This Canadian man walked to the airport in Vancouver, British Columbia and then walked 186 miles from Incheon International Airport to the Kapyong Valley in South Korea:
A Canadian with a penchant for fostering the memory of his nation’s military service recently walked nearly 200 miles to a hilltop where his countrymen distinguished themselves in the Korean War.
Guy Black spent more than 2 ½ years planning and training for his trek, which began in British Columbia and concluded at the Kapyong battlefield east of Seoul. He timed his walk to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the conflict’s end.
“I hope that I can inspire more people to do something for remembrance,” he said April 21 at the Kapyong memorial. “I want people to just know more about the Korean War. I would like veterans to get more recognition and I hope that this walk gets people to remember and also do something that was worthy of a tribute to these people.”
The Battle of Kapyong, or Gapyeong, April 23-25, 1951, belonged to the outnumbered Canadian and Australian troops of the 27th British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade who prevailed over their adversaries in three larger Chinese regiments.
Ten Canadians lost their lives and another 23 were wounded, according to Veterans Affairs Canada. The Australians lost 32 killed and 59 wounded. An estimated 2,000 Chinese soldiers were killed or wounded.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link. I also recommend reading my prior posting about Canadian Korean War hero, Lieutenant Colonel J.R. Stone.
Here is another development in the improving ties between South Korea and Japan:
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to visit South Korea later this month, in what appears to be a move to gain the upper hand over Seoul in trilateral relations between South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
Korea Times
Citing multiple government officials from both the South Korean and Japanese governments, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Sunday that the prime minister will visit Seoul from May 7 to 8. It will be his first trip to South Korea since taking office.
The newspaper reported that the visit is aimed at responding to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to Japan in March, during which the South Korean leader showed his willingness to improve chilled bilateral relations.
The South Korean presidential office did not confirm this, but admitted that “consultations are ongoing” over the prime minister’s visit to South Korea.
If it takes place, the visit will be the first by a Japanese prime minister since February 2018, when Shinzo Abe made one on the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics here. In terms of bilateral diplomacy, however, it will be the first visit since October 2011, when Yoshihiko Noda visited Seoul for a summit with then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
You can read more at the link.
Should bars in Korea that deny entry to foreigners be prevented from doing so? That is what this academic working in Korea believes:
“Oegugin churip geumji,” said the doorman. Entry prohibited for foreigners.
Korea Times
This article was nearly a very angry one. After I was denied entry to a bar two weeks ago for not being Korean, I was fulminating internally over the piece that I would write.
I was going to write about the closemindedness and inherent insularity of Korea that the “no foreigners” rule reveals. Why should anyone support Busan’s bid for the 2030 World Expo if the people it seeks to attract are not welcome here? Why should Scottish distillers or Belgian brewers sell their products to Korean pubs that refuse entry to the very people who created that precious nectar? Why should woke fans abroad laud K-pop as something special or somehow anti-racist when some of the genre’s biggest stars (members of BlACKPINK and Twice, for instance) could themselves be banned from the country’s pubs?
You can read more at the link, but denying entry to foreigners in certain bars has been going on for decades. It also works in reverse where some bars near US military installations would not let in Koreans. The academic that wrote this article was so upset he took his complaints to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK). Personally I just don’t have the time to worry about being denied entry to a bar much less file a complaint to the NHRCK. Instead I would just walk to one of the vast majority of bars in Korea that have no problem accepting business from foreigners.
North Korea has officially responded to the US-ROK summit last week where President Biden said the regime would be destroyed if they used nuclear weapons. None of these insults and threats coming from Kim Yo-jong should be surprising in response considering North Korea’s past history of insulting US and ROK presidents:
In her comments published on state media, Kim Yo Jong said the U.S.-South Korean agreement reflected the allies’ “most hostile and aggressive will of action” against the North and will push regional peace and security into “more serious danger.”
Kim, who is one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, said the summit further strengthened the North’s conviction to enhance its nuclear arms capabilities. She said it would be especially important for the North to perfect the “second mission of the nuclear war deterrent,” in an apparent reference to the country’s escalatory nuclear doctrine that calls for preemptive nuclear strikes over a broad range of scenarios where it may perceive its leadership as under threat.
She lashed out at Biden over his blunt warning that North Korean nuclear aggression would result in the end of its regime, calling him senile and “too miscalculating and irresponsibly brave.” However, she said the North wouldn’t simply dismiss his words as a “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage.”
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
Does anyone think offering accelerated citizenship to foreigners to join the military to make up for the recruiting shortage is a good idea?:
The Air Force has graduated its first group of airmen who became American citizens during basic training as part of an accelerated naturalization process, which the service hopes will help solve recent difficulties in recruiting.
Fourteen foreign-born men and women who joined the Air Force were naturalized during several weeks of basic training this month at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, the service said. They graduated from basic training and signed their U.S. Certificate of Citizenship on Wednesday.
“I will always be grateful for every opportunity I have here in the best country of the world,” said Airman 1st Class Natalia Laziuk, a member of the inaugural group and a native of Russia.
The enhanced process lets foreign-born recruits settle legal citizenship requirements immediately upon entering basic training. During seven and a half weeks, they can supply all the needed paperwork, take the citizenship test and satisfy other requirements to become naturalized Americans by the time that they graduate.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link, but I think if the recruits are already in the process of getting their citizenship I don’t have any issues with it. However, I think what we do need to be careful of is offering citizenship to foreigners to join the military that are not even eligible for citizenship. If a country can’t recruit its own citizens to defend it, is it still a country still worth defending? With that said I believe the current recruiting shortages are caused by self inflicted issues that can be fixed.
By the way I recommend everyone read what happened to the Roman military when it allowed large masses of foreigners to fill their ranks to make up for their recruiting shortages. It did not end well. Fortunately the U.S. military is no where near the issues Rome had, but what will it be like a hundred years from now if cutting military benefits and increasingly using foreigners to fill recruiting shortages becomes a popular way to fill the military?
Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
