The distance between Camp Casey, South Korea and the DMZ
Washington Post: A U.S. base near North Korea accidentally blared an emergency siren - instead of taps
A U.S. Army base in South Korea accidentally blasted an emergency siren Thursday night instead of the somber notes of taps, officials said, igniting brief panic on the base amid North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's threats of an unwelcome "Christmas gift."
Taps, the melancholy bugler's song played at military funerals, was supposed to be sounded on Camp Casey's announcement system at 10 p.m., as is custom at Army installations to mark the end of the day, said Army Lt. Col. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the 2nd Infantry Division.
But Crighton said "human error" instead prompted the sounds of an emergency siren wafting through the freezing air throughout Camp Casey, the closest U.S. Army base to the North Korean border - and a likely prime target for missile strikes in the event of an attack.
The mistake bewildered service members on base, who said in a Reddit thread posted soon after the incident that soldiers were "riled up," and some ran through the halls in full uniform before the error was realized.
Read more ....
Update: US base near N Korea in emergency siren 'error' (BBC)
WNU Editor: I think I know how these soldiers must have felt. I have mentioned it before on this blog, but I experienced a nuclear attack emergency alert siren near my home when I was a teenager growing up in the former Soviet Union. The overwhelming feeling of fear and expectation that I am going to be in the middle of a nuclear attack within the next 30 minutes is something that I still vividly remember today.
5 comments:
Ouch, that's pretty bad @ nuclear attack siren going off.. what went through your mind?
It happened when I grew up in Los Alamos. Not by accident though.
I worked with a Scotsman who had spent a few years working in London. He told me that at the time it was generally understood that if the warning alarm went off you had 15 minutes to do whatever was important to you. Out of that emerged a statement when one of the guys in the group saw a particularly unattractive female. "I wouldn't bang her if the the 15 minute warning went off".
Anon,
A feeling of fear that words cannot describe is what I felt.
Yeah I know that kind of fear. The kind that when it's over you don't get a feeling of relief but you stay numb and in shock, trying to relieve it in memory just to comprehend the awe it bestowed upon you.
Been there. Got the tshirt and the mug.
Post a Comment