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The Incheon Landing Operation on September 15, 1950 is recognized as one of the greatest military amphibious landings ever. However, a key to the success of the landing operation was provided by critical intelligence provided by a joint CIA-Naval team in the days before the Incheon Landing.

One week before the landing at Incheon, the joint CIA-military team launched Operation “Trudy Jackson”. The CIA-Navy sent in a tough commando unit led by Navy Lt. Eugene Clark. His guerrila group included an Army captain, three enlisted soldiers and two Korean operatives from the 8th Army G2 intelligence section (some would say they were actually hired gangsters).

They first landed on Yonghung-do Island, ten miles from Inchon. Clark subdued the small North Korean garrison on Yonghung-do and armed the anti-communist villagers on the island who agreed to help him. From here, Clark’s mission was to scout the tides, mud-flats, and seawalls before the Incheon landing occurred. What time does the tide go in and out? Can the naval AMTRACs or even tanks drive in the mud? Was the beach wired? How high are the seawalls? What size of ladders do the soldiers need? Where can tanks off load at? These are some of the critical questions he was tasked to find out. He was also responsible for spotting the location of any enemy mines when the tide went down across the bay leaving the mud flats Incheon is famous for. The sinking of a US ship due to a mine could block the entrance into the harbor, thus stopping the entire invasion. In addition, the commando unit was even able to recon Wolmi-do and routes to Seoul using their Korean recruits who infiltrated those areas providing further intelligence information before the invasion to MacArthur.

Navy Lt. Eugene Clark is pictured to the far right with members of the Yonghung-do operation.

However, the North Koreans found out the guerillas were on the Yonghung-do island and sent an assault boat with 16 North Korean soldiers, but Clark was tipped off to their impending arrivial ambushed them with a .50 cal machine gun on a sampan, and killed them all. Now that his cover had been blown Clark moved off the island to secure the lighthouse on Palmi-do Island which was his final objective before the start of the invasion. The lighthouse would provide a critical navigation aid for the invasion force. The commando team subdued another small garrison on the island and then worked to get the lighthouse operational. It was night time and the control to the lighthouse was missing a critical part that would make the lighthouse operational. The team members searched the lighthouse in the dark for the part with no success. One of the Korean commandos thinking failure was imminent layed down on the floor in exhaustion and his hand fell right on the missing part. He immediately jumped up and gave it to Clark who was able to turn on the lighthouse. His final mission was accomplished and the invasion force arrived safely through the channel that night and the next morning invaded Incheon destroying the North Korean forces occupying the city and changing the course of the war.

A tragedy of the commando mission however, was when Clark’s commando team moved to Palmi-do, the communists came back with a larger force unopposed to Yonghung-do island and lined up the 50 friendly South Korean villagers who had helped Clark, and gunned them all down.

For his actions at Incheon, Navy Lt. Eugene Clark was awared both the Silver Star and the Legion of Merit. However, his story would remain unknown until 1998 when he died and his family found his memoirs of the war written in 1998 stored in a safe. His memoirs would eventually be published in a 2002 book, The Secrets of Inchon”.

When I first traveled to Korea back in 2000 the first place I experienced was the old Kimpo Airport in Southwest Seoul. The airport was old, crowded, and the first thing you saw when entering customs was machine gun weilding ROK soldiers. Now, the first place any traveler to Korea will experience is the brand new Incheon International Airport.

This airport is a huge improvement over the old Kimpo Airport. The airport was officially opened in 2001 with much hype. The airport may not be the “Hub of Asia” that the Korean government hoped it would be but never the less this is one awesome airport. The airport is huge with many western style shops including my favorite the Harley-Davidson shop. There is also many areas where you can hook up to the internet to pass down time.

The excellence of this airport was also featured in a Forbes Magazine article listing the World’s 10 Best Airports. (Note click the previous button to cycle through the rankings.) Incheon finished 3rd on the list. Here is a run down of the top 10.

#1 – Hong Kong
#2 – Singapore
#3 – Incheon
#4 – Munich
#5 – Kansai (Osaka)
#6 – Dubai
#7 – Kuala Lumpur
#8 – Amsterdam
#9 – Copenhagen
#10 – Sydney
(Notice no American airports because they suck)

This is what Forbes had to say about the airport

This airport, in Seoul, South Korea, is one of Asia’s lesser-known new airports but its spacious single-terminal layout makes it quick and easy to navigate. Incheon Airport’s cleanliness is “almost unmatched” at any other airport in the world, and it provides extensive shopping options. Service ranks high, as does the availability of Internet access points throughout the terminal–no surprise given South Korea’s status as one of the world’s most wired countries.

Coming and going to the airport is easy with the frequent limousine bus service. The buses are inexpensive and are quite comfortable with their large, soft recliner seats. These buses will take to just about anywhere in the greater Seoul area.

So when coming to Korea you will no doubt be impressed by this great airport even if it is not the “Hub of Asia”.

President Bush came out firing at Kim Jong Il. Courtesy of the Chosun:

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday called North Korea’s Kim Jong-il a “dangerous man,” a person who “starves his people” and runs “huge concentration camps.” He said, “There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don’t know if he can or not, but I think it’s best, when you’re dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il, to assume he can.”

