Posted on 01/22/2007 8:04:36 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
January 22, 2007
Boot Camps Gaining Popularity With Korean Parents, Not Kids
By CHOE SANG-HUN
POHANG, South Korea — Spitting plumes of white smoke, a wave of South Korean amphibious assault vehicles lands on the freezing cold beach.
Inside the armored vehicles, schoolchildren huddle in oversize helmets and camouflage fatigues. Some look terrified, but one girl snaps open a hand-held mirror to check her face before the landing. A 14-year-old boy dozes all the way to the beach.
“Some of these kids are hard cases to crack,” said Sgt. First Class Shim Sang-kyu, a crew-cut marine, shouting above the noise of the engine. “Our task is to reconstruct them into a better specimen of human being. We train them in the marine spirit.”
Each year, during summer and winter vacations, thousands of schoolchildren pass through a boot camp operated by the First Marine Division of South Korea in this industrial town on the southeast coast.
The program is devised to instill perseverance, confidence and teamwork, values cherished by South Korean parents who grew up through the deprivation of the postwar years.
Here, children roll in mud pits, jump with parachutes from platforms, wobble up hills, rappel down cliffs and crawl through barbed-wire obstacle courses.
The five-day program was introduced in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis. It became immediately popular with discouraged corporate workers and other civilians, and some adults still sign up.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Chun Young-han/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Each year, during summer and winter vacations, thousands of schoolchildren pass through a seashore boot camp of South Korea's 1st Marine Corps Division in Pohang, an industrial town on the southeast coast. Participants riding in an armored vehicle are a little nervous and a little excited.
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Ping!
They look pretty well fed...
That is why they are there.:-)
Aw hell yeah.
Never thought I'd ever see anyone looking comfortable in an Amtrak.
Heck, my friends and I used to do this kind of stuff all the time when we were kids -- on our own.
barbed-wire obstacle courses?
I wonder if we could sponsor a DEM congressman to attend this summer camp? Taking nominees and collections here!
Well, that's a slight exaggeration. It was more like over or through barbed-wire fences. The "obstacle courses" were pretty much barbed-wire free, even though there were other hazards involved, but we had to go over or through the fences to get to them.
When I did a two week TDY for my NG detachment in Seoul in 1998, I swear the Korean Marines were some of the toughest, meanest looking guys around. They were ALL over 6' tall and many were muscular (belying the myth of the small Asian).
On the other hand, I saw a group of ROK draftees and was less than impressed with them.
Great post.We should do the same thing here.
"They were ALL over 6' tall and many were muscular (belying the myth of the small Asian)."
Reminds me of what my dad said about Japanese Marines in WWII. He thought Japanese were all small until he saw the Marines.
ROFL they look fed oh I am sorry this is SOuth Korea never mind ROFL
Those were really tough guys.
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