Earplugs are given to U.S. military personnel in buildings well behind the barbed wire fence of the range and away from the target practice. Members of the south Korean police and military who stand guard inside the fences are not given earplugs, nor are the villagers. Yet when the noise levels have been measured, they zoom completely off the decibel scale. The constant bombardment, with its unbearable noise and pollution, has taken a great toll on villagers' health. The number of cancer cases in the nearby villages is disproportionately large and growing.
Countless women experience miscarriages, and birth defects are on the increase.
It even affects animals. We were told by villagers about a dog that had recently had a miscarriage and about a farmer who had lost 2500 chickens. We also heard that 80 percent of those attending a regional school for children with learning disabilities come from Maehyang-ri. The head of the village resistence movement, Chun Mankyu, told us his father had killed himself. He then unbuttoned his shirt revealing a large, long, scarlet scar in his chest.