Draft dodgers in South Korea
For those of you out there who think that draft is the answer to the problems facing national security as service in our all-volunteer military becomes less attractive, this look at South Korea’s conscription woes in the Stars & Stripes might alter your perception;
South Korea is better known for its catchy K-pop songs, tech-savviness and economic growth than it is for the more than 17,500 conscientious objectors who have been imprisoned since 1950. Most are Jehovah’s Witnesses, who number about 100,000 in this country of 50 million and often face stigma in its largely conformist society.
More than 50 men have refused to serve in the past decade because of nonreligious personal beliefs or political reasons, including 25-year-old Kim Dong Hyun.
“Right now, I only have two choices: military or prison. Of the two, I think prison is the more peaceful choice,” Kim said. “At least in prison I don’t have to train to kill.”
Kim, like Jeon, was sentenced to 18 months, which today is a typical sentence for conscientious objectors in South Korea. Under South Korea’s military-backed dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s, imprisonment lasted up to seven years.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee criticizes South Korea for not recognizing conscientious objectors and failing to give them alternatives to military service- a violation of freedom of thought, conscience and religion recognized in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This is in a country whose main threat is just across a thin strip of fenced and mine-laden earth and has a history of incursions into South Korea. Imagine trying to maintain a trained standing Army in the US among the lazy and irresponsible pool of draft-aged men and women. Our jails would be packed with draft dodgers, no room for the thugs.
Our draft system has already been corrupted by the Jimmy Carter Administration when he gave blanket amnesty to all of the draft dodgers of the Vietnam Era, then a few years later, reinstated draft registration. Carter insured that a draft will never work again here.
Category: Jimmy Carter, Military issues
Time’s they are a changin. Not that I’m that old, but you don’t hear about draft dodgers during WWII, even though people were drafted. It seems to have become the popular thing to do during Vietnam, when the war became very UNpopular. I just can’t even imagine spending time in jail though. But we have had soldiers here spend time in jail….look at Travis Bishop for example.
I would take the criticisms of the U.N. Human Rights Committee a little more seriously if it was not populated by such human rights stalwarts as Cuba, Iran, and Sudan. If I’m not mistaken, Iran took over the rotating chairmanship of UNHRC just fairly recently…
“Carter insured that a draft will never work again here.”
Carter had nothing to do with it. And it probably didn’t “work” in the first place (unless by “work,” you mean just “shift the cost of manning the military from the taxpayers to the draftee”). I’m not sure I can think of another issue in which there is more consensus among economists across the spectrum than the notion that conscription was/is a god-awful idea. Thanks to (the just recently of of late) Walter Oi, among others.
@2 Yeah, you gotta love the UN’s consistency on that pesky human rights thingy. You don’t hear them getting that shrill over the many abuses the Norks inflict on Koreans unfortunate enough to live north of the DMZ…
There have been draft dodgers in all wars. Sgt. York was a CO who had a change of heart. We had CO’s in boot camp that refused to carry a rifle, yet served and went to Medic’s school. A CO Medic from W.VA. received the MOH in Vietnam. It pains me that this happens in South Korea. I had the honor to serve with the 30th Reg. 9th Korean Inf. Div, (White Horse) in Vietnam after my time with the Cav. They were some of the best damn soldiers I ever served with and saved my life when I was wounded. I asked them when I first got with them why they were in Vietnam and almost to a man said, “because America is here.” To a man most remembered being children during the Korean War and the Hell that was the NORKS and the love and caring they got from American G.I’s. We would have lost WWII if not for the draft as only in the beginning where men flocking to the recruiting stations. Per capita there were more volunteers for Vietnam then WWII. People find that unbelievable, but true. Don’t forget that most of us had parents that fought in WWII and figured it was our turn. I’m not sure about a draft today but I have always felt that to be a citizen in this country you owe at least 2 years to it be it military or some other way. Those draft dodgers in Korea better hope the NORKS never take over the south again, no prison for them, just a bullet to the brain or worse and I spit on any South Korean that wouldn’t defend his country the same as I would those who went to Canada during Vietnam or any other conflict.
@4
What do you expect? If you’re a belligerent, weapons proliferating, slave-state, alphabetical rotations mean, e.g., if the Czechs are in the batter’s box, then you, Mr. Nork, are on deck as the head re the UN’s Conference on Disarmament (under DPRK). It’s what they mean by “morally neutral.” Which is how they explain electing Mauritania — a country which still enforces slavery — as one of the HRC’s 4 VPs.
