Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

Overseas dispatch soldiers all around the world doing their best for world peace and stability made sure of perfect mission completion in dispatched countries and dealt with homesickness by setting the memorial service table and playing a folk game with locals for the biggest Korean national holiday, Seolnal. 

The Dongmyeong unit serving carrying out the UN’s PKO celebrated a pleasant holiday, holding a joint memorial service for ancestors and playing folk games with local residents while continuing assigned missions like surveillance patrol activities in the Lebanon area. 

Sergeant Major Noh Young-Geun and Staff Sergeant Noh Hyung-Seok, father-son soldiers conducting a mission in the operation area for seven months so far, said the holiday in a dispatched country was more meaningful for them.

Following his father, the son, Staff Sergeant Noh joined the special forces and dispatched to Lebanon as well and said, “I am glad to be sent to here with my father, my role model. And I promised my mother, who is celebrating the holiday alone in Korea, to be a good son when I come back.”

“I feel very good to serve the country with my own son in the Dongmyeong unit, the longest dispatched unit in Korea,” said the father, Sergeant Major Noh.

His youngest daughter, Staff Sergeant Noh Jae-Rin, also enlisted with the special forces as a noncommissioned officer last January, following her father and brother, which makes the whole family a special force.

Meanwhile, the Hanbit unit, which has been conducting reconstruction support and humanitarian supporting activities in Bor, South Sudan, also visited neighboring villages for the New Year’s day and provided medical service to the locals, sharing their warm hearts.

It opened a Taekwondo class for UN and dispatched soldiers from other countries and introduced the excellence of Korean traditional culture and the Korean armed forces by training them in Taekwondo, the national sport of Korea.

In addition, at Hanbit Farm, where the unit has been working to end hunger for the locals, the unit soldiers taught the residents how to farm with a cultivator.

The Arc unit, UAE military training coordination group, held a joint memorial service while doing a military cooperation activity. It was the second holiday in a dispatched country for father-son soldiers Master Sergeant Seol Yong-Kwon, a communication chief of the Arc unit, and Staff Sergeant Seol Ji-Su, a medical noncom, and the son gave a New Year’s greeting to his father and had called his mother in Korea.

The Cheonghae unit, which foils piracy and protects merchant ships in Somali waters, also held a joint memorial service and enjoyed playing Yoot to comfort their homesickness. 

By Seok-Jong, Lee <seokjong@dema.mil.kr>

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