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Two USFK Soldiers Arrested for Stealing $54 Jacket

| November 11, 2018

I have been saying this for quite some time now, expect every petty USFK crime to now receive attention from the Korean media:

Two United States Forces Korea soldiers were caught stealing clothes from a shop in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, police said Saturday.

They entered the shop at 11 p.m. Friday, and fled with a jacket priced at 60,000 won ($54), according to Gwangju Dongbu Police Station. Officers, called by the shop’s manager, traced the two and apprehended them.

The two suspects, from an air base in Gyeonggi Province, remained tight-lipped, refusing to answer questions from investigators.

Police are reviewing CCTV footage to help them in their investigation.  [Korea Times]

This is not something that should make national news, but like we saw during the 2000-2008 timeframe every USFK petty crime made the news to help create the perception of out of control GI crime.  It was common for Koreans to think USFK personnel could commit crimes and fly away back to the US.  This caused protests and demands for SOFA revisions.

I long ago showed the problems with the anti-US activists complaints about the US-ROK SOFA and I am still awaiting for one person to point out an example of a crime committed by a GI off duty and the USFK refused to hand him over?  The anti-US activists keep complaining about GI’s getting away with crimes and can’t point out a specific example of when this happened.

US Army Looking for Video Gamers to Help Out with Recruiting

| November 11, 2018

Any gamers out there in the Army that want to help recruit?  Here is your opportunity:

Sgt. Kalyntae Williams, top, and Sgt. Deveon Landfair, soldiers with the Army’s Second Cavalry Regiment, play the final round of Street Fighter V, at the E-game tournament at Grafenwoehr, Germany, Saturday, July 28, 2018. Williams beat Landfair, and will now be traveling to Seattle to compete in the PAX West Gaming Convention.

The Army is putting together a team of video gamers from within its ranks to try to reach young Americans in the digital worlds where they spend much of their time.

More than 15 years after launching “America’s Army,” a first-person shooter game aimed at enlisting real world soldiers, the Army is calling for active duty troops and reservists to compete in video gaming tournaments, or esports, in one of its latest recruiting efforts.

The move follows the Army’s failure this year, for the first time in more than a decade, to meet the fiscal year target for bringing in new soldiers as it seeks to expand its ranks to more than 500,000 in the next four years.

The Army is also creating a “functional fitness” team to compete in CrossFit athletic events and is reportedly looking to spruce up recruiting efforts with more bonuses, more recruiters, better furniture and a new slogan to replace “Army Strong.”

The service plans to hold tryouts for a variety of electronic games, said Staff Sgt. Ryan Meaux, an Army recruiter, in a Facebook video on Wednesday.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

ROK Drop Open Thread – November 10, 2018

| November 10, 2018

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Tweet of the Day: Fair Criticism

| November 10, 2018

Picture of the Day: New USFK Commander Meets General Paik Sun-yup

| November 10, 2018

New USFK commander

Gen. Robert Abrams (R), the new commander of U.S. Forces Korea, shakes hands with retired Gen. Paik Sun-yup, a Korean War hero, during a ceremony at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul on Nov. 9, 2018, to open an exhibition celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Seoul-Washington alliance. (Yonhap)

Soldier Originally from Guam Found Dead at Camp Hovey

| November 10, 2018

Condolences to Sergeant Aguon’s friends and family:

A 1st Armored Division soldier died after being found unconscious at a base in South Korea, the Army said Wednesday. The cause was under investigation.

Sgt. Marcos John Aguon, 28, was a cannon crew member with the Fort Bliss, Texas-based 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, which rotated to South Korea last month.

He was found unconscious at Camp Hovey and pronounced dead Sunday at Joongang St. Mary’s Hospital in the surrounding city of Dongducheon, which is near the border with North Korea.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

President Moon Fires His Finance Minister and Chief Policy Advisor

| November 10, 2018

The economy is continuing to slump in South Korea and President Moon appears to be trying to show he is doing something to address it:

Hong Nam-ki, chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, speaks to reporters at his office on Nov. 9, 2018, after his nomination as the new finance minister. (Yonhap)

President Moon Jae-in sacked the finance minister and his chief policy adviser Friday after the two top economic policymakers openly displayed a serious rift over how to handle the slumping economy.

Moon named Hong Nam-ki, an economic technocrat who is currently serving as chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination under the Prime Minister’s Office, to replace Kim Dong-yeon as finance minister and deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Cheong Wa Dae said.

Moon also sacked Jang Ha-sung, presidential chief of staff for policy, and named his senior social affairs secretary Kim Soo-hyun to succeed him. Jang is the architect of Moon’s trademark “income-led” growth policy.

Kim and Jang have publicly displayed wide differences over how to revitalize the sluggish economy, with Kim voicing a need to alter the “income-led” growth policy and Jang insisting on sticking to the distribution-centered policy.

Their replacement was seen in part as aimed at revamping the economic team as they failed to produce tangible results in revitalizing Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Their sacking was also seen as a measure to hold them responsible for failing to work in concert with each other.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Tufts University Professors Writes that Peace Treaty Would Likely Lead to End of the US-ROK Alliance

| November 9, 2018

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University has an article published in the National Interest that hits many of the same theme I have shared on this site about any peace treaty signed with the DPRK:

Almost immediately in the wake of the signing of an end-of-war declaration, the UN Command, shorn of its mission to defend the peace in the peninsula, would be dismantled. Moreover, OPCON transfer, now envisioned to be completed by 2020, would defang and dismantle the Combined Forces Command. Why? Despite protestations to the contrary, no U.S. commander would submit his command over U.S. forces-the preeminent military in the world-to a foreign commander in the actual prosecution of war.
The  joint communique of the recently concluded 50th U.S.-ROK Security Consultative Meeting (SMC) states that the two sides, following OPCON transfer, shall “maintain the current CFC structure” and that the post-OPCON transfer CFC shall “have an ROK four-star general as the Commander and a U.S. four-star general as the Deputy Commander” (Paragraph 9). It’s a proposition that sounds as credible as Richard Nixon’s promise to Park Chung-hee that no U.S. troops will be withdrawn just a year before the withdrawal of an entire division of twenty thousand soldiers.
A peace treaty between the United States and the DPRK, a long-held goal by North Korea, would call into question rationale for maintaining U.S. troops in South Korea. If and when such a treaty comes into effect, then the question “Why are the troops there, in South Korea, when the U.S. and North Korea have a peace treaty?” would be raised repeatedly by politicians and the public in Seoul and Washington, not to mention Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow.
Once the U.S. forces leave South Korea, the bilateral alliance will be that only in name. Beyond the loss of credible U.S. commitment to the defense of the ROK, the virtual abrogation of the alliance would leave some glaring holes in the ROK’s defense capabilities, for example: Surveillance-reconnaissance-signal intelligence capabilities, early warning and missile defense, counter-battery fire and sensitive military technology procurement abilities, just to name a few.  [The National Interest]
You can read the rest at the link.

Tweet of the Day: Working for Kim Jong-un?

| November 9, 2018

Picture of the Day: International CSI Conference Held in Seoul

| November 9, 2018

Int'l conference on crime scene investigation

Visitors look at a model of a human skeleton to learn more about forensic anthropology during the 2018 International Crime Scene Investigation Conference in Seoul on Nov. 6, 2018. (Yonhap)