Unless you are Michael Moore, you have to agree with President Bush on all accounts here. Now the question is; why is the President coming out so strong against Kim Jong Il? Is the time for quiet diplomacy over and the US government is ready to raise the stakes? This may end up being interesing times to be stationed on the Korean peninsula. Can’t wait to see what happens.

In today’s Korea Times there was yet another complaint about ROK Army forces falling under the command of the USFK commander General Laporte:

The recent series of frictions in the bilateral military alliance is attributable to Korea’s outgrowth from the basic framework half a century old. Nothing tells the imbalance between the two nations more symbolically than that the 700,000-strong Korean Army should follow the command of the 37,000 U.S. troops if war eventuates. The geopolitics surrounding this peninsula will always limit its self-defense capability, but that should hardly be the reason for the extremely disproportionate relationship with foreigners. Korea needs _ and deserves _ some maneuvering space.

First of all USFK only has 32,500 soldiers right now. Secondly General Laporte would only command the ROK Army in case of a full scale war with North Korea. He has no control of the ROK Army during peace time. Then to infer that General Laporte only commands 32,500 soldiers is misleading. There will be thousands of reinforcements from the US plus all the Naval and US Air Force assets that would be involved in a second Korean War. The vast majority of combined arms power (ie: MLRS, bombers, stealth bombers, cruise missiles, submarines, etc.) is provided by the US which a US general is trained to unleash on the enemy. A ROK Army general has no experience with the sophisticated weaponry the US can bring to bear on an enemy thus the need for an American commander during war time.

The union that represents USFK workers is threatening to go on strike if USFK continues its plan to cut 1,000 Korean civilian jobs in response to the 9% drop in funds the Korean government is willing to provide to the USFK.

USFK has said the shortfall could mean cutting up to 1,000 jobs among South Korean workers at U.S. bases. During a news conference in early April, USFK chief of staff Lt. Gen. Charles C. Campbell said, “We will be required to make tough but necessary decisions in the areas of force capabilities; pre-positioned equipment and stocks; personnel and services; construction; and command-and-control equipment currently provided to ROK military forces.”

I just can’t imagine all the Korean civilians I work with daily and share common friendships with standing outside our front gate chanting slogans and rioting. Talking to my Korean civilian friends they really do not want to strike because they feel that is really going to upset the goodwill and friendship they share with the American soldiers but if your lively hood is getting terminated what else are you supposed to do? I will feel really horrible if this strike happens. I really hope it doesn’t come to that.

The Japundit has a good post about this article in the International Herald Tribune.

The article focuses on a historians attempt to recognize Kim Il Sung in the resistance movement against the Japanese colonization.

Kang Man Gil, a renowned historian appointed as head of a prestigious government committee preparing for the 60th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, was asked a question by a reporter last week and he said what few historians dispute. When his reply was reported, however, many South Koreans called for Kang’s dismissal.

“It’s a historical fact,” Kang said, adding that “Kim’s anti-Japanese struggle should be considered part of the nation’s independence movement.”

So maybe the Japanese are not the only ones white washing past history?

The controversy over Kang’s comment illustrates how divided South Koreans are, as the government of President Roh Moo Hyun tries to re-examine the nation’s modern history.

It also reminds South Koreans that, a decade after his death, the Communist leader’s specter is still haunting them.
Here are some funny propaganda “facts” put out by the communists up North.

The personality cult in North Korea surrounding “Great Leader” Kim and his son, the current leader, Kim Jong Il, rests on the senior Kim’s mythical role as an anti-Japanese resistance hero.

The nation even invented a new calendar, counting the world’s history from Kim’s birthday, April 15, 1912. North Korea once called that the 20th century’s “most turbulent day,” the day when the “Sun of the East” rose and when the British passenger ship Titanic, symbol of “swashbuckling Western imperialism,” sank. In the world according to North Korea, this is the year 94.

Read the rest of the article on your own because it is good reading but it just goes to show every country has skeltons in its closet in regards to history. The fact the Kim Il Sung was an active resistance fighter is definitely a piece of history Korea wants to keep quiet about.

The wife of a sailor killed in the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle with North Korean warships has reportedly left the country.

Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk, who was killed in a June 2002 naval battle with North Korea in the West Sea, turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight bound for the United States. Before getting on her flight, she said, “If the indifference and inhospitality shown to those soldiers who were killed or wounded protecting the nation continue, what soldier will lay down his life in the battlefield?”

In the battle on June 29, 2002 — one day prior to the closing ceremony of the Korea-Japan World Cup — six sailors were killed and 18 wounded when a North Korean patrol boat that had crossed over the northern line of control ambushed a South Korean naval vessel. The bereaved have spent the last three years in an atmosphere where it was difficult to even grieve. Nervous government officials, worrying that the incident might cast a pall over the Sunshine Policy, even warned the families to please be quiet.

