This photo released by the Defense Acquisition Procurement Administration (DAPA) on May 26, 2016, shows an AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopter parked on the tarmac at an undisclosed Army base on May 26, 2016. The DAPA delivered four AH-64Es to the South Korean Army, the first batch of 36 AH-64Es it plans to introduce in a US$1.6 billion deal. (Yonhap)
For servicemembers who rely on their BAH for some extra cash by living in a smaller home than what you could afford with your stipend, get ready because Congress is coming to take that money from you:
Senate lawmakers want to radically overhaul how military housing stipends are awarded and end the practice of troops pocketing extra cash from the payouts.
The plan is tucked into the Senate’s pending draft of the annual defense authorization measure, and hasn’t received the same attention as major military health care and acquisition reforms also included in the legislation.
But it has the potential to change housing stipend totals for nearly every service member in coming years, with some potentially losing hundreds of dollars a month. And it comes after a series of pay and benefits trims in recent years that have left advocates frustrated about increased financial strain on military families.
Instead of the current Basic Allowance for Housing system, which assigns flat-rate stipends for zip codes across the country based on troops’ rank and family status, the new proposal would move closer to the military’s Overseas Housing Allowance. That system sets maximum payable stipends but awards troops only for their actual expenses, making recipients provide proof of what they pay in rent and utilities costs.
Dual military couples and service members who room with friends would not be able to game the system either. They’d see their individual stipend cut in half, adjusted to cover just their actual costs and nothing more. [Military Times]
You can read more at the link, but this will do little to save any money and instead take money from troops to give to realtors. I would not be surprised if the real estate lobby is behind this change. That is because what will happen is that the realtors will make sure the rent for a home matches what the servicemembers maximum BAH rate is. This will in turn drive up rental rates across the city as well which will bring in more money for realtors from civilians trying to find a place to rent.
This already happens in Korea with the Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA) which has led to realtors being put off limits for colluding with property owners. I also wonder how this affects servicemembers who own homes? Will they be allowed to use the BAH to pay their mortgage? What if they have the house paid off? Will they have their BAH cancelled?
It seems to me that if Congress wants to save money than tax whatever the remaining BAH is as income. For example if someone’s BAH is $2,000 and rents a house for $1,500 than tax the extra $500 as earned income. This would keep money in troops pockets and not artificially increase rental rates across an entire community plus put money back in the treasury. This makes too much sense so it probably will not happen.
I once had the opportunity to talk to a North Korean defector and this is very similar to what the defector told the group I was with in regards to why people believe what they do in North Korea:
How serious is the brainwashing in North Korea?
When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, I was shocked — I never expected him to die. Because we truly believed he was a god, who didn’t smoke, drink alcohol or go to the bathroom, or [have sex] with women.
Some people criticize North Koreans and ask, Are they stupid? How can they believe those ridiculous things? But I say, It doesn’t matter if you’re smart, if you were born in North Korea you would be exactly like us. We don’t know what freedom is. We have never enjoyed it. We don’t know what democracy is or capitalism. We are completely blocked. Not only from the outside world, but also domestically as it’s not easy to travel around inside North Korea unless you have a travel certificate from the regime. You only have one TV channel — it’s a propaganda channel. We believed that’s utopia because we cannot compare. [TIME]
You can read much more of this interview with Hyeonseo Lee at the link such as how she strongly agrees with the increased sanctions on the Kim regime.
This accusation bothers me because the accuser waited until the Plumley was dead before accusing him of stolen valor. This prevented Plumley from defending himself:
Command Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway at Fort Benning, Ga. COURTESY OF JOSEPH GALLOWAY
The late Command Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, a legend in the U.S. Army and famously depicted by the actor Sam Elliott in the Vietnam War movie “We Were Soldiers,” is under review by Army officials for having worn unauthorized combat and valor awards, according to a report on Military.com.
Plumley died of cancer in 2012, but Brian Siddall, an independent researcher who has devoted years of his life researching Plumley’s service records and the exploits of other service members in World War II, uncovered discrepancies between Plumley’s official documents and widely reported accounts of his service.
