Education: Big Day in Korea

On the parade ground of the Korean Military Academy just outside Seoul, President Syngman Rhee and General (ret.) James Van Fleet climbed into a black jeep for a special review of the cadet corps. For both men it was a big day; both had worked hard for it, both had waited for it eagerly. There, on a site that lay along Van Fleet’s “Golden Line” the location of what was to be 1951’s last-ditch stand against the Communists —the four-year-old academy last week graduated its first class. Guns boomed, the band blared, sabers flashed in the sun. “Today,” said President Rhee. “is just like a dream to me.”

It was a dream come true for the entire nation. When K.M.A. was founded in 1951, the South Korean army officers’ corps had as confusing a background as the country’s history itself. Some officers had been trained with the Japanese. Some had served with the Chinese Nationalists, a few had been taught by German military advisers, still others had gone to the U.S. or had taken short R.O.T.C. courses. In 1951, with $500 out of his own pocket. Eighth Army Commander Van Fleet started the drive for a permanent academy.

Dollars & Engineers. U.N. and Korean troops raised $190,000 for the K.M.A. Foundation Fund. A special G.I. welfare fund gave $60,000 more, and the U.S. Government sent $500,000 for books and laboratory equipment. The U.S. Army’s Korean Military Advisory Group furnished advisers. West Point sent sets of instruction manuals.

Today the academy has 800 cadets living in Quonset huts near the red brick and concrete administration and classroom buildings. Since the curriculum is modeled closely on West Point’s, K.M.A. is not only South Korea’s chief military school, but also its top engineering school. Like West Pointers, the cadets get basic liberal arts plus huge doses of mathematics and science. But all must master English, the professional language of the school, and then take two years of either Russian, Chinese, French or German.

To the Yalu. Each morning at 5:50, the public-address system blares out: “Good morning! Did you sleep well?” By 6 a.m. the cadets are outside for reveille formation. They line up by companies, each of which bears an animal’s name, e.g., White Horse, Antelope, Panther. They count off, sing the national anthem, repeat the armed forces oath, ending with a fiery pledge to unify the country (“Let us plant the Republic of Korea colors on Paektu-san* and wash our swords in the Yalu River!”).

Though there is less hazing than at West Point, first-year men must swab the barracks, serve in the mess hall, stand motionless whenever a North Star (four-year man) passes by. Demerits come for everything from dozing in class to “questioning an officer”—a rule designed to keep cadets from humiliating inexperienced instructors with tricky questions.

Last week, just before graduation, the academy added a new course for its fourth-year men: a series of lectures on etiquette (e.g., how to eat with a knife and fork at Western banquets, how to choose a wife and treat women). With that final bit of polishing, K.M.A.’s first 157 graduates were off for nine years of compulsory service in the army and to their places as the leaders of Korea’s military and technological life. They were, as their superintendent, Major General Chang Kuk Chang, 31, admitted, as bright a bunch of second lieutenants as can be found anywhere in the world. But one thing worried him: that they might feel too superior to the nonacademy men they will soon be serving under. General Chang’s parting advice: “Don’t be too proud of yourself. Don’t think you know everything. Look to the future.”

*The highest mountain on the Korean-Manchurian border.