S. Korea haggles with U.S. on soldier who ducked Iraq

[Judi Lynn]

S. Korea haggles with U.S. on soldier who ducked Iraq
37 minutes ago

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean soldier may be a U.S. military deserter after he left his U.S. base and joined the South Korean army, apparently to avoid a tour of duty in Iraq, the defense ministry in Seoul said on Thursday.

The South Korean army private second class, whose identity was given only as Kim, joined the U.S. military in 2003 to become a permanent U.S. citizen on condition that he would serve in Iraq, a ministry official said.

In 2005, he visited his home country on leave just before his U.S. unit was to be deployed to Iraq and never went back, the South Korean defense ministry official.

Instead, as he still held a South Korean passport, he was called up by the South Korean military and began serving late last year due to mandatory military enlistment.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070315/ts_nm/korea_usa_deserter_dc

[MADem]

1. Frying pan? Fire? Frying pan? Fire??? NT

[damntexdem]

4. Better the S. Korean frying pan than ...

friendly fire.

[MADem]

5. Tell that to the kid who gets stuck pruning trees in the DMZ!!!!

All it takes is one idiot on the other side of the wire....

[truedelphi]

2. Except S. Korea doesn't lose one thousand soldiers a year

And if they did, I can almost see it as better to be fighting a somewhat real enemy than an
enemy that was created by the need for Hallibruton profits

But I did find your headline clever and funny

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. this happened to someone I went to school with,

They were not trying to desert anything, they joined the US military, but were also subject to conscription in Taiwan and despite being a US citizen they had spent enough time in Taiwan that he was being considered a resident, and was arrested while in Taiwan for a wedding because he had not appeared before the draft board.

Taiwan returned him to the US after several weeks, but before Taiwan contacted the Pentagon to verify he was an active member of the US Military he had been declared AWOL.