Korean army creepypasta: the grenade suicide at boot camp

Okay I wasn't going to post this but it's been sitting in my head for twenty years so here we go.

I enlisted in February 2004, went through Nonsan Training Center. One of the last units still using the old barracks at the time, I think it was the 23rd or 29th regiment, I genuinely can't remember. Point is, winter 2004 at Nonsan was ROUGH. There was a massive snowstorm and we were literally the first trainee batch ever sent out to help civilians with it. We were shoveling snow off ginseng fields and strawberry farms. Anyone who enlisted Feb 2004 knows exactly what I'm talking about. LMAO.

Anyway. The incident.

Week 3 or 4 of training. Grenade throwing day. We did our session in the afternoon, everything was fine, we're walking back to the barracks and the whole regiment just feels... off. Something is wrong. Word starts spreading that right after our batch finished, something happened with the next group at the grenade range.

Rumors got louder and louder. We're all sitting in the barracks not knowing what to think.

Here's what we pieced together. A trainee from a different regiment was at the range, got issued his grenade, was waiting in the pit. Then he pulled the pin. But instead of throwing it, he stuffed the grenade under his shirt, ran out of the pit, and threw himself face down on the ground.

And that was it. Gone instantly.

I remember this so clearly because of what happened THAT SAME NIGHT.

I got assigned to overnight guard duty. At Nonsan, when trainees do guard rounds it's one instructor plus two trainees, three people total. Somewhere around midnight, the three of us are crossing the parade ground when we hear someone running up behind us. Frantic footsteps. We turn around and it's a sergeant (byeongjang, so like the highest enlisted rank before officers).

Sergeant: "Aye, wait up, let me walk with you guys."

Instructor: "Sergeant [name]? Where are you headed at this hour?"

Sergeant: "Don't even ask, I'm scared out of my MIND, I can't go alone."

Instructor: "...What happened?"

Sergeant: "You know about the suicide at the grenade range today right?"

Instructor: "Yeah we all know. What about it?"

Sergeant: "I was just THERE. I'm coming back from there right now."

Instructor: "...Sir? Why were you at the range?"

Sergeant: "The body can't be moved until the parents come to ID it. So they just had to leave it there. But it's out in the woods so animals were getting to it, they had soldiers standing guard around the body with sticks, 24 hours. I was just on that rotation. I got relieved and I literally cannot walk back alone."

Instructor: "Oh my god. Did you... did you see the body?"

Sergeant: "Don't. Don't ask me that."

...

"The grenade got caught in his waistband. So it went off against his stomach. Everything from his belly up to his jaw. Gone. Just his legs and part of his head left."

Instructor: "..."

Sergeant: "And the animals kept coming. That was the worst part. The animals."

I heard every single word of this conversation. Standing right there in the dark.

I was imagining it and I wanted to throw up.

The sergeant walked with us for a while then peeled off to his own barracks. We finished our patrol and went back.

After that incident the army changed the uniform rule for grenade training. Before, you'd tuck your shirt into your pants and wear the body armor over it. That's what the kid had done, and that's why the grenade got caught. After 2004 they made you wear your shirt UNTUCKED so there's nowhere for a grenade to snag.

The scarier part. A buddy of mine from Nonsan, who ended up at the same base as me afterward, had been in the SAME barracks room as the kid who died. I asked him why he thought it happened.

He said the guy had seemed a little off from the beginning.

After the death the military police came in and went through his suyang-rok¹ and found entries that... yeah. "What does it feel like to die? What happens after?" That kind of stuff.

My buddy ended up getting excused from a bunch of training because of it. Sat around resting while we all suffered. Lucky guy honestly lol.

Apparently juniors who came through Nonsan after us said they were VERY strict about the uniform thing after that. Shirt always out. And if someone had a bad dream the night before or just had a bad feeling about throwing, they were allowed to sit it out.

Anyone else who went through Nonsan after February 2004, was it like this for you? Had you heard this story?