page_title: Candlelight vigil
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Candlelight vigil / South Korea's candlelight vigils / 2002 / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: US Marine Corps (USMC) M60A1 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge (M60A1 AVLB), 1st Tank Battalion, Twentynine Palms, California, moves across the Kuwaiti desert enroute to bridge launching training at Camp Coyote, Kuwait during Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.
context_page_description: A candlelight vigil or candlelit vigil is an outdoor assembly of people carrying candles, held after sunset in order to show support for a specific cause. Such events are typically held either to protest the suffering of some marginalized group of people, or in memory of the dead. In the latter case, the event is often called a candlelight memorial. A large candlelight vigil will usually have invited speakers with a public address system and may be covered by local or national media. Speakers give their speech at the beginning of the vigil to explain why they are holding a vigil and what it represents. Vigils may also have a religious or spiritual purpose. On Christmas Eve many churches hold a candlelight vigil.
  Candlelight vigils are seen as a nonviolent way to raise awareness of a cause and to motivate change, as well as uniting and supporting those attending the vigil.
context_section_description: On June 13, 2002, two fourteen-year-old Korean middle-school girls, Shim Mi-sun (Korean: 심미선) and Shin Hyo-seon (Korean: 신효순), were struck and killed by a U.S. military vehicle in Yangju, Gyeonggi province on Highway 56, just 300 meters away from a friend's birthday party. The Korean government did not have any jurisdiction over the trial due to the U.S. military having their legal rights presided over by the Status of Forces Agreement, which doesn't hold them accountable to the Korean court. This resulted in public outrage once the U.S. court-martials determined that the G.I. soldier, Sergeant Mark Walker, and the vehicle's commander, Sergeant Fernando Nino, were not guilty of "negligent homicide" of the 60-ton U.S. tracked bridge carrier that killed the girls during their training exercise.
caption: US AVLB vehicle that is similar to the one that struck and killed the girls
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