In addition to this case, in Apr. 2022, the following cases became known through the
raising of the problems by media reports and civil groups: A case investigated by the military
police where three senior soldiers in the Marine Corps repeatedly beat, sexually assaulted,
and forcibly fed food to their successors;378) A case being investigated by the military
authorities in which a navy soldier was assaulted for two hours in the name of congratulating
his comrades on discharge the night before he was discharged;379) and a case in which the
court sentenced a soldier to 6 months in prison and 1 year probation for being charged with
assaulting and abusing his successors during his service.
To improve the military culture, the Ministry of National Defense allows soldiers to use
mobile phones, prohibits personal errands between the soldiers, runs vision green camps for
soldiers who are unfit for service or concerned about suicide, and operates a military life
expert counseling system. In 2021, the drama ‘D.P.,’ which deals with the absurdities in the
military, became popular, and then an opinion was expressed that, “it is too extreme to see it
as an absurdity that happen in the military in 2014. Currently, the military environment is
changing so that such malicious accidents cannot be concealed.”380)
However, there seem to be many opinions that irregularities in the military are still serious.
Posts about various absurdities and bad behaviors experienced directly or indirectly during
the military service, such as ‘Marine Literature,’381) which has been popular since 2021,
mainly in the online community, or fictional stories that exaggerate and satirize them have
also received attention.382) It is difficult to find statistics that directly confirm the current
status of irregularities in the military, but he number of reports and consultations on defense
help-line, the number of assaults in military courts, and the status of damages, such as sexual
harassment and sexual violence, reported to the military sexual harassment prevention and
response center appear to have increased significantly as compared to 5 years ago.383)
378) Seoul Shinmun, Sexual Violence, Force Feeding .. Abuses in the Marine Corps, Apr. 25, 2022.
379) YTN, [Exclusive] Discharge Hazing .. Bloodied Naval Soldier, Jul. 6, 2022.
380) Yonhap News, Netflix’s D.P.‘s portrayal of abuses in the military no longer true ... according to Ministry of National
Defense, Sep. 6, 2021.
381) It is a fictional story that satirizes life in the Marine Corps in an exaggerated form, and refers collectively to posts in
the form of a lot of hate expressions with a strong ridicule or demeaning character.
382) Kyunghyang Shinmun, What Happened to the Mighty Marine Corps, Apr. 2, 2022.
383) However, this may be seen as a result of the increase in reporting by victims who hesitated due to improvements
and activation of the reporting system and social issues.
162
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