Category: ROK Military

Here is the latest on the ongoing CCPT exercise:

South Korean troops conducting a joint, computer-simulated exercise with their American counterparts were all vaccinated and tested for COVID-19 before training began, a military official said Monday. 

A South Korean Ministry of National Defense official speaking on the customary condition of anonymity told Stars and Stripes that due to service members being in close proximity with each other, “it was very important for all of them to get vaccinated.”

The two countries are conducting a combined command-post training Aug. 16 to 26. Rather than a large-scale field exercise involving thousands of combat troops, this exercise will primarily focus on computer simulations.

U.S. Forces Korea spokesman Col. Lee Peters, citing the command’s policy, did not comment on whether American forces participating in the joint training were all vaccinated. 

However, Peters said USFK “can reassure you that we remain aligned with [the defense ministry] on aggressive COVID mitigation measures including conducting training with minimal essential personnel and in distributed locations.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the most interesting thing I read in the article was that 93% of the 550,000 ROK troops have received the vaccine though it is voluntary.

This ROK soldier just came short of earning a mandatory military service exemption:

A South Korean high jumper hoping to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics and qualify for an exemption from his country’s mandatory military service may earn some extra vacation days instead.

Pfc. Woo Sang-hyeok, 25, of the Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps, placed fourth in the men’s high jump category after clearing a 2.35-meter bar. That performance broke South Korea’s previous record of 2.34 meters, or 7.7 feet, set in 1997.

Higher jumpers from Qatar, Italy and Belarus edged out Woo with their 2.37-meter jumps in the final round. The Olympic record for the event is 2.39 meters and was achieved by American Charles Austin in 1996, according to the International Olympic Committee’s website.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is a new drone capability the ROK military has just decided to purchase:

An attack drone equipped with six 40-millimeter grenade launchers will be piloted by the military in the first half of next year, according to the state arms procurement agency on Tuesday.  
   
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a June 3 press release that it signed a contract with two companies to purchase grenade-launching drones and small modular drones equipped with the latest technologies through a rapid pilot acquisition project system and to test-run the models in the first half of next year.  
   
The contracts with ONC Tech, which will provide the grenade-launching drones to the Army, and Preneu, which will furnish the small modular drones to the Navy and Air Force, are worth 662 million won ($576,600) and 1.71 billion won, respectively.  
  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Note to senior leaders in the ROK military, the days of getting away with sexual harassment and other sex crimes is clearly over:

Military prosecutors indicted an Army general for alleged sexual molestation of a female subordinate, officials said Tuesday.

The brigadier general was accused of attempting physical contact with the female officer at a karaoke bar after a dinner with his subordinates in late June.

Upon a report by the victim, he was immediately relieved of his duties and arrested earlier this month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Korea Herald has a good in-depth look at what happened with the ROK Navy ship that had most of its crew become infected with the coronavirus:

A seaman first exhibited cold-like symptoms on July 2, a day after the destroyer had made a four-day supply stop at a port. But he was treated with cold medicine and not tested for COVID-19, even though many others began to show similar symptoms. The medical staff had allegedly overlooked COVID-19 symptoms.

What made the outbreak more lethal was the wrong COVID-19 self-test kits Cheonghae packed upon leaving Korea. The unit left with antibody test kits, which take much longer time to detect infection than antigen test kits. It was just plain mistake, the Navy admitted.

“It was days later when we brought in local medical specialists to administer the industry-standard PCR tests,” one Cheonghae officer said, adding his unit began to enforce strict quarantine procedures after the test, which found the first six COVID-19 patients.

That was the first case of infection, which Cheonghae confirmed on July 15, and three days later, the military flew aircraft to airlift the entire crew back home. Many service members who had tested negative for COVID-19 using self-test kits were believed to have been infected.

“We just dropped the ball there,” a military official said.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but there is a clearly a cover up going on within the ship because they are trying to blame contaminated food for infecting the ship. Passing of the coronavirus from surface contact or eating food has been found to be highly unlikely. The vast majority of people are infected by airborne contact with the virus. The crew is claiming they were not in contact with anyone during their 4-day port call in Oman which appears to be unlikely.

“It’s highly unlikely that it came from food. I suspect there may have been people-to-people contact, though the seamen deny there was,” he said, adding the crew should be honest with whom they had come into contact.

This case takes another tragic turn:

A suspect in the suicide death of an Air Force sexual abuse victim has been found dead at a military detention facility, a human rights group said Monday.

The senior master sergeant was indicted on charges of inflicting secondary harm and threatening retaliation against the master sergeant, surnamed Lee, who took her own life in May, three months after she was allegedly groped and suffered other abuse by a colleague of the same rank.

“The senior master sergeant was found unconscious at 2:55 p.m. Sunday and transferred to a civilian hospital but later died,” the Center for Military Human Rights Korea, a nongovernmental organization, said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

For anyone complaining about USFK COVID restrictions just be happy you are not in the ROK Military:

The defense ministry extended the toughest social distancing rules for the military for another two weeks Monday to curb a new wave of the pandemic, restricting service members’ vacations and off-installation activities.

The Level 4 scheme, which was supposed to expire Sunday, will be in place until Aug. 8, in line with the government’s COVID-19 guidance, according to the ministry.

Under the new measures, only 10 percent of members of a unit are allowed to go on vacation at the same time. Off-duty travels, staying out overnight and meetings with visitors are banned in principle.

The ministry also ordered military units to cancel or postpone all private meetings, prohibit nonessential events and travel, and conduct religious services online.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This incident shows how living in close quarters leads to super spreader events:

A total of 247 sailors of the 301-strong Cheonghae unit on an anti-piracy mission in waters off Africa have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday, confirming a widely feared mass infection, seen as the worst in South Korea’s military.

An additional 179 have newly tested positive after 69 were confirmed infected Sunday, the JCS said. 

“Test results on all the 301 crewmembers of the Cheonghae unit showed that 247 tested positive and 50 negative. Samples of four individuals were undecipherable,” the JCS said in a release.

All the service members are expected to return home Tuesday as the government decided to airlift all and sent two KC-330 aerial tankers to Africa on Sunday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

From a strategic perspective it really makes no sense for the ROK to participate in a naval exercise in the Black Sea:

The United States fully respects South Korea’s decision to skip a multinational naval exercise, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday, also adding Seoul’s decision does not affect the South Korea-U.S. alliance in any way.

“It’s a sovereign decision by a nation state. And they’re certainly entitled to make that decision and to speak to that decision and we absolutely respect it,” the spokesman, John Kirby, said in a press briefing.

South Korea earlier said it had been invited to take part in the U.S.-led exercise, Sea Breeze 21, in the Black Sea that involves some 5,000 troops from 32 countries, including NATO members, but that it has decided not to take part.

The multinational exercise got under way this week and is scheduled to end July 10.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but South Korea will be participating in the Talisman Sabre multinational exercise with Australia which makes more sense for them strategically to participate in.