Armored Vehicle Accident

When I first came to Korea, while I was trying to navigate my way through culture shock and understanding Koreans, I learned about the Armored Vehicle Accident.

During a training exercise, two Korean girls were killed. They were run over by tanks. Sounds horrible, right?

It happened during a time when Koreans were resenting US involvement in South Korea. So... not good timing at all.

When I heard this story, all I learned was how irresponsible the US Military was and how Koreans still resented the Military for killing those two girls. I, also, was angry at the Military for their obvious negligence... and a little sickened at the thought of being run over by a TANK--of all things.

Today, I read an article from the other side. I hadn't realized how one-sided what I heard was until I read this!

Basically, it explains how it was a horrible coincidence. The mountain road was narrow, there was no shoulder to walk on, the tanks have blind-spots while driving, and the radio headsets weren't working to hear the warnings of other soldiers.

Sometimes when you hear about a tragedy it's easy to only hear the side of the victim... but I guess some horrible happenings are just really bad accidents.