 26, 2014. The 23-year-old was commissioned as second lieutenant after an 11-week training. She became the first woman from a chaebol family to enlist in the military in a country where all able-bodied South Korean men are subject to compulsory military service for about two years. The mother of the younger Chey is the daughter of a general-turned-president Roh Tae-woo who served from 1988 to 1993. (Yonhap)

The destroyer Uljimundeok fires a sea-to-air missile “Sea Sparrow” during a drill off South Korea’s west coast on Nov. 21, 2014. (Yonhap)

The ROK Army already has a 100 of this tanks deployed and are set to double their number by 2017:

The military plans to complete the deployment of some 100 next-generation tanks equipped with an indigenous engine and transmission by the year 2017, according to the arms procurement agency, Wednesday.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said the upgraded K-2 Black Panther will be deployed by the end of the year.

The decision came during a defense project committee meeting presided over by Defense Minister Han Min-koo.

The military has been postponing the deployment of the weapons system as it had failed Army requirements because of faulty components.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to lower the standard for its acceleration performance, enabling the deployment of the advanced combat vehicle.

DAPA spokesman Kim Si-cheol explained that the deployment of the vehicle will help the military to strengthen its combat capability as they will have upgraded mobility and firepower suitable for any future warfare environment.

He expressed confidence with the equipment the military will be able to maintain upper hand over North Korea. “We also expect the new battle tanks will be exported more actively,” Kim said during a press briefing.  [Korea Times]

This is actually a very good tank for what the ROK Army needs it to do.  However, their biggest goal with the K2 has been to keep a production line open to sell these tanks to international customers like Turkey which is working with the ROK to co-develop their new Altay main battle tank.

Armed carriers get out of a Navy vessel on a beach in Pohang City, North Gyeongsang Province, on Nov. 18, 2014, as part of the Hoguk exercise involving the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps against North Korea’s possible provocations. (Yonhap)

Here I was thinking that transgender people wanted to have their junk cut off?:

A South Korean transgender woman Wednesday lodged a human rights complaint against the military for forcing her to undergo genital surgery in order to be exempted from military duty.

The 22-year-old trans woman went through a mandatory medical checkup for the draft in 2012. She submitted a medical report that confirms a “crisis in sexual identity” and documents on her cross-sex hormone therapy to apply for a military exemption.

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA), however, rejected it, saying she would need to present convincing evidence that she would never be able to become a man again.

She had no choice but to undergo an orchiectomy and was exempted from the military duty in October 2013.

“The MMA demanded her to come up with an irreversible proof, obviously referring to the surgical removal of testicles,” Yun Da-rim, secretary general of the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, told the Korea Observer.

“Those who receive military medical checkups are in their early 20s and many of them simply cannot afford to have genital surgery. Can you imagine how much an ordeal a transgender woman has to suffer to live with male conscripts?”

Yun argued that trans women should be exempted from their compulsory military duty without undergoing genital surgery as no measures have been taken to protect the rights of sexual minorities in the barracks.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but if you still have your male body parts than you are a male and should do your mandatory military service like every other male.  Letting transgender people dodge mandatory service without the surgery would lead to non-transgender people claiming they are transgender to avoid mandatory service as well.  The ROK military needs a standard and clearing have male body parts is a pretty clear standard.

An Army soldier, identified only as Sgt. Lim, who was arrested on charges of killing five fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage in June, leaves a military court in Wonju, Gangwon Province, on Oct. 23, 2014, after trial. Lim claimed he committed the rampage after being ostracized for years. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s KF-16 fighters fly over Alaska on Oct. 3, 2014, as part of the Red Flag-Alaska exercises. (Photo courtesy of South Korean Air Force) (Yonhap)

Six soldiers charged with murder: Six soldiers accused of killing a junior comrade surnamed Yoon at their fift… http://t.co/Ap6Dko4hE3

— Hankyoreh Newspaper (@HankyorehNews) September 17, 2014

This is a horrible accident that happened in Pohang that appears to have been caused by a faulty grenade:

One Marine Corps recruit was killed and another recruit and an instructor were wounded Tuesday when a hand grenade exploded during a training session in this southeastern port city, military sources said.

The accident took place at around 10:20 a.m. at the drill camp of the South Korean Marine Corps when a hand grenade, clutched by a 19-year-old recruit, suddenly exploded.

The explosion severed the recruit’s hand and he was rushed to a nearby hospital but was later pronounced dead there.

Shrapnel from the explosion wounded the other recruit and the instructor, who remain hospitalized in stable condition, according to the sources.

The military immediately said there were no procedural problems in the grenade drill. The moment the military instructor ordered trainees to “fling,” the grenade blew up, it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.