Category: USFK

Looked what quietly happened over the weekend:

Construction vehicles made it into the base of the United States THAAD anti-missile system in southeastern South Korea on Monday after riot police removed protesters blocking the road to oppose THAAD’s deployment.

Twenty-two vehicles carrying construction materials, equipment and workers entered the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense base in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, from around 11:20 a.m. as part of a project to build facilities for troops manning the unit.

Their entrance came about three hours after riot police began removing about 200 residents and activists occupying the Jinbat bridge in a sit-in aimed at preventing the vehicles’ passage. About 3,000 riot police were mobilized to break up the protest.

Scuffles and shoving matches broke out as police moved in. Protesters resisted by inserting their arms into plastic pipes in an attempt to tie themselves together to make it difficult for police to carry them away. They also chanted slogans, such as “Out with violent police.”

About 10 people were injured during the clash, with five or six of them taken to a hospital.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but it appears from the article that it was pretty easy for the police to open the road.  I wonder if the anti-US leftist groups did not send their manpower down to Seongju to put up a fight with the police because of this week’s Kim-Moon summit?

Protesters resist police by putting their arms into plastic pipes in an attempt to tie themselves together during a sit-in in Seongju, some 300 km southeast of Seoul, on April 23, 2018. (Yonhap)

Via a reader tip comes news that the ROK military may finally be the ones to end the ridiculous blockade of the THAAD site in Seongju:

South Korea’s defense ministry said Thursday it is mulling an alternative to dialogue with activists and residents near the U.S. military’s new missile defense base on the peninsula.

They have been blocking the transport of construction materials and equipment into the THAAD site in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, for months.

They are concerned that the military will expand helipads and other facilities associated with military operations in the compound.

The Ministry of National Defense stressed that it’s urgent to improve the living conditions of hundreds of American and South Korean troops there with no adequate amenities.

“In connection with the deployment of the THAAD system, we have tried to respect residents’ opinion as much as possible, abide by democratic procedures and maintain transparency,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said at a press briefing.

However, it’s believed to be difficult to resolve the issue through dialogue, she said, adding that the military plans to seek a “necessary measure.”

The statement was a de facto ultimatum, although no deadline has been set publicly.

It heralds a police operation to disperse the protesters and clear the way for the delivery. A fierce physical clash is expected.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the new bus schedule between Yongsan Garrison and Camp Humphreys that began on April 16th:

I wonder what the backstory to this relief of command is?  It seems when colonels get relieved it is because of infidelity or getting arrested for something:

The commander of a support unit at America’s largest air base in South Korea has been relieved of her duties, an Air Force statement said.

Col. Kerry Proulx, commander of the Osan-based 51st Mission Support Group, was relieved Friday due to a loss of confidence in her ability to effectively lead, the statement said.

“This was a tremendously difficult and unfortunate decision to make, but it’s the right direction for the 51st Fighter Wing,” Col. William Betts, the wing’s commander, said in the statement.

Officials wouldn’t give specifics as to why Betts lost confidence in Proulx, who had been overseeing 2,600 personnel in the support group’s five squadrons, including security forces since July 2016.  [Stars & Stripes]

I feel bad for workers being laid off because of the planned relocation of the 2nd Infantry Division, but this is something that has been known for many years and should not be a surprise to anyone:

DONGDUCHEON, South Korea, April 8 (Yonhap) — Many South Koreans working at a major U.S. military base in Dongducheon, north of Seoul, are likely to be laid off within the year due to its planned relocation to the southwestern city of Pyeongtaek, their union said Sunday.

The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division notified the union of its plan to dismiss South Korean workers at Camp Casey in the city last month, according to official sources.

But the U.S. Force Korea (USFK) has yet to disclose the scale or timing of the declared layoffs, the union said. It added that the USFK is reportedly to maintain the total number of workers at U.S. bases across the nation at some 8,000 by September and cut this to some 7,750 in the latter half of the year.

Most of the workers are doing odd jobs like cleaning, with a considerable number of them being the breadwinners of four-member families and receiving just under 40 million won (US$37,418) per annum, the union said.

The USFK has not given any prior account of whom will be fired thus far as South Korean workers belonging to the USFK are not subject to the domestic labor law but come under the jurisdiction of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed between the two nations, the union said.

According to the SOFA, the USFK are only required to give notice 45 days in advance before dismissals, with no explanations needed, it added.  [MSN via reader tip]

You can read more at the link.

This may cause some to wonder if the weather was just good excuse to not provoke North Korea prior to President Moon’s summit?:

The United States and South Korea canceled plans to conduct a Marine amphibious assault exercise as part of joint war games this week due to bad weather, the Combined Forces Command said Wednesday.

The announcement comes days after the allies began annual military drills known as Foal Eagle amid a diplomatic push with North Korea that has sharply eased tensions on the divided peninsula.

The allies are keeping this year’s exercises low-key due to the developing detente with the North after months of saber rattling and missile tests as it made progress in its nuclear weapons program.

The U.S.-led command said the changes to the Ssangyong exercises, which are part of Foal Eagle, were due to bad weather.

The assault exercise, which evokes memories of the World War II invasion of Normandy, had been scheduled for Thursday.

“U.S. and (South Korean) leadership canceled the amphibious landing portion of the training exercise … after weather assessments indicated unsafe landing conditions for servicemembers,” the CFC said in a press release.

Participating units in the air and sea portions will continue training as planned, it said, adding the routine drills are held twice a year to build and maintain fundamental military readiness.

“This was a good call by the on-scene commanders, who must balance readiness and risk — even in a training environment,” said Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of the CFC and U.S. Forces Korea.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this update on the status of the THAAD site in Seongju:

The setup of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery from the U.S. in southwestern Korea has been on hold since September last year as locals and activists block access to the site.

“There’s been no progress in the construction of THAAD facilities, as well as the quarters for U.S. troops,” who are to operate the battery, a military spokesman told reporters Monday.

Seoul and Washington agreed in September 2016 to deploy THAAD interceptor launchers at a former golf course in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province. The U.S. Forces Korea brought two launchers last April and four more last September.

A USFK source claimed the South Korean government appears to be neglecting the deployment, which has been widely unpopular.

A steel barricade set up by activist groups and locals last April still blocks the road near the THAAD deployment site.

According to police, about 10 locals check passing vehicles in tag teams of two around the clock to block any USFK vehicles or trucks carrying equipment.

Although this is highly illegal, police seem to have done nothing .

“We’ll resolutely clamp down on illegal demonstrations,” a police spokesman said. “But it’s our principle not to stoke upheavals.”

Police have drastically reduced their presence at the site. About 300 troops from four police companies were deployed last September, but now only some 80 are on standby some 4 km away.

The USFK is reduced to running the THAAD battery as if in a field maneuver, on generators fueled by diesel flown in by helicopter.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but resupplying the site by helicopter seems to me to be riskier than by a ground approach.  If a helicopter was to crash I wonder if that will change the situation on the ground any?

It looks like President Trump’s steel tariff may force the South Koreans to agree to ultimately pay more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance:

South Korea may agree to shoulder a larger burden of the cost of stationing U.S. troops on its soil as part of the two nations’ deal on trade, a former White House official said Monday.

Victor Cha, who served as Asian affairs director on the National Security Council of George W. Bush, raised the possibility shortly after Seoul announced a tentative deal with Washington on amending their free trade agreement and exempting the Asian nation from new U.S. steel tariffs.

“If there is any tacit issue linkage with this agreement, we might expect to see South Korea agreeing to a higher burden sharing obligation in ongoing negotiations on a new Special Measures Agreement where the U.S. is pushing for South Korea to pay larger share of costs for stationing U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula,” he wrote in a commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is currently senior adviser and Korea chair.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

There will be a SHARP/ASAP Play entitled ‘The Introduction’ from the end of March to early May. The play will be shown at the Camp Casey, Camp Red Cloud and Yongsan Multiplex theaters. Check out these actors as they bring to life realistic sexual assault and alcohol abuse situations.

For schedule times and locations, please check out the flyer.  [USFK-Facebook]

Just another example of how newspapers are going extinct:

The final edition of the Morning Calm, the last surviving Army newspaper in South Korea, ran off the press Wednesday evening.

A peninsula-wide institution, the biweekly Morning Calm detailed the lives of soldiers from Busan in the south to Camp Casey near the Demilitarized Zone.

It went the same way as many struggling newspapers in a wired world of instant shares and likes when Eighth Army commander Lt. Gen. Michael Bills declined to renew its contract this month.

Closing the paper will give public affairs staff more time to focus on local news and communicate with communities online, Camp Humphreys spokesman Bob McElroy said.

“They all felt that the time they devoted to the paper would be better used to focus on their communities rather than producing articles and photos that were outdated by the time the paper came out every two weeks,” he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but here is the link to the 8th Army website which I would hope will be updated significantly if the PAO is no longer publishing a newspaper.