Flawed military training

A senior student at the Korea Air Force Academy wrote critically that an F-15K is a killing machine and posted the Communist Manifesto on his Web site.

This story suggests there are serious problems in the process of selecting and training cadets. It is hard to believe that the academy recruited someone who opposes the military system and supports communism.

The student had kept his leftist ideas to himself until he became a senior, which would indicate that there must be a problem with the academy’s training system.

This incident should be taken seriously. Cadets at military academies pledge to prevent communism from spreading and to protect our country. After graduation, they serve as military officers and supervise other military personnel. What happens if an officer who believes in the Communist Manifesto rejects our system of liberal democracy or abhors the military as a whole?

What’s more, an Air Force pilot flies expensive high-tech aircraft, so if a cadet with questionable views becomes a pilot, he would be in command of a fighter plane packed with enormous firepower and worth more than a 100 billion won ($79.5 million).

What if he flew the plane over the border into North Korea?

The Air Force must realize the seriousness of the incident and draw up all possible preventive measures.

It should check if the cadet, who has since been expelled, had influenced others and rethink its recruitment procedures in order to filter out new recruits who might harbor views that run contrary to the spirit of our military.

It would also be a good idea to enhance the one-on-one consultations that cadets have with instructors in place of a heavy reliance on formal education. As seen in this recent incident, it is difficult to know what is going on by just looking at the surface.

We need to consider the training of all personnel in the military. A recent survey showed that 34 percent of new students at the Korea Military Academy thought the United States was our main enemy.

Why? The liberal administrations of the past decade and school textbooks laced with leftist ideas are surely partly to blame.

But since half the country’s middle school and high school students don’t know that North Korea started the Korean War, as reported by another recent survey, similar incidents could occur in the future.

The military must ensure that its recruits are fully aware of national security issues.