U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert waves a U.S. flag as he watches a preliminary basketball game with his wife Robyn between his country and Turkey at the Summer Universiade in Gwangju, on July 4, 2015. (Photo courtesy of the Gwangju Universiade Organization Committee)
Having spent time serving in the Iron Brigade it is a bit sad to see it deactivate:
A woman pauses to watch personnel carriers and tanks from the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment and 1st Battalion, 72nd Armored Regiment that were participating in an exercise on Korea’s western front on Dec. 23, 1966. On July 2, 2015, units belonging to the 2nd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will inactivate, marking the end of more than 50 years on the peninsula.
A unit that has guarded the Korean peninsula’s tense border for five decades has been inactivated and replaced with the Army’s first rotational brigade combat team deployed to the area.
The 2nd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team — known as the “Iron Brigade” — was inactivated Thursday morning during a ceremony at Camp Casey. Assuming its responsibilities is the Fort Hood-based 1st Calvary Division’s 2nd “Black Jack” Brigade Combat Team, which is in Area 1 on a nine-month deployment.
Military officials have touted the move to rotational deployments of units stationed along the Demilitarized Zone as a way to maintain cohesion in a theater where constant turnover is the norm. Troops are typically stationed in South Korea on one- or two-year tours. But under the rotational deployment plan, entire units will train for and deploy to the peninsula together.
“I can tell you that when this transfer of authority takes place, our amount of readiness goes up,” said Gen. Theodore Martin, 2ID commander. Having intact rotational units deploy to the division also means he won’t see a turnover of about 10 percent of his forces each month, he said. [Stars & Stripes]
Hollywood stars Arnold Schwarzenegger (R, center) and Emilia Clarke talk with U.S. soldiers at the truce village of Panmunjom on July 3, 2015. They are in South Korea to promote the new movie “Terminator Genisys,” which hit theaters in South Korea the previous day. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
No word if he said, “I’ll be back” after his visit.
I hope everyone is having a great long 4th of July weekend for those who celebrate it. Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.
It is good to see that 2ID is honoring the veterans that served during the period of what has since been known as the DMZ War which few Americans or even military servicemembers know about:
Bob Haynes expected to be sent to fight in the rapidly escalating war in Vietnam like other men his age in the mid-1960s. Instead, he was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division’s Camp Stanley, a world away from Southeast Asia’s steamy jungles.
“I looked at my orders and said, ‘Where the hell is Korea?’ ” said the McHenry, Ill., resident, now 67.
On Haynes’ first night at the Demilitarized Zone, North Korean forces launched a pre-dawn ambush on a 2ID patrol that killed six Americans and one South Korean soldier just a half-mile south of the heavily patrolled border. A seventh American was wounded.
When he learned of the skirmish, Haynes, then 19, was shocked.
“I turned to my buddy and said, ‘It’s too cold to be Vietnam here. What’s going on?’ ”
For Haynes and other 2ID soldiers, the November 1966 skirmish highlighted the ongoing danger of being stationed near the DMZ within close proximity of North Korean forces, even as the simmering conflict on the peninsula was overshadowed by the war in Vietnam.
Haynes returned along with 17 other 2ID veterans to mark the division’s 50th anniversary Wednesday. One of their first stops was a memorial at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan that lists the 130 U.S. and South Korean troops killed in combat since the 1953 armistice, including those who died in the 1966 ambush. [Stars & Stripes]
For those going out to clubs in Itaewon over the long 4th of July weekend, here is one club you will not get into:
An upscale nightclub in Itaewon, Seoul, has stopped accepting foreign customers over the past two weeks in fears of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a virus that has taken lives of 33 people in South Korea, the owner of the club said Wednesday.
Kim Jong-hyun, owner of Lounge & Club Move contacted The Korea Observer and requested that we remove an article that we published a day earlier as he believes it implies the club has a racist policy in place.
“We absolutely don’t accept foreigners because of MERS,” said Kim. “Above all, Korean people don’t want them. This is Korea, isn’t it?” [Korea Observer]
Here is what he had to say about US military servicemembers:
“Most of the time when a customer loses a cellphone, the CCTV reveals that the thieves are Middle Eastern people or foreigners.”
Kim agreed with his manager Lee’s statement that the club has been hesitant to have foreign customers because it is hard to make them liable when they cause property damages, sexually harass customers or start a brawl.
He also stressed that foreign customers frequently start a fight with U.S. servicemen.
“U.S. servicemen don’t behave badly. The problem is other foreign customers who constantly provoke them into a fight,” Kim said.
“It is better not to have them because we lose too much for trying to make a small amount of money from them.”
You can read the rest at the link, but US servicemembers have been accused for so long for being the ones to start fights in Korea that I don’t know how to react.
Below is an account from a former Japanese pilot during World War II who discusses his love for Korean “comfort woman” while stationed in New Guinea. What I find interesting about the account is that this account sounds just like the love many US soldiers had with juicy girls in modern times:
Lt. Tsunoda (1918–2013) was a fighter pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. On Aug. 14, 1945 he was ordered to sortie in a Kamikaze suicide squad. When he was about to take off the next day the suicide squad was told to wait on the ground. When they were informed Japan had surrendered, the warriors shed tears on the tarmac not knowing if they were for joy of survival or mortification.
He wrote his memoir, “The Wings in Pandemonium” in which the old soldier reflected on his blooming love for a Korean girl, a member of the “Women’s Volunteer Corps,” at Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. This love story blossomed in the pandemonium of the battle field.
“After having suffered from the pains of gunshot wounds at the base hospital, I was finally able to stand up when two of my fellow pilots rushed into the room; “You’ve got to come with us! Wakamaru (her Korean name was Kim) refuses to accept other soldiers. She believes you were killed in action and refuses to eat.” The guys carried me to the comfort station. “Hey, Tsunoda is alive!” the boys shouted in the corridor and several girls peeped out of their rooms and clapped their hands. The boys dumped me in Wakamaru’s room. Her face was soiled by tears and uncombed hair. She bumped into me, cried out, “You are alive!” Her cheek and breasts were soft and a tinge of sweet woman’s scent hit me. She was beautiful. [Korea Times]
