A photo of the blast crater from the landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone, released at a Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing at the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on Monday. [Joint Chiefs of Staff]
A photo of the blast crater from the landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone, released at a Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing at the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on Monday. [Joint Chiefs of Staff]

Members of the National Assembly's Defense Committee were moved to tears after watching bodycam footage showing soldiers displaying fierce camaraderie as they escaped the scene of a landmine explosion in the western front Demilitarized Zone.

Defense Committee Chairman Jin Seong-jun described the footage — screened in a closed session of the full committee on Wednesday — in an interview with CBS Radio's "Park Seong-tae's News Show" that day.

He said the video showed soldiers entering through a gate on Sept. 21, the day of the accident, to clear a new search route and detect landmines, followed by scenes of injured troops helping each other crawl out of the search corridor after the explosion.

"I was also overcome with emotion," Jin said, noting that Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Byung-joo had also said he was moved to tears. "You could really feel the deep camaraderie — the soldiers' dedicated sense of duty, and the scenes of them holding their wounded comrades and escaping together."

Kim, who also sits on the Defense Committee, appeared on the Democratic Party's YouTube channel "Democratic Party TV" that day and spoke about the footage.

"It was heartbreaking to watch the desperate operation to evacuate the wounded about 200 meters to a safe zone," Kim said. "The battalion commander couldn't walk, so they fashioned a stretcher out of wood and combat uniforms to carry him out."

He added that another soldier was so severely injured that, as his comrades were helping him along and found themselves short-handed, he told them, "I'll crawl — go back and get the battalion commander," and was seen crawling up a hill. "It was an absolutely harrowing scene," Kim said.

"I thought I was the only one with tears in my eyes at that display of camaraderie under those circumstances, but when I looked up, the People Power Party lawmakers sitting across from me had tears in their eyes too," he said.

Critics from the opposition noted, however, that the footage did not capture the moment of the landmine explosion itself — widely considered the key to establishing the facts of the incident — and called it "emotionally manipulative."

People Power Party lawmaker Han Ki-ho, a Defense Committee member, wrote on Facebook that the footage was "an emotionally manipulative edit showing soldiers wounded during a search operation and their comrades' desperate struggle to evacuate them," adding that it was "completely useless as evidence of a landmine detonation."

As the ruling and opposition parties continue to clash over whether the current or previous administration bears responsibility for the landmine explosion, Cheong Wa Dae said it would "first establish the facts and then take whatever firm and appropriate measures are warranted."


bbo@heraldcorp.com