Dongeui and Dasan Units Return Home

The Dongeui Medical Unit and the Dasan Engineering Unit stationed in Afghanistan have returned home Friday. The troops had been in Afghanistan for five years and 10 months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks at the request of the U.S..

After coming back to Korea on a chartered plane to Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, all 195 members of the Dongeui and Dasan units had a disbandment ceremony under the supervision of Park Heung-ryol, the army chief of staff, at the Army Administrative School in Seongnam.

At the request of the U.S. government, the Dongeui Engineering Unit was sent in February 2002, and the Dasan Medical Unit was sent a year later. These two units were stationed at Baghram, a U.S. air base located northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan, and they rotated personnel every six months. In total, 2,131 Koreans had served in Afghanistan.

These two units were involved in medical and engineering activities as well as humanitarian work. The Dongeui unit treated 259,000 people, while the Dasan unit successfully finished some 400 construction projects, including the paving of a runway on the base and the building of defense facilities.

However, Staff Sergeant Yoon Jang-ho of the Dasan Engineering Unit was killed in a bombing incident by insurgents in February this year.

Before coming home, the Dongeui and Dasan units provided free of charge some 2,000 facilities and goods to the people in Parwan Province, Afghanistan.

ysh1005@donga.com