Medical Costs for Landmine-Injured Soldiers at Civilian Hospitals to Be Covered by State… Enforcement Decree of the Military Pension Act Amended

1. Overview

In 2026, a story about Staff Sergeant Ha Jae-heon, who lost both legs in the 2015 wooden-box landmine provocation in the DMZ, began circulating again with fact and fiction mixed together: “The state wouldn’t even cover his medical expenses, but built a 200-million-won statue of an ankle.”

After soldiers were seriously injured in another explosion believed to have been caused by a landmine in the DMZ on September 21, 2026, a post circulated in online communities under titles such as “What happened afterward in the landmine incident that left a soldier with an amputated ankle was really unacceptable.” It made three claims: that the state ultimately refused to cover the medical costs, forcing Ha to pay for his treatment himself; that 10 million won of a 20-million-won consolation payment from the Ministry of National Defense had been raised by forcibly taking money from enlisted soldiers’ wages; and that a statue of an ankle had been built at a cost of 200 million won. The post ended with the words “K-military,” prompting outrage. On closer examination, however, the three claims are best described respectively as “once true, but soon corrected,” “conflated with a different incident,” and “true, but missing context.”

2. The 2015 Wooden-Box Landmine Provocation

On August 4, 2015, wooden-box landmines planted by North Korean soldiers exploded in succession in front of members of the 1st Infantry Division’s Reconnaissance Battalion, who were conducting a search operation in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. Staff Sergeant Ha Jae-heon lost his right leg above the knee and his left leg below the knee. Staff Sergeant Kim Jeong-won also suffered severe leg injuries and underwent an amputation. The incident marked the beginning of the August 2015 crisis, which escalated into an exchange of artillery fire between the two Koreas and high-level talks, and naturally drew considerable attention to the two staff sergeants. Shortly after the incident, the LG Group pledged 500 million won in consolation money to each of them, while staff and union members at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, where Ha was hospitalized, raised 16 million won for him.

3. First Claim — “He Paid for His Treatment Himself”

This claim originated in a real controversy in early September 2015. At the time, the Enforcement Decree of the Military Pension Act limited reimbursement of medical expenses to 30 days when a service member injured in the line of duty received treatment at a civilian hospital. As a result, it became known through a lawmaker’s office that Ha, who was continuing treatment at a civilian hospital rather than the Armed Forces Capital Hospital, would have to pay his medical expenses out of pocket starting on September 3. Public anger flared, with widespread criticism that a soldier who had lost both legs defending the country was being made to pay his own hospital bills.

The Ministry of National Defense responded quickly. On September 5, the day after the controversy intensified, it announced that it would cover all additional treatment costs at civilian hospitals, so Ha would not have to pay anything himself. Then, on October 20, the Enforcement Decree of the Military Pension Act was amended to extend the period of civilian-hospital care covered for officers injured in combat or during operations involving a high degree of risk from 30 days to an initial two years, with a possible one-year extension if necessary. The post’s claim that the state “ultimately refused to cover the costs, leaving him to pay for treatment himself” recounts only the start of the controversy and omits what happened afterward.

4. Second Claim — “10 Million Won of the Consolation Payment Came from Enlisted Soldiers’ Wages”

This claim appears to conflate Ha’s case with an incident involving another soldier. In November 2015, the Justice Party disclosed that approximately 11 million won in consolation money given to Staff Sergeant Kwak of the 21st Division, who had been injured in a landmine explosion during a DMZ operation in June of that year, had been raised by effectively forcing service members to contribute 0.4% of their base pay under the guise of a “voluntary fundraiser.” The Ministry of National Defense countered that 76.4% of personnel in the unit had participated voluntarily, raising approximately 9.3 million won, to which the commander added an incentive payment. It also said that 12 million won of Staff Sergeant Kwak’s 19.5 million won in medical expenses had been covered by the National Health Insurance Service. A military official explained that the fundraiser had been aimed only at career service members of the rank of staff sergeant and above, and that enlisted soldiers earning only tens of thousands of won a month had not been involved.

