For sixty-two years, South Korea has sent its soldiers abroad?to Vietnam, the Gulf, Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, South Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and now the waters of Hormuz and the Red Sea. Successive governments have told the story as one of humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and national pride.

This book tells it from the other side. Drawing on archival records, court rulings, and testimony, Kim Eo Jin traces how each deployment served the ROK-U.S. alliance, the profits of Korea's conglomerates, and the strategies of great powers?and who paid the price: the villagers of Phong Nhi, the people of Erbil and Kabul, and Korean soldiers who never came home.

The first comprehensive critical history of South Korea's overseas deployments in English, it is essential reading for anyone concerned with war, empire, and the politics of peace in Asia and the Middle East.