The ROKMC

[ToUnderstand]

Well my cousin just enlisted into the ROKMC which sparked my intrest, alot of vietnam vets said they were grateful for the marines because they helped guard u.s. hospitals in nam (dont know if this was true my middle school dean told me this he was a member of a tank crew). But alas i a look up more stuff i hear people calling the ROKMC pussies from what i have seen when i was in busan last year the marines i met at square cart bars were far from being straight up bitches. Is it just good ole' ignance or is their truth to this?

[D Dempsey]

Well they're conscripts so they get treated like garbage by their command. In all honesty the ROK Marines I met while I lived in Korea were more hardcore than the ROK Soldiers. They also had a lot higher levels of esprit de corp, but Marines in all countries usually do.
I've never hear anyone call the ROKMC a bunch of pussies. They have to put up with a lot and only get paid about 30 dollars a month.
How did your cousin enlist? Did he enlist for the 6 year term so he could start as a Staff Sergeant (E6), or was he conscripted? There is an overall huge difference.

[misoldier]

Anybody who calls ROK Marines pussies does not know what the hell they are talking about. I am in the Army and currently stationed in Seoul, South Korea and have had some interaction with ROK Marines.

Their bootcamp/basic training is crazy. They will exercise in the freezing cold and snow wearing nothing but shoes and shorts. Their drill sergeants can beat them and they will go days without sleep. They will also spend hours at a time exercising and sitting in freezing water.

When they graduate basic training and get sent to a unit they are almost never alllowed to leave their base. All they do all day is workout, shoot guns, and beat the crap out of each other.

I will give you a little history on them. During the Vietnam War ROK Marines were much more feared by the Viet Cong than US Marines and Soldiers. When ROKMC would capture enemy VC they would castrate and decapitate them and then place the heads on sticks outside their camps. Captured female VC had lit flairs shoved up their privates.

ROKMC were also much more proficient killers than their US counterparts. One squad of 13 ROKMC killed over 400 VC during one conflict. In fact many of those 400 VC were killed during hand to hand combat when the ROKMC squad had run out of ammunition.

[ToUnderstand]

Well they're conscripts so they get treated like garbage by their command. In all honesty the ROK Marines I met while I lived in Korea were more hardcore than the ROK Soldiers. They also had a lot higher levels of esprit de corp, but Marines in all countries usually do.
I've never hear anyone call the ROKMC a bunch of pussies. They have to put up with a lot and only get paid about 30 dollars a month.
How did your cousin enlist? Did he enlist for the 6 year term so he could start as a Staff Sergeant (E6), or was he conscripted? There is an overall huge difference.

No he wasnt conscripted he chose to join the ROKMC not sure if he did the 6 year term.
Yeah my other cousin was drafted into the army, he said they got payed around 5-6 dollars a month enough to by a pack of ciggaretes and something to eat. Also do you interact much with korean military alot when you were in korea? and also is their alot of hostility to U.S. military personel over there?

[D Dempsey]

They get paid more than $6 dollars a month, it was around 30K Won which is like 32 dollars. The job you do over there will determine how much you interact with the ROK military. All U.S. Army units in Korea have embedded ROK Army personnel called KATUSAs, and you interact with them everyday. I'm still friends with the KATUSAs I worked with and one of them came to the states and stayed with me for a while.
I didn't really notice a whole lot of hostility towards the U.S. Military. It is mostly amongst college students if you do see it, but being polite can go a long way there. Even if there is hostility, it's not like your going to get attacked. Most the koreans I met were pretty polite. Aren't you korean anyway?
Interesting story about something similar. My Army buddy Dan is a korean-american, and talks and acts completely american. The koreans were always telling him how he acted more like a korean than a "typical american". That was because they had never talked to another american so they had no idea what we are really like. My korean buddies used to say similar things to me, and I'm not korean at all.

[misoldier]

My current roommate in is a KATUSA, he is CPL Ahn. Talking to him I get an idea of what Koreans think of Americans. They think we are all loud, obnoxious, confrontational and walk around waving US flags with this superiority complex.

[vigilus]

I will give you a little history on them. During the Vietnam War ROK Marines were much more feared by the Viet Cong than US Marines and Soldiers. When ROKMC would capture enemy VC they would castrate and decapitate them and then place the heads on sticks outside their camps. Captured female VC had lit flairs shoved up their privates.

So these guys basically did what Alquadia and the Taliban are doing to us now?
I can see why someone would fear being captured by them.
These traits however are not something you want to emulate or find in a professional army.
I hope the ROK marines did away with the habit of cutting peoples heads off and displaying them because thats retarded.

Nothing makes an enemy fight to the death like knowing they won't survive capture. There is a reason why we feed prisoners, give them medical care and treat them respectfully.

[Colby]

Nothing makes an enemy fight to the death like knowing they won't survive capture. There is a reason why we feed prisoners, give them medical care and treat them respectfully.

One would hope so. There was a lot of propaganda on the Iraqi side in the first gulf war that put the USMC in the same light. They had stories to the effect that in order to be in the USMC, you had to kill your parents, etc. Most of the regular Iraqi Army guys were scared to death when they gave up in droves. My old unit captured hundreds of Iraqi prisoners. They put flex cuffs on them and sat them in a barb-wired enclosure. One of my friends was told to go retrieve one of the prisoners for interrogation. So he started walking towards this guy and pulled out his knife (to cut the flex cuffs off), and the dude completely freaked out.

As far as I know, none of the Iraqis were treated disprespectfully while in custody. That unprofessional crap will buy you a BCD in a heartbeat. I did hear a story about a guy trying to sneak back a charred Iraqi arm in his seabag though...I bet that was a fun customs check!

[DerAuslander]

Whoever called the ROKMC pussies has never met one, or has, & found himself lacking in the testicle department, thus developing a case of pikal envy.

Oh & ToUnderstand, I answered your question in the Seonmudo thread.

[Wounded Ronin]

One would hope so. There was a lot of propaganda on the Iraqi side in the first gulf war that put the USMC in the same light. They had stories to the effect that in order to be in the USMC, you had to kill your parents, etc. Most of the regular Iraqi Army guys were scared to death when they gave up in droves. My old unit captured hundreds of Iraqi prisoners. They put flex cuffs on them and sat them in a barb-wired enclosure. One of my friends was told to go retrieve one of the prisoners for interrogation. So he started walking towards this guy and pulled out his knife (to cut the flex cuffs off), and the dude completely freaked out.

As far as I know, none of the Iraqis were treated disprespectfully while in custody. That unprofessional crap will buy you a BCD in a heartbeat. I did hear a story about a guy trying to sneak back a charred Iraqi arm in his seabag though...I bet that was a fun customs check!

Wow, that's like movie night.

1.) Needing to kill your parents in order to be a Marine sounds like a ninja initiation thing out of an 80s killer ninja movie.

2.) Charred arm in the seabag sounds like a reference to playing with the dead Vietnamese guy from Full Metal Jacket. See also Grossman's reference to someone using a severed arm to pick his nose.