The post’s figures—“10 million won out of a 20-million-won consolation payment”—closely match the medical costs of Staff Sergeant Kwak’s case, approximately 20 million won, and the roughly 10 million won raised for him. This suggests that, over time, the two incidents were merged and came to be remembered as part of the better-known story of Staff Sergeant Ha. However, the fundraiser cannot be said to have had no connection to Ha. The same disclosure also revealed that, to support the two soldiers injured in the August 2015 wooden-box landmine incident, a military notice had been issued asking all Army officers and civilian employees to contribute 0.4% of their base pay to a “voluntary fundraising drive.” In other words, there is a basis for the general claim that “money was collected from service members,” but the specific claims about “enlisted soldiers’ wages” and a “20-million-won consolation payment from the Ministry of National Defense” have not been confirmed.

5. Third Claim — “A 200-Million-Won Statue of an Ankle”

This claim is true. The Army’s I Corps and the Hyosung Group spent 200 million won to build an 11-meter sculpture shaped like legs standing below the knees at Imjingak Pyeonghwa Nuri Park in Paju. Titled “The First Step Toward Peace and Unity,” it is also known as the “Foot of Peace.” Staff Sergeants Ha Jae-heon and Kim Jeong-won, along with members of the 1st Division’s Reconnaissance Battalion, attended the unveiling ceremony on December 23, 2015. Even at the time, the decision to spend 200 million won on a sculpture rather than on the injured soldiers’ treatment was criticized. The sculpture was later described in the media as a “grotesque eyesore.”

However, the version that circulated in 2026 added an unrelated context. Some posts described the sculpture as having been “built by the Lee Jae-myung government,” while an image showing only an ankle—unlike the actual sculpture—circulated alongside a photograph of an injured soldier. On September 28, 2026, OhmyNews rated the claim “false,” explaining that the sculpture had been built 11 years earlier and that the image circulated with it was believed to have been generated by AI. The Ministry of National Defense also explained that the sculpture was unrelated to the recent incident.

6. Aftermath — Controversy Over Combat-Injury Classification

Distrust of the state’s “response” was not entirely groundless. When Ha left the Army, it classified him as having suffered a “combat injury,” but in 2019 the Patriots and Veterans Review Commission under the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs classified his injuries as “service-related,” citing the lack of relevant regulations. This amounted to treating his injuries as having occurred during routine official duties rather than in combat with the enemy, provoking a strong backlash. The decision was eventually reversed on reconsideration, and his injuries were classified as combat-related. Memories of this case also lay behind the Veterans Minister’s hasty statement, after the September 2026 incident, that the ministry would “actively review cases involving casualties caused by North Korean provocations.”

7. Authenticity Debate

The central issue raised by the post is whether the story that the military treated an injured soldier poorly is true, or whether distorted memories fueled public outrage.

7.1. The View That He Was Mistreated

There is a substantial counterargument that, even if some details in the post are wrong, its broader point is true. It is an undeniable fact that Ha was, for at least several days, in a position where he would have had to pay his hospital bills himself—and that the issue was corrected only after the media and the National Assembly raised it. It is also true that an official notice was issued to uniformly collect contributions from officers to support injured soldiers. Considering that a 200-million-won sculpture was built at the end of the same year, and that four years later the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs classified Ha’s injuries as “service-related” before reversing its decision, isn’t it inevitable that distrust would grow over how the state treats injured soldiers?

7.2. The View That the Story Was Distorted

However, the post omitted or changed all the crucial details. The day after the controversy began, the Ministry of National Defense corrected the situation by agreeing to cover all medical costs, and it even amended the enforcement decree to extend the coverage period from 30 days to two years. The claim that “10 million won in consolation money was forcibly collected from enlisted soldiers’ wages” has never been confirmed in Ha’s case, and the figures match the case of another soldier, Staff Sergeant Kwak. The sculpture was built by an Army corps and a company in 2015, but the 2026 version falsely attributed it to the current government and added an AI-generated image. It is therefore more reasonable to view the post as having spread amid anger over a new incident, stitching together fragments of controversies from 11 years earlier without context.

8. Trivia

• The sculpture’s official name is “The First Step Toward Peace and Unity.” Gyeonggi Province provided the site and electricity.