From Yonhap:

Special Forces Soldiers Start a Bar Fight, Lose Badly

It took place during the peak of the holiday season, the 15th of December, 4:00 a.m. The setting was a bar in a restaurant district of Hwayang, in Seoul.

In the early morning hours, four male non-commissioned officers and two female soldiers from the Songpa Special Forces Base were drinking, dancing, and enjoying their freedom off-base.

It was at that moment that three junior officers from the same base, who were seated at the neighboring table, caught their attention. The younger officers seemed to be neglecting to pay the proper respect to their senior officers.

“What do you young guys think you’re doing, turning your backs on us and being so rude?”

The bar, filled with customers, suddenly grew tense as the physically imposing soldiers started to argue. The owner of the bar, worried about losing business during the busy holiday season, came out and tried to calm the rising tempers, but it was no use.

It was at that moment that the furious owner stripped off his shirt, exposing a tattoo on his chest of a coiled dragon.

“Right now is my busiest time and you guys think you have a reason to disrupt my business? Keep on going and you’ll all be thrown into the stockade,” said the owner, threatening the soldiers.

Behind the owner stood nine other employees of the bar, spread out on both sides of him in a row. Among the employees were a professional boxer and several college athletes.

It was impossible to tell who swung first, but within seconds the bar turned into a chaotic brawl. Approximately thirty to forty patrons screamed and scrambled out the exits. The female soldiers and younger military officers attempted to stop the fight but ended up tangled in the middle of the struggle.

Despite having gone through rigorous training for counter-terrorism operations, the soldiers were very drunk and thus unable to land many blows. It seemed as if they came off worse as the fight ended.

Two soldiers called 119 emergency services after twenty-two-year-old Mr. Hong, an employee of the bar, got a serious head injury.

Twenty-two-year-old Sergeant Han and four of the NCOs were arrested for assaulting the bar employees and causing injury. On December 28th, the Seoul Police announced that the soldiers had been turned over to the military police.

The bar owner was also held on charges of attacking a Sergeant Kim as well as two other soldiers. Two other bar employees were charged for assault and released on bail.

A police spokesperson said, “Given the fact that the Special Forces troops were well trained in hand to hand combat, one might have expected that they would cause severe injury to the civilians. However, it seems that their impairment due to drinking meant they actually lost the fight.”

It has since been reported that the bar owner paid a settlement to the affected soldiers.

Comments from Daum:

houn****:

What did the bar owner and his employees do wrong? It’s the drunken and disorderly grunts who were the problem.

mimi****:

The reporter wrote a very detailed account ㅋㅋㅋㅋ it felt like I was really there ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

nsk1****:

Get out of the military, you bunch of special forces idiots. Four of you starting a fight against nine… Did you think you received special training to beat up on civilians? You have no right to call yourselves special forces soldiers, take off your uniforms.

puls****:

The reporter did a damn good job with this article!

gatt****:

Tension coursed through the assembled bar workers, the bar owner, his body full of dragon spirit, and the Special Forces soldiers, expertly trained in the art of death. A scared patron drops his chopstick. Bang, it clatters to the floor. Swift as lightning, the owner lets loose with strike at a soldier with the appearance of a general. Who is this man? Their training taking over, the soldiers instantly take their positions and make their counterattack.

eros****:

What a humiliation for the Special Forces, getting disciplined by some thug bar owner

tt_m****:

Available on the new menu: seven soldiers, Special Forces in name only

tajj****:

No matter how drunk they might have been… it’s enough to make any Special Forces embarrassed. With those kind of skills, how are they expected to go after terrorists?

lema****:

A Special Forces soldier has to be capable of fighting whether or not he’s drunk… it doesn’t help if you’re idiots to start with.

zapd****:

Is the reporter writing a mystery serial novel? Describing the barman’s tattoos and the row of nine employees? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ I can just imagine the sceneㅋㅋㅋㅋ

vhs9****:

What do you expect when these soldiers spend all of their time out on exercises and turning themselves into human weapons? They don’t know how to control themselves and start fights as soon as they get loose and start drinking.

sodi****:

I don’t understand why the bar owner was sent to prison;; Doesn’t a hospital stay of four weeks or longer for a victim mean that the attacker has to go to prison? A soldier who assaults a civilian should get more than fifteen days in the stockade

scvo****:

What kind of Special Forces start a disturbance inside of a city? You’re an embarrassment, prepare to get kicked out of the military

jml8****:

The winner of the fight were the thirty to forty customers who ran off. Some free drinks, see a good fight, then on to the next bar, eh? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

oror****:

Shouldn’t something be said here about the marines? Who can match ROK Marines when it comes to getting drunk and starting a ruckus?

coff****:

Do NCOs no longer get told how they should act when they are off base?

myga****:

Seeing as how the bar owner ended up paying a settlement to the soldiers, the bar employees must have really beat the heck out of them

ship****:

A place where there are nine strong bar workers, where you can drink and dance, where the owner has tattoos… I don’t think that’s a normal bar.

otlo****:

Why did they have to bother people who just wanted to live in peace ㅋㅋㅋㅋHow out of control must the soldiers have been for the barman to bare his tattoosㅋㅋㅋㅋwhat counterterrorism operations are going on now? With all the snow lately they should have been busy shoveling

love****: