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I have been in the field for the past week for the major 2ID training exercise currently going on. I got some momentary access to the internet to update you on the Apache crash. Unfortunately the one survivor from the crash, CW2 Cowan has past away. The first casualty CPT Burmaz I actually met a few months back at a division function. He seemed to be a really good guy. I’m sorry to see this happen. Here is an update on the crash from the Stars and Stripes.

1st Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment commander Lt. Col. Chandler Sherrell spoke Wednesday at Yongsan?s South Post Chapel during a memorial for Cowan and fellow pilot Capt. Dion J. Burmaz, who died Saturday after their helicopter crashed at Twin Bridges Training Area near the Demilitarized Zone.

The fallen aviators, who served with 1-2?s Company A, the ?Razorbacks,? gave their lives ?so our children can grow up in a free country,? Sherrell said.

The Twin Bridges training area is one of the most heavily used training areas in 2ID located about 8km south of the DMZ. It is a valley with rugged mountains on each side. It is not the first time an accident has happened here. The army and especially being a helicopter pilot, is definitely a dangerous business.

I will blog more when I back from the field next week.

I thought this was pretty cool that the Kangnam district of Seoul is dedicating Daemo Mountain in honor of 8th Army and planting trees to commemorate the combat fatalities that the 2BCT has taken in Iraq.

A city district here plans to rename a section of parkland near Daemo Mountain after the U.S. 8th Army and to plant 1,000 trees to honor the relationship between Koreans and Americans, according to officials from the Army and Gangnam District.

The April 1 ceremony also will honor the American servicemembers who have died in Iraq after deploying from South Korea last year, according to Maj. Iris Cowher, who heads the Good Neighbor Program for 8th Army.

Make sure to check out this month’s Ulsan Pear. This month’s issue focuses on love in Korea. If you have ever wondered about those Korean tea girls and barber shops well this month’s issue is your chance to find out what they do.

More good stuff from Dr. Andrei Lankov in the Asia Times. His latest article focuses on who is being kidnapped and why by the North Koreans over the years.

The first known interception of a fishing ship took place in May 1955. The most recent incident happened in 1987, when 12 South Koreans became prisoners in the North. During subsequent interceptions the crews were always repatriated.

Generally North Korean authorities wanted to utilize the knowledge and skills of their abductees. Of course, the fishermen hardly had access to valuable intelligence, but they still could be trained as spies and sent back to the South. They were also used for training North Korean intelligence operatives. Better-educated people could be employed by the institutions responsible for waging propaganda campaigns against the South in, say, their broadcast facilities.

The article concludes by explaining why the South Korean government cares little about the abductees.

But one cannot help but wonder why not much is heard about the abduction issue in Seoul. After all, there have been fewer than 60 Japanese abductees – even if one believes the highest available estimate. Nonetheless, the issue is central to Japanese politics and stirs high emotions in Tokyo. Meanwhile, only family members and some right-wing groups seem to care about South Koreans who disappeared in Pyongyang. What’s the matter?

This reflects the general approach to the North in present-day South Korea. The abduction issue used to be much cited by the official propaganda of the military regimes in the 1960s and 1970s, but middle-aged Koreans are seriously (and, one suspects, incurably) allergic to anything that reminds them of this propaganda. The political left, which increasingly dominates South Korean internal discourse, is remarkably positive toward the North. The logic is simple: if one raises uncomfortable issues with the North, this is unlikely to help, but will make things more complicated instead.

Interesting reading that is worth checking out.

A US Apache helicopter went down Friday night during a training exercise. Here is the report from Yonhap News.

U.S. Apache helicopter crashed into a hill in northern South Korea Saturday, killing one crewmember and critically injuring another, a spokesperson for the U.S. military said.

The two soldiers belong to the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Aviation Brigade of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division which is deployed just south of the heavily-armed border with North Korea. Seoul is only 50 kilometers away from the border.

Helicopter crashes are not all that uncommon here in South Korea partly due to the rugged geography. I’ll keep everyone informed as details become available on this.

The teacher that allowed these anti-American letter from sixth graders to be sent to a US Army private stationed at Camp Casey should be held accountable.

A New York City school official, red-faced over Brooklyn sixth-graders who slammed a GI with anti-Iraq-war letters, said Tuesday they are sending the 20-year-old private a letter of apology.

He declined to comment on whether he read the rants before passing them along, but said he planned to contact Jacobs soon to explain.

Before sending off letters like this the teacher should read them to ensure they are tasteful. Here is an excerpt from one of the letters, I don’t think this is to tasteful:

In an accompanying letter to Jacobs, Kunhardt said the students “come from a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs, but unanimously support the bravery and sacrifice of American soldiers around the world.”

One girl wrote that she believes Jacobs is “being forced to kill innocent people” and challenged him to name an Iraqi terrorist, concluding, “I know I can’t.”

With a passage like that it is clear somebody has been coaching these kids and they didn’t just come up with this crap themselves. If you don’t like the US military that is your right but don’t go and send mass mailings especially from sixth graders to bash a soldier with. A soldier has nothing to do with creating policy. Send your hate mail to policy makers in Washington DC if you don’t like the Iraq War or whatever other gripes you got. A private at Camp Casey, Korea cannot do anything to influence government policy. So leave the soldiers out of it.

I have really got a good global economics lesson this week by learning about how the dollar is dropping in value against the Korean won. Thanks everyone that commented on this issue this week. Through your comments and some recent news articles I have read, I got a good understanding of what is going on with the dollar. The sliding dollar, depending on who you talk to, may not be a bad thing. First, here is the opinion on the dollar’s slide from Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

… global markets are realizing that we have two major vulnerabilities that this the latest rise of the won is a reaction to its artificial repression by the government. Other currencies underwent appreciation against the greenback in the past few years, but Seoul officials kept the value of the local currency at a low level to keep up export momentum. The government should have allowed its gradual appreciation instead of containing the upward pressure at huge cost. Now the dam has almost burst and the damage for businesses is as great as it is sudden.administration doesn’t want to address: We are importing too much oil, so the dollar’s strength is being sapped as oil prices continue to rise. And we are importing too much capital, because we are saving too little and spending too much, as both a society and a government.

When a country lives on borrowed time, borrowed money and borrowed energy, it is just begging the markets to discipline it in their own way at their own time. As I said, usually the markets do it in an orderly way – except when they don’t.

Friedman is actually a pretty good columnist if you are not familiar with him. Unlike other NY Times columnists he is usually pretty fair and his points about using to much oil and the government spending to much are valid. Here is the Korea Times take on this issue.

… the latest rise of the won is a reaction to its artificial repression by the government. Other currencies underwent appreciation against the greenback in the past few years, but Seoul officials kept the value of the local currency at a low level to keep up export momentum. The government should have allowed its gradual appreciation instead of containing the upward pressure at huge cost. Now the dam has almost burst and the damage for businesses is as great as it is sudden.

Apparently those with the most to lose are going to be the Korean exporters. They are going to have to adjust their business strategies to not depend on exports to maintain economic growth in the country. The falling dollar is causing their exported goods to cost more which means more Americans will buy either American or other country’s cheaper goods.

… the answers lie in the industrial sector. Large businesses appear somewhat ready for the strong won, but small- and medium-sized firms remain helpless against declining export profitability. So the policy supports should be directed to help smaller firms armed with advanced hedging techniques against currency risks. Equal efforts should be made to help enhance their competitiveness through cost cutting, technology development and strategic restructuring.

Barring heavy government intervention, the exchange rate will likely enter the three-digit range in no time. But we all know the parity rate was in the 800-won range before the 1997-98 currency crisis. The nation is just going back to where it once was, although the process of rebuilding will be harder than the initial construction.

It appears that the Korea Times is in agreement with Friedman’s assessment that the dollars slide will be okay only if it doesn’t happen to quickly. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. In the mean time I guess I am going to have to get used to an exchange rate in the 800 won range. I guess I will be buying less mink blankets from Itaewon to send home as gifts in the future.

Is the ROK Army moving closer to an all volunteer army? After reading this in the Joong Ang Ilbo I think so.

Discipline-related fatalities in the military, such as suicide, are occurring one after another. Last year, 66 soldiers took their own lives while serving in the military; an average of 5.5 deaths per month. This year, some nine servicemen had committed suicide as of mid-February. The percentage of suicides among total casualties in the military has risen. Put yourself in the shoes of a soldier’s parent. If your son returns as a corpse because he was unable to withstand the abuse in the armed forces, who could trust the armed forces to take care of their son? Analysis of the deaths points to complex causes.

The most significant problem is the abuse that still exists within the ranks. In a recent case in which an enlisted soldier hanged himself, the cause was revealed to be physical abuse from a higher-ranking soldier. Many preventive measures were adapted after the incident in which trainees were forced to eat human excrement, but they have failed to eliminate inhumane acts in the barracks.

Another factor is the different values that soldiers possess these days. According to some, many soldiers cannot even endure verbal abuse, something that wasn’t a problem just a short time ago. It has gotten to the point that many enlisted soldiers in a forward-based unit were sent to boot camp for using vulgar language to lower-ranking servicemen.

Fierce training and discipline within the ranks are essential to the military. The problem is that these characteristics might collide with the values of today’s recruits, who were pampered and allowed to behave according to their wills while growing up. A good example of this is the soldier who fled his unit during a cold-weather training exercise and was found crouching in a civilian house, claiming the weather was too cold to withstand.
Because of the severity of the problems, temporary solutions are no longer appropriate. A drastic upheaval of the military culture is needed. An atmosphere in which men are properly trained while their basic rights are respected needs to be widely adapted.

The military must provide motivation for soldiers to voluntarily take part in its lifestyle. We must make them realize that the time spent in the armed forces is not wasted. Barracks must be brought up to date so that they’re similar to the environments soldiers were used to in their civilian lives. Don’t think of such investments as a waste of money.

This sounds like Korea needs an all volunteer army to me. Korea is in a predicament because it needs to maintain an extremely large army because of the threat from the Norks and uses the draft to fill it. However, with the changing attitude of the new recruits I have noticed myself over the years here that the newer generation is more bitter about doing their military service. Teaching draftees to appreciate military service will do nothing to correct the problem.

At some point Korea will have to go to an all volunteer force. To do this the soldiers will need to get payed more than the $40 bucks a month they are making now. Discipline will be easier to keep in an all volunteer force because these soldiers know what they are getting into and not bitter like draftees. The article recommends upgrading barracks to meet the standards recruits are used to at home. This is unlikely because US Army barracks do not meet this standard. A new private will come to Korea and if the private is lucky he/she will be in a two man room. Many are packed in 3 or even 4 to a room. I don’t see how the ROK Army could do any better. What Korea needs to figure out is if an all voluteer army is feasible. If a large enough force cannot be maintained with an all volunteer army, the country will need to figure out some solution to the North Korean problem in the short term because they may have a hard time keeping a large enough military to counter North Korean aggression in the long term if the current trend stays the same.

Isn’t America a country with a strong economy and a strong currency? If this is so what the heck is going on with the dollar? The Dow is sitting at 10,785 up 30 points and yet the dollar continues to drop. It dropped today to 986.24 won to the dollar because the Bank of Korea has decided to start selling off its reserves of US dollars, according to the NY Times, due to the sliding of the dollar and shift the reserves to other currencies.

Japan, which has the world’s largest stockpile of foreign currency at $841 billion, has indicated it will continue to accumulate American assets, while China, in second with about $600 billion, has not been buying much more. South Korea’s holdings rank fourth, at about $200 billion, behind Taiwan.

The Bank of Korea indicated in a report to the South Korean parliament that it might keep more of its reserve assets in Australian and Canadian dollars instead of United States dollars. The plan was reported on Monday but had little effect on currency traders, in part because the United States markets were closed. On Tuesday, the news led to a quick strengthening of Asian currencies against the dollar and then contributed to the rise in the euro.

It looks like more trouble may be ahead for the dollar:

“The markets are so skittish right now that seemingly marginal news can have a big impact on the dollar,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist with Barclays in London.

Contributing to that skittishness are questions about the intentions of central banks regarding the dollar. Russia’s central bank has said it is rethinking what proportion of dollars and euros it holds. Some Middle Eastern countries have also suggested they might step up their purchases of euros, at the expense of dollars.

The whole currency thing is so screwed up now that I am shopping more and more on post for things then buying goods off post. I remember four years ago when I was getting over 1300 won to the dollar. Hopefully this slide will turn around. I didn’t study economics in college but but my personal portfolio has had a good steady growth right along with the New York Stock Exchange. I still don’t understand how the dollar drops so sharply like it is now when the economy has been picking up steam? Can any of you economists out there explain this?

I have had KATUSA’s ask me before if I have heard anything about them wearing the Taeguki on their uniforms since the American soldiers wear the Stars and Stripes on theirs. Via the Budaechigae it is now official that KATUSA’s can wear the Taeguki on their uniforms.