From this week, soldiers at combat outfits can meet their families and friends during off-duty hours on weekdays as well as weekends; those on frontline GOP (general outpost) duties can receive visitors on holidays only. Soldiers can make the schedule for the 28 days of furlough during their 21-month compulsory service on their own ― such as into four weeklong outings, two fortnights or three and one. The Defense Ministry will distribute cellphones (the old folding types) to small groups of enlisted personnel so that soldiers can talk to their families privately and directly. (The ministry will spend 6 billion won to buy the handsets.) 

When I read news reports of these “innovations in military camp life” announced by the Defense Ministry, I felt the times have really changed ― from the days of my service with an infantry division of the ROK Army half a century ago. And, frankly speaking, I wondered if we would have a stronger fighting force with soldiers’ material and mental needs sufficiently fulfilled, or a bunch of “momma’s boys” in uniforms anxiously watching the gates of their camps every now and then, and waiting for the visits of their loved ones or at least calls from them.

A joint committee of civilian, governmental and military representatives worked out a set of innovation measures amid uproars against human rights abuses in the military after some cases of extreme atrocities that led to homicides and suicides were exposed in recent months. Military authorities say they are introducing an “open barracks culture” by removing barriers between soldiers and the outside world, and acknowledging that the rights abuses were possible chiefly because life in the barracks was closed to public monitoring.

So, parents can now call their sons any time they want to ask them if they have any complaints or have received unjust treatment by their seniors, NCOs or officers. If they still worry about their sons’ service life, they can come to their camps to see for themselves if there is any trace of maltreatment. Fathers and mothers will return home reassured of their grown children’s “safety,” but some who still believe otherwise will raise formal complaints with the authorities. We are going to have regiment and battalion compounds and even the GOP grounds turning into something like neighborhood elementary schools awash with the “skirts wind (chima param).”

I am not against the idea of open barracks in the sense that there should be no difference inside and outside of the fences of military camps in terms of the basic conditions and values of human society. Young soldiers should be ensured the same calorie intake as their contemporaries in campus towns and some extra to sustain the rigors and stress of their duties. They should also have access to the cultural trends and worldly information so that they don’t feel left out when returning to civilian life.

Yet, the military needs to be different. It is the last resort to protect the nation when political, economic and diplomatic means have been exhausted. It is a life-and-death institution built to fight and win in war, an unlimited contest of physical power. The military has tools, rules and roles exclusive for it and these ingredients through history have created a unique culture named “discipline.” The military, basically a violent group, cannot function without discipline, the mechanism of order and obedience. The problem is that discipline itself requires the use of violence.

From the days when I was a rifleman in a platoon of the White Horse Division to this day when the Military Human Rights Center ― which happens to be led by a man who chose to serve a jail term rather than serve active military duty ― makes headlines with disclosures of cruelties committed in the barracks, many things have changed in the Army, including food, shelter and weapons. But the mission as well as the mentality of our military has not essentially changed, not least because we have confronted the same vicious enemy through all these decades.

One thing that is conspicuously different from the past is the societal reaction to the exposed incidents of abuses in the Army and the military authorities’ responses to the civilian reactions. The defense minister and the Army chief of staff have been replaced over the past few months, but the entire military leadership still looks apologetic to the nation for their responsibility over the recent series of mishaps, especially the death of Pfc. Yun in the 28th Division and Sgt. Kim’s shooting spree in the 22nd Division.

Military commanders are particularly sorry about the rising number of suicides of military personnel year after year, which media analysts generally attribute to stressful service life, often involving the practice of hazing. Yet official figures show that the suicide rate in the military remains about half of the rate in the corresponding age group in civilian society. (In 2012, 72 men and women committed suicide in the 650,000-strong armed forces (11.1 per 100,000) while the number of suicides per 100,000 civilians aged 20-29 was 23.5.) The specter of suicide is apparently less relentless in the military, if not totally driven out.

The death of Pfc. Yun at the medical detachment of the 28th Division is tragic and there can be no other explanation than that the three seniors had beaten the rookie soldier day and night until he breathed his last in April. The division commander and supervising officers cannot evade responsibility for the gross atrocity perpetrated for an extended period under their negligence. Yet, I sincerely hope that this is an absolutely isolated case in one of the many medical outfits in the Army.

Prevention is neither improbable nor impossible under concerted military-wide efforts and then our armed forces will regain people’s trust as the defender of the nation and as an important educator of youths in their developmental years. For a period of 21 months ― cut by a third from three years in the 1960s ― the military builds a spirit of camaraderie, care of the weak, endurance of hardships and selflessness for a great cause in youthful personalities. Few can deny that the compulsory military service system since the war has helped make Korea what it is today.

Whatever the merits of “open military camp life,” there can be no justification for the softening of discipline if we are to have a strong, dependable and trusted army.

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. ― Ed.