On June 10, 2005, 51 year-old Kim Myung-Ja was pulling a yogurt cart across a street in Tongduchon, near Camp Casey. Kim pulled her cart into an intersection, in front of a U.S. Army deuce-and-half truck that was sitting at a stoplight. When the signal changed from red to green, 19 year-old Private First Class Jeffrey Bryant, who could not see Kim over the engine, pressed the accelerator, striking and killing Kim Myung-Ja. That day, Roh Moo-Hyun happened to be visiting President Bush at the White House. When Roh and Bush stepped out in front of the cameras for a joint press conference, Bush immediately expressed his condolences on behalf of the United States of America. LaPorte also ordered a nationwide safety stand-down.

June 13, LaPorte visited the victim’s family and provided the family with a “solatium payment.” The family accepted the payment. On June 19, the family told the Stars and Stripes that it forgave PFC Bryant for the accident, and revealed some of Kim’s unlucky life.

Under political pressure from anti-American activists, the South Korean authorities questioned Bryant and then demanded that the U.S. military waive jurisdiction so that they could put Bryant on trial. This, in spite of the fact that Bryant was on duty at the time, meaning that the U.S. military had exclusive jurisdiction to try the case. On September 1st, the Army denied the Korean request for jurisdiction.

On October 27th, the Army issued PFC Bryant and three others with written reprimands.

Maj. Gen. George Higgins, 2nd ID commander, gave the reprimands to Capt. Richard Geren, company commander; Staff Sgt. Edward Winder, company master driver; and Sgt. Cassandra Cobb, vehicle commander, about two weeks ago, according to U.S. Forces Korea officials. The driver, 19-year-old Pfc. Jeff Bryant, received no punishment but was directed to receive additional training.

There was no preferral of charges, no grant of immunity, no trial, and no acquittal. Sensibly, the Army decided not to punish a young soldier for an accident and ordered him to perform corrective training instead. I don't know how the performance of the commander and the NCO's was deficient; however, they will never be promoted if those reprimands are filed in their Official Military Personnel Files. Indeed, those adverse filings will likely mean that the enlisted soldiers will be separated early under something called the “Quality Management Program” if they have less than 17 years of service.

Now, here’s how South Korea’s official news agency reports the outcome of the case, and the remarks of some noted authorities on judicial procedure:

N. Korea blasts U.S. soldier's immunity from punishment

SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea denounced the U.S. Saturday for acquitting a U.S. soldier who killed a South Korean woman in a traffic accident, calling it a proof that Americans rule South Korea as a colony.

In June, Pvt. 1st Class Jeff Briant, 19, killed a South Korean women in a traffic accident near the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division stationed north of Seoul. He was found not guilty in a U.S. military court.

(To see how the (South) Korean media also frequently echoes the anti-US civic groups, take note that the first two images in this post (I added) which were taken from the anti-US sites, and they put up along with these images in a review at www.voiceofpeople.org as a great example of American injustice this screen grab - which is the Stars and Stripes article online. 

Just like the grotesque use of the images of the crushed bodies of the two dead girls, (WARNING: the image is very disturbing and not for the weak of heart or stomach -It gave me bad dreams back in 2002....) the anti-US civic groups believe, with good reason, that putting up an image of the Stars and Stripes article, rather than simply quoting from it, will be much more effective in pulling on the outrage-heart strings of (South) Koreans --- who will see how GIs can, yet again, slaughter Koreans without justice.

Aside from the irony of North Korea lecturing anyone about criminal procedure, there is not a single correct factual statement in this entire three-sentence story, save the soldier’s age and unit. They even managed to misspell his name and get his rank wrong. Whoever wrote this story is a careless, incompetent hack, thoroughly unacquainted with the facts and the judicial procedures on which he purports to report, and unfit to call himself a journalist.

This yet another example of what we find ourselves up against in Korea. This is why we must either find an efficient way to distribute the truth in Korea or get out. Not enough specifics for you, you say? What else do you expect, you ask? Reporting this would be a nice start on the road to some reasonable balance.

The soldier led Browne and Capt. Rachelle Beseman, a physician’s assistant, onto the train tracks, where they saw a smashed car resting both on the tracks and the platform, Beseman said. Minutes earlier, the car had careened off an overpass and fallen about 90 feet onto the Korean Train Express tracks, Korean officials said.

Browne and Beseman, who also is with the 168th Medical Battalion, began helping the three Koreans who had been in the car. A Korean surgeon who also happened to be waiting for the bullet train already was doing triage, Browne said. "They looked horrible," Beseman said Friday morning during a phone interview. "They looked really hurt. I honestly did not expect them to be alive."

Two women were unconscious but breathing, so Browne and Beseman began helping with the third victim, the male driver. Browne cleared an airway for the man and waited until Korean rescue personnel arrived. It seemed like forever, but I’m sure it was only five or 10 minutes, Beseman said.

Korean officials said Friday that the quick actions by both the American and Korean bystanders helped the three victims stay alive immediately after the crash. Had it not been for their professional medical involvement on time, the injured people could not have survived, said Chun Tae-ryong, a Korean firefighter who was among the first on the scene Thursday.

Of course, it wouldn’t fit the Korean media’s image (North and South alike) that all Americans are baby-killers and rapists. That’s an image they’re free to have, but not on my dime.

