South Korean and Thai Marines hold a joint search drill as part of the Cobra Gold 2015 at a Thai Marine training center in Thailand on Feb. 11, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Marine Corps) (Yonhap)
Good luck to Kim Sang-a as she takes on the rigors of becoming a ROK Marine Corps officer:
Kim Sang-a, 24, a sophomore at Jeju National University, has become the first female Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadet for the Marine Corps. She will start to receive her training and education next month.
Until recently, female students have not been allowed to apply for the ROTC for the Marine Corps.
Kim, studying in the Department of Marine Industrial and Maritime Police, passed the ROTC screening test in June and completed her two-week military training on Jan. 16 at a Marine boot camp in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.
Kim’s cadet enlistment ceremony is scheduled for Feb 17.
“Becoming a soldier was my dream,” Kim said.
Born and bred in Seoul, Kim entered the university on Jeju Island to become a female ROTC cadet. [Korea Times via KoreAm Journal]
You can read more at the link.
South Korean and U.S. Marines hold a joint firing drill in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, on Dec. 23, 2014. (Photo courtesy of First Marine Division) (Yonhap)
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.
More details from the murder of a ROK Marine on Ganghwa Island that was captured over a week ago, have now been released:
The man who killed a marine and stole weapons plotted the crime in detail, having surveyed of the crime scene two weeks in advance, according to the military police.
The suspect Cho Yeong-guk, 35, was handed over to the military prosecution.
Cho was arrested last week for killing a marine, injuring another in Ganghwa, Gyeonggi Province, on Dec. 6, and stealing a rifle, ammunition and a hand grenade from them. The metal work major fled to his studio in Hwaseong, left the weapons there and burned the car he used in the crime in a nearby rice field.
He later abandoned the weapons under a bridge in South Jeolla Province, and left a letter describing their location in a postbox in Busan. Police identified him from fingerprints on the letter.
When caught, Cho said he committed the crime on impulse due to depression, but the military police said this was false. He later said that after he was dumped in September by a girl he had dated for 10 years, he decided to destroy himself by committing a serious crime as revenge to give her feelings of guilt. [Korea Times]
The rest of the article goes on to explain how he planned in detail the operation to steal the weapons. I speculated he either did because he was a wacky leftist trying to cause trouble before the election or he went nuts because of girlfriend issues and it appears girlfriend issues is what caused it.
