Itaewon eatery owner sympathetic to soldier blamed for fire

[unhappycamper]

Itaewon eatery owner sympathetic to soldier blamed for fire
By Hwang Hae-rym and Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, January 17, 2009

The South Korean movie star whose Itaewon restaurant was damaged in a New Year’s Day fire is asking authorities to pardon the U.S. soldier suspected of setting the fire.

Hong Suk-chon, an actor who co-owns My Thai China with his sister, pulled the soldier from the fire that caused more than $1,000 in damage to his restaurant on Jan. 1.

Still, Hong, 37, said this week he feels the mistakes of a 22-year-old man shouldn’t follow him for the rest of his life.

"It caused no damage to human life, and he didn’t do it intentionally," Hong said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

The soldier is suspected of starting a fire behind the restaurant in the early morning of Jan. 1, after a night of drinking. Police suspect he set the fire to keep warm and then passed out. The soldier was too drunk for questioning later that day, police said.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60056

[Lasher]

1. I made a trip or two to Itaewon in 1970 when I was in the Army.

It was off limits to us then, so of course that's where we all went.