https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/713721701851406336

President Park Geun-hye (C) offers a silent prayer in front of a monument to fallen soldiers killed in North Korea’s 2010 shelling attack on the border island of Yeonpyeong, at a national cemetery in the central city of Daejeon on March 25, 2016, before attending a ceremony to commemorate South Korean soldiers killed in three major clashes with North Korea in the Yellow Sea. The government has designated the fourth Friday of March as the commemoration day for fallen soldiers in those clashes, including the North’s torpedoing of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in 2010, which killed 46 sailors. (Yonhap)

For those that haven’t read about this read I recommend going over to the John Q. Public blog and read about the curious case of Air Force veteran Alicia Watkins.  She was the woman that for yet to be determined reasons was given media credentials at a Donald Trump event and given the opportunity to ask a question.  Trump then invited her to come up on stage and made her a job offer.  The whole scene was strange, but when people began digging into Alicia Watkins backstory things got even stranger.

If you take everything she says at face value she is a 9/11 survivor from the Pentagon attack who had a close friend die who she started a charity for.  She then deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq where she saw combat action, suicide bombers, was seriously wounded and was awarded the Purple Heart.  She was also a military sexual assault survivor, has a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress.  She was then medically discharged from the Air Force and proceeded to become a homeless veteran.  While homeless she did video diaries that eventually landed her a spot on the Oprah Winfrey show.  She then went on to attend Harvard, become a beauty queen, reality television personality and gets the VIP treatment at Super Bowl 50.  I probably missed a few things, but that is the best I could do in a paragraph.

So what has been verified about Watkins?  As far the media company she claimed to be working for that got her press credentials according to CNN it does not exist.  We also know that she was an executive assistant for Major General Durbin at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2006.  I have seen nothing yet to show she deployed to Iraq.  We also know that she is claiming to be at two places at the same time.  This 2007 Air Force article has her addressing airmen that had recently returned from an Iraq deployment.  Her speech was about how being at Ground Zero during 9/11 motivated her to join the Air Force which is different from her other accounts of being assigned to the Pentagon during the 9/11 attack.  The Washington Post was able to confirm that her enlistment date was in 1998 which means that the 9/11 attacks could not have motivated her to enlist.

It is also unclear if she had to be homeless because if she was medically retired she should have been receiving a stipend and disability each month.  As far as attending Harvard this was a stretching of the truth because she enrolled in the Harvard Extension School which is an online offering of courses which anyone can sign up for.  There has yet to be any evidence that she was actually hit by any IED or seen any combat action.  I also could not find any evidence of the charity she supposedly started for her friend killed during the Pentagon attack.

Really a DD214 would pretty much clear a lot of this up because it would show whether she has a Purple Heart or not.  It would also show her assignments to see if she was actually assigned to the Pentagon on 9/11.  It would also show her deployment history.  There are already a lot of holes in this story, but hopefully the Stolen Valor folks can get a copy of her DD214 to put the remaining questions to rest.

Just like in the United States, defense companies often collude with military officers to win contracts and sometimes not in an ethical manner.  What I found most interesting about this article is that the ROK developed liquid body armor that was bomb resistant which I have never heard of before:

Lobbying by a defense company resulted in it being granted general monopoly rights by the Ministry of National Defense on a body armor project worth up to 270 billion won (US$231 million) – even after the ministry had developed its own state-of-the-art body armor at a cost of 2.8 billion won (US$2.4 million).Samyang Chemical, parent group of Samyang Chemtec – which came under fire last year for its production of penetrable body armor – hired 29 reserve soldiers over six years to work as lobbyists for affiliates. Seven were found to be retired generals employed under false pretenses in defiance of ethics regulations against the employment of former senior officials.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read much more about this scandal at the link and the long and sometimes unethical ties to the military Samyang Chemical has.

The first ever export of a submarine by South Korea must not have made the Chinese government very happy considering the maritime and territorial disputes they are having with Indonesia in the South China Sea.  If these submarines ever do see combat it would likely be against Chinese ships:

South Korean-made submarine with Hall Number code H7712 has been released from Okpo Port on Thursday, March 24, which was witnessed by Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu along with Indonesian Ambassador for South Korea, John A. Prasetio, and Chief of Navy Staff Admiral Ade Supandi.

