Last November, a man enlisted in the Republic of Korea Armed Forces was serving his final day before he was scheduled to be discharged. He just had one last order: clean his personal combat equipment – including his firearm – for inspection.

Apparently feeling burdened with this final duty, he must have been looking for a quick fix when – perhaps thinking “Why not kill two birds with one stone?” – he decided to wash his gun in with the laundry. What could possibly go wrong?

The type of gun wasn’t revealed, but according to remarks from the trial it was said to be a rifle. The standard-issue rifle for the ROK Army is the Daewoo Precision Industries K2 assault rifle.

What is certain, however, is that after five minutes in the spin cycle a bullet was discharged. The then-soldier was imprisoned and put up on charges of disobeying orders. During the trial the Seoul District Court judge decided to go easy on the lazy launderer, saying: “The defendant admitted to the mistake and was already about to be discharged. He had no prior record and the gun was not damaged.”

Nevertheless, the former soldier was handed down a sentence of six months in prison, two years of probation, and 80 hours of community service. Netizens reacted by saying that there was no way the person committed this act accidentally, and assumed it was some sort of retaliation for harassment or abuse suffered while enlisted, but we may never know why the soldier – a man who was permitted to carry this lethal weapon, let’s not forget – decided to put his rifle through the spin cycle.

Although it’s assumed to have been put in a critical condition, there has been no word on the fate of the washing machine. All we can do is stay strong and hope for the best.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News via My Game News Flash (Japanese)
K2 Image: Wikipedia – Shotgunlee
Washer Image: Amazon