Maimed soldier takes on cyber warfare against N.Korea
Staff Sgt. Kim Jung-won after being discharged from VHS Medical Center in Seoul in December / Yonhap
By Ko Dong-hwan
Staff Sgt. Kim Jung-won was on patrol when he stepped on a landmine last August that North Korean soldiers planted on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He lost his right leg.
But Kim, 24, has returned to the battlefield ― in a cyber warfare role.
He has joined the national military’s cyber command, an arm of the Ministry of National Defense, according to the ministry Wednesday. The online force is in charge of protecting the national military’s cyber infrastructure from North Korea’s computer attacks.
“Now that I can no longer serve in the DMZ, I decided to fight the enemy in cyberspace,” Kim said, according to Yonhap news agency. He started considering the idea during rehabilitation at VHS Medical Center in Seoul. Kim was discharged with a prosthetic leg in December.
On Aug. 4, the former ROK Special Warfare Command member was patrolling the DMZ with Staff Sgt. Hah Jae-hun, then 21, when they stepped on a mine. Hah lost both legs. He was discharged from the hospital a few days after Kim.
The landmine attack, followed by North Korean artillery fire on the South, escalated military tensions between the countries, before they reached the so-called “Aug. 25” agreement to ease the pressure and hold talks.