Back to My Thoughts

The problem is much broader and deeper than even this excellent review had the time to tell.

Sen. Hillary Clinton talked recently about South Korea's growing historical amnesia, and the South Korean Unification Minister went out and proved her point.  I ripped into his 4 page commentary for the Korea Times in two posts below. 

A short recap:  This right hand man of President Roh got even the basic points of fact wrong:

• He couldn't find the time to check his facts to see that Franklin Roosevelt was not Theodore (Teddy). 
• He did not take the time to note that it was the Sec. of War that met with Katsura, not  the Sec. of State.
• He incorrectly stated Roosevelt met with Japan in a backroom, secret meeting to make a treaty - when only Congress can do can make a treaty, and Roosevelt did not meet with Katsura and no treaty was made between the US-Japan (the only treaty signed was between Japan-Russia, but more on that shortly).
• He strongly implied --- virtually directly stated but for the loose wording --- (Franklin) Roosevelt was given a Nobel Peace Prize for letting Japan colonize Korea. --------- which directly exposed purposeful historical amnesia about the Russo-Japanese War.
• And just to name another of the most glaring historical facts he got wrong ---- he claimed Japan had been in control of the Philippines before the signing of the "secret treaty" and the Japanese gave the Philippines to the US in exchange for Korea -- thus exposing historical amnesia about the Spanish colonial empire and the war between Spain and the US --- and the fact Japan never gained control of the Philippines until it defeated the Americans there in 1945-46.

Getting history wrong is normally fine.  But, here, we have a major, major player in the South Korean government using grossly ignorant statements about history to justify defining the United States as the root cause for much of Korea's misery dating back to the turn of the 19th Century.

But, this is not uncommon in Korean society.  If you press Korea, or if a Senator Clinton or a New York Times starts asking questions about Korea's view of the US-SK alliance, everything will suddenly become rosy and nothing to worry about.  It will be described as "just a vocal, radical minority of mostly young adults" that believe such things as these.   And more than a few outsiders in academia and the think tanks have long decided to echo such ideas.

Which are as wrongheaded as what the Unification Minister put out.

You can see the truth frequently in South Korea.  This site has documented just about all of the recurrent themes.

To note just one to close out this long post, I go back to a quick statement at the end of One Free Korea's post:

Of course, it wouldn’t fit the Korean media’s image (North and South alike) that all Americans are baby-killers and rapists. That’s an image they’re free to have, but not on my dime.

This disgusting image to the right is a "political cartoon" that ran in a Korean national newspaper back in 2002.  Actually, it depicts a theme most Koreans believe to be true:  that every year US soldiers rape and kill a good number of Korean women, but they are "never" punished and just fly-away home to American thanks to the evil SOFA agreement.

The cartoon depicts a US soldier in the bedroom of a Korean family.  He draws a white SOFA chalk line on the floor the Korean husband can't cross --- even to defend his wife --- as he has to remain helpless as he watches the GI rape her.  Finished, the GI turns to the distraught Korean and laughs before jumping out the window to freedom the SOFA line gave him.

Early in my time teaching in Korea, I was told by a good friend and student of the other American teacher at the school that, "About 15 Korean women are raped and killed in Korea each year, but the government covers it up."  He did not mean X number raped and Y number killed.  He meant 15 women had both things done to them, but the US-SK government conspired to hide these facts and the SOFA protected the murderers.

I found this hard to believe, but what did I know (at that time)?

I asked a very nice, 30 something Korean female teacher in the school who frequently helped me understand things I'd come across in Korea that first year, and she said, "That sounds about right."

My wife also generally understood that to be correct, and neither of these two women were political minded or anti-American.

Over the years, when the topic of how the US pushes Korea around all the time, and especially how the US military is so bad for Korea, even though necessary (a inoperable cancer), occasionally, I would write up as one of the topic questions for discussion the idea about 15 rapes with murder, and generally, my students (adults between the ages of 25-35 with some college aged and some older than 35) might quibble over the actual numbers -- maybe 8 maybe 20 -- but they did not disagree on the basic facts:  as I heard Koreans say frequently, "GIs commit many terrible violent crimes in Korea every year, but we can't do anything about it.  They just go home to America and escape justice" and "GIs are NEVER brought to Korean justice."

I discovered starting at about my 6 month point in Korea, when I got access to a computer and the internet, how much of a crock of stinking shit this dominate opinion in Korea truly is.

But, even I, after all these years, surprised myself when I found a few months ago that --------- the very first GIs tried in a Korean court, found guilty, and put in Korean prison -- occurred in 1967!! --- and the 2 GIs in that case were in fact found guilty of rape.

In the 2002 tank accident, the Korean media also frequently described it as "murder" (even at times willful murder)  and Korean society absorbed the idea without rejection.  Accidents are often described as killings. 

Or, a Maehyang-ri incident will be distorted into down right lies -- by the society as a whole.  To the point that the media will routinely report falsely in a background paragraph in new stories that the bombs fell "in the heart of the town", or at least outside the confines of the range, and they repeat ad nauseum that hundreds of homes were damaged and a dozen people were seriously injured.

So, it is no surprise to find the Korean media echoing Pyongyang's news now when it comes to GI crimes.

This is not just a radical minority problem....(Sept 2005)