In the 1992 book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” co-written by Joe Galloway and retired Lt. Gen Hal Moore and on which the movie is based, Plumley is a central character and is introduced as a soldier who had made four combat jumps in World War II as well as a combat jump in the Korean War. According to Siddall, service records indicate that Plumely served as a scout in a glider unit and participated in two glider assaults during World War II and never deployed to Korea. [Stars & Stripes]
Here is the part of the accusation that really bothers me:
“I just want the correct information out there because there are so many people that are really heroes, and it is so frustrating when they give the hero status to someone who was anything but,” Siddall told Military.com.
Even if Plumley exaggerated his combat awards he is without a doubt an American military hero based on his actions during the battle of the Ia Drang in Vietnam.
With that said it does appear true that Plumley did not serve during the Korean War which makes me wonder why he would claim something like that? As far as the other accusations it appears instead of parachuting into Normandy during World War II he landed in a glider which was just as dangerous. As far as awards earned during World War II I can definitely see discrepancies happening from that time frame so I put little weight in that.
Firefighters put out a fire on a Korean Air plane on the runway of Haneda Airport in Tokyo on May 27, 2016, in this photo released by Kyodo News. The left wing of the plane bound for Seoul caught fire before takeoff, but all 319 passengers and crew were safely evacuated, according to the Japanese news agency. (Yonhap)
This will definitely be a unique ultra-marathon for those who decide to run it:
A 100-kilometer (62 mile) long ultra-marathon near the demilitarized zone, which divides the South and North, will be hosted over the course of three days in early September, announced the Gyeonggi Provincial Government Tuesday.
The marathon will take place in the far northern part of Gyeonggi – Gimpo, Paju and Yeonchon District – from Sept. 1 to Sept. 4.
The sports event was organized to publicize the history, culture and ecological diversity of the demilitarized zone as well as deliver a message about peace and the importance of life to race participants.
Over 80 percent of the marathon’s trails are unpaved roads, and runners will have to run through mountainous environs and meadows. As many as 1,700 runners will participate in the race, and the course will be divided into two parts – one for foreign and domestic professional runners and another for amateur runners. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The aunt of Kim Jong-un who defected nearly two decades ago to the United States has conducted an extensive interview with the Washington Post for the first time. What I found most interesting was that she operates a dry cleaning business just like so many other Korean immigrants to the US do:
Wandering through Times Square, past the Naked Cowboy and the Elmos and the ticket touts, she could be any immigrant trying to live the American Dream.
A 60-year-old Korean woman with a soft perm and conservative clothes, she’s taking a weekend off from pressing shirts and hemming pants at the dry-cleaning business she runs with her husband.
But she’s not just any immigrant. She’s an aunt to Kim Jong Un, the young North Korean leader who has threatened to wipe out New York with a hydrogen bomb.
And for the past 18 years, since defecting from North Korea into the waiting arms of the CIA, she has been living an anonymous life here in the United States, with her husband and three children.
“My friends here tell me I’m so lucky, that I have everything,” Ko Yong Suk, as she was known when she was part of North Korea’s royal family, told The Washington Post on a recent weekend. “My kids went to great schools and they’re successful, and I have my husband, who can fix anything. There’s nothing we can envy.”
Her husband, previously known as Ri Gang, chimes in, laughing: “I think we have achieved the American Dream.”
This is the story of how one family went from the top of North Korea to middle America.
Breaking their silence in the United States, Ko and Ri spent almost 20 hours talking to two Washington Post reporters in New York City and then at their home several hours’ drive away. They were nervous about emerging from their anonymity; after all, there are Americans who analyze North Korea for a living and do not even know that the couple are here. [Washington Post]
I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link. It is an interesting inside look at Kim Jong-un’s early years growing up considering that Ko Yong Suk helped to raise Kim Jong-il’s kids while they were attending school in Switzerland. She says from an early age that Kim Jong-un had a fascination with finding out how things like boats and airplanes work. He also had a short temper and if you can believe it he actually one time went on a hunger strike! These personality traits are still evident today.
Amazingly they are speaking out now to stop rumors spread about them by the South Korean media. Additionally her husband actually wants to travel to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-un and act as an intermediary between the US and North Korea. Good luck with that.
