In the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea dispatched 300,000 combat troops, the second largest foreign force, to the American effort in South Vietnam. Although international reporters tended to focus on US atrocities, among the Vietnamese, Korea’s soldiers earned a reputation as the war’s most ruthless.
Korean forces massacred inhabitants of several villages in the central highlands in the mid- to late 1960s, the height of foreign intervention. Under orders from commanders, the young conscripts followed a take-no-prisoners playbook. In one massacre, in Binh Tai, they warned all inhabitants to flee the hamlet, then set homes ablaze and opened fire indiscriminately on the residents who tried to escape, according to Korean veterans and Vietnamese survivors. In other instances, such as in Son Tinh and Tay Vinh, villagers were rounded up and executed.
(Historians agree that Korean troops fathered a large number of mixed Korean-Vietnamese children called Lai Dai Han. But it remains unclear the extent to which this was battlefield rape versus prostitution.)
The vicious tactics kept the troops safe from Communist insurgents, who, dressed like civilians, could launch sneak attacks and secretly influence entire villages. Tens to hundreds of villagers perished in each episode.
