Is Korea’s Military Ignoring Recruits’ Health?
Despite warning signs during his national service, a young man’s stomach cancer goes undiagnosed A 28-year-old South Korean, whose fight with stomach cancer prompted an unprecedented wave of sympathy and online fundraising, has died. Roh Chung Guk, a former taekwondo major at Yongin University, who served full-term mandatory military service until June 24, 2005, died of stomach cancer in the early hours of Oct. 27. Roh Chung Guk The poignancy of Roh’s story — the rapid progression from chronic ulcer to stomach cancer in just a few months — has sparked a lot of finger pointing between the military and his family about his death. Could it have been detected earlier, and who is responsible for any lapse? His father has said that the family will not hold a funeral until the underlying reasons for his son’s death are settled with the Defense Ministry. Yet at the same time, Roh’s story has prompted yet another of a rare online fundraising in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired country
