It was not a bribe. It was tip. That is how things are done in this part of the world. The solider did the culturally-correct thing.
You should repay him the ten spot, in my opinion. He did it to help you and when in contact you need all the friends you can get.
Of course you should have, but not in cash. The correct way to pay him back is to buy him a drink or two the next time you see him in a bar, or if that never happens then to give him some beer that he can drink later. Miss Manners will point out, however, that the value of the drinks or beer shall be clearly over $10, say perhaps $15.
I really wish you would write Miss Manners and ask her. I’m sure she can handle your question.
Miss Manners is awesome.
While you were checking with the company to see if you could get reimbursed and before you gave him the money, you should have asked around to see whether anyone else actually saw him hand out any money. 
Aha! I think I’ve found something here.
That quote makes me think **Bear_Nenno ** owes the soldier nothing. See, the Army should have stored his ruck sack safely, they did not and it fell off the truck. The soldiers went after the sack, found it, *called to make sure there was nothing of importance * in the sack and were told no.
Therefore it’s really as though the sack belonged to the Army once more, not Bear_Nenno. There’s nothing special in it, just Army issued stuff, that could and would be replaced and for free. The bag has essentially become Army property and the Army should pay for the reward/tip/bribe. It’s their stuff, and their fault it fell off the truck (the soldiers loading being agents of the Army), *the Army * pays the guy for the reward/tip/bribe, not Bear_Nenno.
If there’d been a single personal item of value to the owner, the whole deal’s off in terms of being items belonging to the Army. In that case they still owe **Bear_Nenno ** because it was their negligence that caused it to fall of the truck in the first place.
However, since the guy asked Bear_Nenno for re-imbursement. Though a gauche thing to do ( **Bear_Nenno ** would never point out the bad manners of another, that’s worse than the original offense), and so he’d reimburse the fellow and then see about being compensated by the party actually at fault, the Army. Ta-dah!
That’s the way I looked at it, Ashes.
Great minds think alike don’tcha know. And happy birthday!
WTF: South Korea is our ally, this idiot broke into a civilians home. He had no rights to do this. His only recourse was to call local police. What am I missing. I know it been almost 20 years since I was in Korea. But I would have been in Brig for a long time if I pulled a dumb stunt like that. Not only should you not give him the $10. You should explain he could have caused a major incident.
Something is wrong with this story somewhere.
Sniff sniff. What is that smell? Ah yes, the pungent stench of Piss Perfume. Thank goodness the smell of Completely Irrelevant for the Purposes of the OP by Calvin BeingaJerk is helping cover most of it. My hubby prefers Rude Hijack for Men; it smells great on him.
Okay, now I know I’m lost.
This was a scenario and not a real happening?
Seriously, if so I am totally whooshed and I apologize profusely.
No, Ashes, Ashes is dead wrong. Self rightous, perhaps, but wrong. Lose Army shit that has been issued to you, it’s your responsibility.
That’s a tough call. I had something similar last weekend; we went to a poker party, and were informed by email previous to the party that it was close to the birthday of one of the guests, and we would all need to pony up $1.50 each for the birthday cake that the host had decided to get for him. Like your situation, Bear, three bucks was no big deal, but I don’t care for having my money volunteered with me having no say in it. People volunteering your money for you put you in a bad position where you have a choice between not paying it and looking like a cheap jerk or paying it and feeling resentful.
Of course they are! Why else would I be here to defend a land half the world away from my home.
Where is it said that he broke in to the house. As far as I know, they knocked on the door. The civilians were so scared that something bad would happened, they just let the guys in and showed them the stuff. I think the KMP or ROK Army would have handled things very differently than we did. That’s what the civilians were so worried about. Hell, the two soldiers in the scenario weren’t even armed. I honestly think the civilians were just freaked out because they were caught with US Army stuff. They weren’t scared of what the US soldiers would do to them, but of what local authorities would do if we were forced to call them. So… they just answered the door and handed over all the stuff.
Hopefully it’s fixed now.
While it’s in your possession, sure. When in transit and/or in the control of another person, it’s no longer your responsibility.
Well, sometimes it can be, but not in this particular instance. Had the equipment not been recovered, I would have been given a complete new issue at no cost or burden to myself. Equipment falling off a trailer in a convoy is not something that I would be held accountable for. If accountability would have fallen on anyone, it would have been the driver and VC of the vehicle that lost the item.
featherlou, funny you should mention birthdays. Yesterday, when he came up to tell me why I owe him 10 bucks, it was MY birthday…
Okay, did not break in, but situation could have turned very ugly? If it did turn ugly, wouldn’t the soldier be court marshaled? We were instructed, that we were visitors and even if robbed we needed to go through shore patrol or local authorities. The SP’s would also go through the locals.
When I was in Thailand, one of my very stupid, very drunk shipmates, who stood over 6”0” was causing a public nuisance. When two local policemen (Pattaya Beach) tried to get him to stop, he grabbed one of their guns. The other cop promptly shot him dead with 1 shot. Many Civvies and sailors witness entire incident. My understanding was if he weren’t dead, he would have been heading to Leavenworth. This wasn’t posted officially, but it was the scuttlebutt on the ship.
As far as the $10 goes, I don’t think you were responsible for paying, sounds like whoever took responsibility for the rucksack should have been responsible for the $10 as they didn’t stow it properly.
Hey! I was going for mildly amusing. I’ll have to work on my routine it seems.
One thing I’d like to know is why you think it’s his responsibility when he didn’t load the truck, and wasn’t riding or driving the truck at any point. He did exactly as was required of him to ready the bag, he went ahead to go do what they ordered him to do, and they screwed up and lost his bag.
I do agree that the soldier who did the poor job of loading the truck should be the one owes recompense. That seems a bit difficult to determine, especially if more than one soldier were loading the trucks. So it falls back on the Army to re-imburse because their soldiers made a mistake with not the slightest negligence from the owner.
Maybe it’s some arcane Army stuff I don’t know about, but I fail to see how he is responsible for the costs incurred in retreiving the ruck sack.
I’d say that as long as the residents “let” the soldiers in, they’re fine. But had they knocked on the door and the residents not answered or refused to let them in, then local authorities and US MPs would have been called.
I think that’s the main motivation for the citizens to cooperate. They figured, “Shit we’re busted! We better give them all their stuff back and be very cooperative or the KMP is going to come in here and beat the shit out of us!”
Also, if the soldiers went to the house with weapons and entered while armed, that probably would have been against a rule or two as well. But basically, as it happened, it was just two Americans in uniform knocking on their door and asking the residents nicely to give back the stuff they found in the street…
KMP is Korean Military Police.
Also, I hope I’m not painting Korea in a bad light. I really love this place. I don’t look down or think badly of any Koreans. Not even the one who grabbed the ruck sack. The only difference between her and most Americans is most Americans could not have grabbed it, taken it home and completely stripped its contents in under five minutes. The bag would have had to be sitting for a little while before an American would have the balls to go grab it and take it home. So I’d say she’s much quicker and way more efficient.
I really do love this country and I would truly be willing to die to protect this land. Though, fortunately for me and Korea, it doesn’t look like that will be necessary any time soon.
I think I knew that, too. Belated happy birthday!