SOUTH KOREA: Slicky Boy

For many of South Korea's poor, stealing from the U.S. Army is a trade and a livelihood. They steal from PXs and officers' homes, raid railroad yards, pilfer from trucks on the move, and diligently bleed oil pipelines (last year's losses were 1,500,000 gallons, enough to carry one tank company 22,400 miles). But after U.S. soldiers on guard duty, potshotting at intruders, killed several innocent bystanders, General George H. Decker ordered: "No more shooting." The thieving went on, the 40,000 men of South Korea's police force seemed unable or unwilling to catch a single thief, and the U.S. Army...

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