@5
“We would have lost WWII if not for the draft as only in the beginning where men flocking to the recruiting stations.”
No, we would have had to pay people more.
I have mixed feelings on the matter to be honest. I can understand someone being a CO. And as it was pointed out, a lot of countries that have mandatory service requirements also have options for COs. Just throwing them in jail seems like a waste.
South Korea throws people in jail for claiming CO status on religious grounds? That’s pretty reprehensible.
There’s really not even any fences anymore, at least not in the part of the DMZ that I visited
@6 I’m confused. Draftee’s got paid the same as RA’s. “We would have had to pay more people” doesn’t make any sense. Again, if they are NOT coming in voluntarily, how else do you get the amount of men you need?
@8 Former 11B. I sort of feel that way, but we did it here when they wouldn’t serve in other capacities. As we all know there are plenty of jobs other than combat arms. I think after you’ve been attacked and almost wiped out by your neighbor you see things like conscription differently than a country that hasn’t really been invaded since 1812. The live with a nuclear North run by madmen. I have a feeling that if Canada was the same as NORK, we’d believe differently in this country.
1AirCav69. FDR issued Executive Order 9279 which immediately halted enlistments for draft-aged men. Prior to that action, men were flocking to recruiting stations. The problem was that by doing so they were able to select their branch of service. The War Department, meanwhile, wanted to control fully who went where. Consequently, a few days short of the 1st anniversary of Pearl Harbor, enlistments ended. Only those 17 and those over 37 and not yet 45.
Whoops. “Only those 17 and those over 37 and not yet 45 were permitted to voluntarily enter the service.”
2/17 Air Cav, I didn’t have a clue about that. Well, that explains something to me. Thanks for the history lesson.
Honor and Courage
@10AirCav69
“Draftee’s got paid the same as RA’s. “We would have had to pay more people” doesn’t make any sense. Again, if they are NOT coming in voluntarily, how else do you get the amount of men you need?”
Of course they did. Free labor means a slack tide lowers all ships.
How do you get the men you need? Again — like everything else — pay them more.
The entire body work of Freeman, Oi, etc. — any everyone since — was that (1) compared to an AVF, conscription resulted in lower salaries (akin to an implicit tax over 50%) for draftees and (at the very least) for their contemporary enlisted and junior officers; and (2) paying a market wage for the risks soldiers take would be sufficient to meet recruitment needs (or at least strategic needs). The canard about reducing costs– in fact, explicitly trotted out by contemporary draftnicks who haven’t the faintest clue about economics [*cough* Tom Ricks *cough*] — is demonstrably wrong: Yes, in effect taxing a small group of healthy young men probably helps the DoD’s budget vs. an AVF; the overall costs, however, are greater.
The biggest reason for not enacting a draft is that the military doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it and won’t benefit from it.
All those pushing the draft are not doing it for reasons of military neccessity, but from a standpoint of social engineering, as if bringing back the draft will somehow magically transport us back to a different time in American history.
Conscription is great if you need cannon fodder. For modern armies that require trained professional soldiers, not so much.
The reason for the forced halt in volunteering for service in WW2 was to prevent economic, industrial and research drain.
It was recognized that keeping the industrial and research engines churning at full capacity were going to be every bit as much a necessity for victory as the military manpower.
The USMC, of course, constantly “gamed the system” and kept up a fair stream of volunteer enlistees through various shenanigans, and, also of course, pissed off the other services while doing so. I, somewhat, suspect that pissing off the other services was the primary motivation.
I was part of the 2nd ID Western Corridor 92-93, and I envied the ROK Army’s discipline methods, they used, ands still do wall-to-wall counseling, something the sniveling liberals have had tossed out. No, I’m not at all in favor of pounding “Joe’s” arse for any and every mess-up, but it would come in handy in dealing with blatant insubordination!
@14. Yeah, I figured. It wasn’t all that long ago that I learned about it. For the progeny of WWII Veterans, it explains why so many of their fathers, grandfathers, or great-grandfathers did not enlist.
lol they should boot those people out of the country.
Not willing to preserve the country basically makes you and obsolete leach.
#20 – Boot them out so they can end up in Germany, Netherlands or even US collecting welfare and living a better life huh? Sounds like a reward.