According to Indonesian Minister Counselor for the Indonesian Embassy in Seoul, the submarine is the first of three submarine units ordered by Indonesia to secure Indonesian territory. The construction had begun in 2013 at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in Okpo, South Korea. All the process is under the supervision of task forces for submarine procurement project (Satgas Yekda KDSE DSME209) led by Col. Iwan Isnurwanto.

“Based on the contract, the first and second construction of the submarine will be done at DSME, while the third will be done at PT PAL Indonesia shipyard with a transfer of technology (Tot) process,” Aji said in a statement on Thursday.

During the third submarine development process, PT PAL Indonesia has also sent 112 engineers to DSME, South Korea, so they could be directly involved in the ToT process and development study, as well as independent submarine development via on the job training (OJT) stage.

The diesel electric submarine DSME209, which is South Korea’s first export production, is an improvement from Chang Bogo Class type submarine owned by the Republic of Korean Navy (ROK Navy) and Cakra Class submarine, which belongs to the Indonesian Navy. According to Indonesian Military Attaché of the Republic of Indonesia for Seoul, Col. Aditya Kumara, the submarine measured 61.3 meters long with a maximum speed of 21 knots underwater and has the ability to sail for more than 50 days.  [Jakarta Post]

You can read more at the link.

Via 10Mag come this article about how someone on the Internet is selling stickers to fight back with against all the illegal parkers in South Korea.  I have seen apartment security guards use stickers on illegal parkers and they are an effective way in my opinion to discourage illegal parking:

If you can’t stand illegal car parking in Korea (or anywhere for that matter), then read on:

“Have you had enough of asshole parking?” asks Parking Vigilante Korea, “If so, you’ve come to the right place.”

Parking Vigilante Korea is a new website that sells stickers designed to be attached to cars that have been parked with little to no consideration for others. Promising to both anger and embarrass guilty parties, the stickers read, “Congratulations. You’ve been chosen as a perfect example of a self-centered, entitled, asshole driver.”  [10Mag]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Korea cites @reddit comments for the prowess of its nuclear weapons. pic.twitter.com/j5yqqCOqJT

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) March 22, 2016

Toting publicity balloons and pamphlets, new female flight attendants of Jeju Air Inc., South Korea’s top budget carrier, walk down the sidewalk in western Seoul on March 24, 2016, to publicize the carrier’s launch of a route between Incheon and Taipei in May to meet rising demand for air travel to the neighboring country. (Yonhap)

Here we go again and just like each time one of these idiots gets in trouble in North Korea I continue to have no sympathy for them since they willing entered North Korea and put themselves at risk of detainment:

A man identified by North Korea as an American detainee said Friday he conducted espionage against the Communist nation and appealed for leniency at a state-controlled appearance that marked the first official accounting of his alleged crimes.

The highly scripted display of the prisoner — identified as Kim Dong-chul, a former resident of Fairfax, Va. — is certain to escalate tensions with Washington less than two weeks after North Korea sentenced an American student to 15 years in prison with hard labor for allegedly trying to take a sign as a souvenir during a tour.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. But Washington has previously accused North Korea of taking Americans into custody as political pawns in its showdowns with the West over issues such as Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

In the North Korean capital, news agencies said Kim was brought before reporters and stated that he spied for South Korea’s intelligence agencies, sought to obtain details of the North’s military programs and tried to spread “religious” ideas — a serious crime in the North. [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link.

This list sounds flawed to me coming from an American perspective, but maybe this is what a lot of Asian tourists want to do in Korea:

Visitors to Korea want most to experience street food, a survey showed Wednesday.

The state-run Korea Tourism Organization recently surveyed 4,369 foreign visitors. Of these, 54. 2 percent put street food at the top of their to-do list, followed by staying in traditional “hanok” housing and shopping at traditional markets. The fourth most anticipated experience was to visit a “jjimjilbang,” or public bathhouse.  [The Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.