I posted on the neglect the families of this tragedy have received last summer. The point of my post last summer was how hippocritical things here in Korea are when USFK is still having protests about the two girls killed in an accident in June 2002 which everybody up the chain of command including President Bush apologized for and we the military have made huge improvements to further improve safety and reduced total convoy movements to prevent another accident in a country where thousands continue to die from domestic traffic accidents anyway while in the same month a few days later the North Koreans diliberately kill six South Korean sailors in an ambush to draw media attention away from the World Cup finale the next day and nobody cares. Where are the candle light vigils, demands for apologies, demands for compensation, and calls for a more equal relationship? Obviously the North Koreans are getting the better end of this relationship and the families of the victims are getting a cold shoulder from their own government.

Here’s a quote from an article last summer that really really stood out to me.

The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal. Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”

Frankly I can’t blame her for wanting to leave Korea after the treatment the families have received.

A Navy study has found that sailors who smoke are more likely to be seperated from the service than non-smokers.

Recruits who enter service as heavy cigarette smokers are nearly twice as likely as nonsmokers to be separated early, mostly due to “substandard behavior,” according to new research aimed at easing the U.S. military’s disturbingly high attrition rate.

For all its achievements over three decades, the volunteer military has had one chronic problem: an alarming washout rate. A third of all new entrants fail to complete initial service obligations, driving up recruiting and training costs.

This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone because when I was in high school back in the day, the people who smoked were usually people who had authority problems and smoked just to piss people off.

Now this is interesting:

Now it appears pre-service smoking habits could well be the equal of a diploma for predicting if a recruit will succeed in service, said Dr. Eli S. Flyer, a former senior manpower analyst with the Defense Department.

I can’t imagine the military not letting people enlist because they smoke. Especially with the recruiting problems of today.

Now this I find hard to believe:

Just more than half — 51 percent — of all servicemembers smoked in 1980. Smoking declined to a 29.9 percent level in 1998, but smoking increased to 33.8 percent according to the 2002 survey of Health Related Behaviors Among Military Personnel.

Only 33.8% of people in the military smoke? I would think it would be around 50% or more. The military has so many smokers IMHO because it is the easiest way to sham out of work. The laziest soldiers I know are all smokers who hide in the smoke shack and they hide there because the people in charge of them smoke to and are in the same smoke shack. Just about every soldier that I know of who gets into trouble is a smoker.

As many of you know 2ID has started a campaign to ban smoking on the 2ID camps. All this does is cause the smokers to go to the far off smoking designated point to smoke removing them from work that much longer. What the army needs to do is limit the number of smoke breaks to one in the morning for 10 minutes and one in the afternoon for 10 minutes and implement a sign in and sign out roster to track it. If the soldier has to go through a lot of hurdles to take a smoke break that will cut the number of smokers because many of them smoke just to get out of work.

This is just one person’s opinion, so feel free to comment if your unit has nothing but hard working smokers because mine doesn’t and I’m willing to bet many other units are the same way.

Apparently an agreement has been reached to resume the North Korean nuclear talks:

Leaders of the two Koreas agreed Saturday to resume talks between their nations that broke down last summer and to discuss the international standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons ambitions, an Indonesian official said.

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and North Korea’s No. 2 man, Kim Yong Nam, met on the sidelines of an Asian-African summit in Jakarta, said Jacob Tobing, Indonesia’s ambassador to South Korea. It was the second meeting at the summit between the two leaders, who addressed such key issues as attempts to persuade the North to return to six-party talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to suspend its nuclear program.

The North Koreans have agreed to continue to continue nuclear talks? It must be true because the Norks wouldn’t agree to something just to back out of it later would they?

When I was in Kuwait waiting for the word for my unit to cross the berm into Iraq we stayed out in the desert in a camp made up of circus tents and porta-potties. During this time there was somebody who was deliberately crapping on toilet seats in the different porta-potties and would then write about his exploits on the walls of the porta-potty. He became known as the “Shithouse Bandit”. If anyone would have ever caught the “Shithouse Bandit” he would of been beaten to a pulp but no one ever did before we rolled out.

Anyway now in Korea I think a disciple of the “Shithouse Bandit” has surfaced. I call him the “Elevator Bandit”. For the past couple of months somebody in my apartment building keeps pissing in the elevator. This pisses me off (no pun intended) more than than the “Shithouse Bandit” because at least in Kuwait you had other porta-potties you could go to. Here there is only one elevator to get to my apartment and I live on the 15th floor. So when there is piss all over the elevator, guess what I got to climb up all those stairs because I’m not about to stand in a puddle of piss to get to my hooch. I have complained to the apartment security about this problem and they told me they are conducting an “investigation” into it. What the heck are they investigating? DNA samples from the urine? How about installing a camera!? No, after their lenghty investigation my mighty all over 60 years old army of security guards who just happen to smell of soju most days have instead come up with a better plan to stop this master criminal known as the “Elevator Bandit”. They have posted a sign asking him to quit pissing on the elevator. I’m sure that will scare him.

Has anyone else out there had their elevators pissed on? Is this a common occurence in Korea? I have seen many ajushis urinating on buildings in public when they get the urge because of the lack of public restrooms here. Anyway I will keep everyone informed if there are any updates in the security investigation of the “Elevator Bandit”.