Balg Eun Song's project
Military marching
In Korea, being in army is mandatory for all men. Thus, I had to spend 28months in the army. While I was in the army my position was an infantry, a foot soldier, just like most of the other men were. This mean we had to walk a lot tactically during the period. Most of the people who finished army agrees that ‘force marching’ were the most difficult discipline in the whole period. I totally agree with that. Just walking sounds pretty easy, but for who had experienced the force marching, it sure is the most painful training among all other trainings. Walking day and night in the angle of inclination, sometimes the skin of the foot comes apart and the blood bleeds out from the combat boots. The reason for me bringing up this painful memory is because I feel from this forcing march, there are some aspects that could be interesting in regards to tourism.
Most of the military corps is located in mountains for tactic reasons. My brigade was also located in Surak mountain, one of the most famous and the second highest mountain in Korea. We once marched all the way up to the peak of the mountain and went back down. It was a power force marching and several fell into a swoon. The reason we do this training is to know well of the places surrounded us and to train how we could shift fast, precise, and safe to one place to another. We have to be aware of the surroundings and know where we are. It is a totally different perspective of looking at a tourist attraction. We walk for an hour and take 10 minute break and repeat this over and over. The view differs from the degree of the pain and the change of the speed, for example, during the break and during the walk. In the night we depend more and more on the sound and every time we go back to the places it all makes a different view.
I think this military marching will be an interesting perspective to look at tourist attraction and think about tourism.