<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Dear all,<br>
<br>
My contribution here is strictly anecdotal rather than
research-based. Two my of my relatives (i.e. my grandmother's
younger first-cousins) both volunteered (chawŏn, 자원) and both came
from families that were financially struggling. At the time, both
were active-duty soldiers in the ROK army. One did end up going to
Vietnam and died when the helicopter that he was on was shot down.
Another one, whom I got to chat with about all this last summer,
told me that he volunteered to go to Vietnam as promised incentives
were very attractive to him, but somehow he got rejected when he
applied. <br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Gene<br>
---<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Eugene Y. Park
Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History
Director, James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies
University of Pennsylvania
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/park.shtml">http://www.history.upenn.edu/faculty/park.shtml</a></pre>
<br>
On 4/15/2012 10:34 PM, don kirk wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:1334543678.54573.YahooMailClassic@web39402.mail.mud.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="font: inherit;" valign="top">
<div>By "forcefully mobiilized in combat units," you mean
they were draftees whose units were sent there, right?
That would make sense since two big divisions were in
Vietnam, the White Horse and the Tiger. Wouldn't think
all or most of them would have been "volunteers" though
special forces may have been mostly volunteers, not
sure. (Korean forces in Vietnam totalled 50,000 or more
troops much of the time. The term "forcefully mobilized"
would seem to be another term for drafted. All young
Korean men were subject to the draft. Still are --
though some think of ways to avoid it.)</div>
<div>Don Kirk<br>
<br>
--- On <b>Sun, 4/15/12, tae gyun park <i><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tgpark3@gmail.com"><tgpark3@gmail.com></a></i></b>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px;
BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><br>
From: tae gyun park <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tgpark3@gmail.com"><tgpark3@gmail.com></a><br>
Subject: Re: [KS] Brian Hwang's Discussion Question (Tae
Gyun Park)<br>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</a><br>
Date: Sunday, April 15, 2012, 6:21 PM<br>
<br>
<div class="plainMail">Dear Brian,<br>
<br>
There is an interesting documentary, "Black Sergeant
Kim returning<br>
from Vietnam"(no.77, 2004) in "I can say now (Ijeneun
Malhalsu Itda)"<br>
series, produced by MBC in South Korea, for which I
was an adviser.<br>
According to interviews in the documentary, most of
the Korean<br>
soldiers in Vietnam were not volunteers, but were
forcefully mobilized<br>
in combat units. Of course, there were volunteers in
Korean combat<br>
divisions in Vietnam. I do not have any statistics,
unfortunately.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Tae Gyun Park.<br>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>