Unsurprisingly more and more Koreans do not believe in the mandatory service required of all males to defend the country:

More parents hope their sons can skip compulsory military service, which they consider a waste of precious years in their young lives.

According to a recent survey, seven out of 10 respondent or 70.2 percent, said they would encourage young men to “tough it out,” but the percentage was much smaller among people under 50.

Some 40.2 percent whose sons are nearing conscription age said they would prefer them to be exempt if possible. The proportion was slightly bigger among mothers than fathers with 42.5 percent as against 37.9 percent.

In a similar survey by a high school in Busan in August, 38.1 percent of respondents said they want to avoid conscription if possible. Only 34.5 percent agreed that military service is inevitable at a time when the nation remains divided, and even fewer or 27.4 percent agreed that it is “natural and honorable” to serve in the military.

That suggests some 70 percent do not see the point.

Asked why they do not look forward to their military service, 39.5 percent cited the hard life in barracks, 32.3 percent violence and bullying, and 28.2 percent said it would be a waste of time.  [Chosun Ilbo]

There has been baby steps in the past to professionalize the ROK Army, but the fact that the ROK government is able to maintain such a large force for little money is going to be hard to change because a professional army is expensive.  Just ask the Pentagon.

The Korean authorities should have stopped these people at the gate of the airport and sent them home because it is illegal for foreigners to conduct political activity while visiting South Korea:

The Rev. Bill Bichsel, an 86-year-old Tacoma priest known for his acts of civil disobedience, has returned from a trip to South Korea to protest construction of a naval base there.

Just three months ago, Bichsel was seriously ill and in the hospital in Tacoma. But his health —while still frail due to a heart condition—improved to the point he was able to make the trip using a wheelchair.

He said his doctors didn’t try to stop him from traveling.

“They just shake their heads,” Bichsel said. “They know I’m going so they don’t make a big fuss.”

For nearly 40 years, the Jesuit priest known as “Bix” has protested against U.S. military programs and weapons. He’s been arrested dozens of times for trespassing during protests and jailed more than a half-dozen times.

He wasn’t arrested in South Korea, but he realized the 12-day trip could set his health back.

“I know I could go anytime,” Bichsel said.

He was weak upon returning Nov. 20, but has gotten stronger since then. And he was inspired by the trip.

Bichsel and nine other people —nearly all from the Puget Sound area—traveled to Jeju Island to commits acts of civil resistance against construction of a base by the South Korean Navy. The base has been under construction on the island off the southern tip of Korea for eight years.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but what gets me about the whole Cheju Naval Base issue is that the leftists complain about the base provoking China when the Chinese is busy making claims against Korean territory and the territory of other countries in the region and have constructed an aircraft carrier to help enforce those claims.  If the Chinese were not making aggressive territorial claims this base would have never been built in the first place and the leftists have the nerve to condemn the ROK government for provoking China?

North Korean students carry a $1 US dollar as a "lucky charm" http://t.co/4Rp4DUcFUo #NorthKorea #DPRK

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) December 9, 2014

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observes the North Korean military’s winter training in a photo released by the North’s media on Dec. 5, 2014. (No sale outside of South Korea) (KCNA-Yonhap)

It will be interesting to see if the US State Department gets involved in this since this pro-North Korean stooge is a US citizen:

A Korean-American woman has been temporarily banned from leaving the country amid an investigation into her alleged pro-North Korean remarks during a series of talk shows, police said Thursday.

The move comes after local conservative civic groups filed a complaint against Shin Eun-mi, 53, and Hwang Sun, the former deputy spokeswoman of the now-defunct Democratic Labor Party, with the police.

During the talk shows where guests and the audience exchange views on a specific subject, the two women, as guests, allegedly made remarks sympathetic toward the communist regime and painted the North Korean regime in a positive light.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency probing the case said it banned Shin from leaving the country for 10 days as she had disobeyed an order to appear for questioning.

Shin, who has published a book on her trip to North Korea, had reportedly planned to leave South Korea on Friday.

Earlier in the day, police also raided Hwang’s home and the office of a talk show organizer as part of their investigation.

Hwang is known for having given birth to a baby girl during a sightseeing trip to North Korea in 2005.

Police have reportedly been investigating the duo on suspicion of violating South Korea’s draconian National Security Law that bans any “anti-state” activities that attempt to praise, encourage or propagandize North Korean political ideals.  [Yonhap]

For those that don’t know the Democratic Labor Party was the political party in South Korea that was filled with a number of people who ended up being convicted for spying for North Korea.

It looks like Kim Jong-un may still be having problems with his feet:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is experiencing a relapse of his recent health problems, South Korean government officials said Monday.

According to the Ministry of Unification, Kim was limping severely in a video clip recently aired by the state-run Korean Central TV. He was limping particularly painfully at an event with female pilots that took place at the end of last month. The Rodong Shinmun, the Workers’ Party’s newspaper, reported Kim’s visit to the air base on Nov. 28 with photos, but no video was aired until Sunday afternoon.

The 30-year-old ruler of the North developed problems with his leg last spring. After his condition deteriorated, he withdrew from public activities for 40 days.

South Korean intelligence authorities have confirmed that Kim received ankle surgery by visiting French, Chinese and Russian doctors. The sources said there was a high possibility of a relapse after Kim quickly resumed his public activities.

Meanwhile, intelligence officials said Kim Yo-jong, the 25-year-old younger sister of the North’s ruler, has quickly risen in Pyongyang’s inner circle, possibly being groomed to succeed her brother in case of an emergency.

At the end of last month, Pyongyang revealed that she is a deputy director of the Workers’ Party’s Central Committee. It was the first time the North revealed her official title in a media report, although it did not say which department of the party she belongs to.

She is the youngest deputy director of the Workers’ Party in the history of North Korea. Her father Kim Jong-il became the deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department in 1970 when he was 28. Her once-powerful aunt Kim Kyong-hui became the deputy director of the International Department when she was 30.

North Korea observers note that it took only three years for the youngest daughter of Kim Jong-il, who shed tears at her father’s funeral, to rise to a powerful position in Pyongyang’s leadership.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it would probably be tough for all the long term leadership and military generals to accept such a young female leader even if she is part of the Kim family.  It would be interesting to see how this would play out if something did happen to Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong Un Has Photo Session with Servicemen's Families | @KCNAWatch http://t.co/YAfv4rQoef pic.twitter.com/sVTHzJknHP

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) December 9, 2014

Korean street market in 1960, probably near or in Seoul. The exact location has not been positively identified yet. The photographer, my father Leroy Smothers, did not label the 35 mm slide this image was scanned from. He traveled all over South Korea, so this could be somewhere other than Seoul. (We lived 1960 near Itaewon, south of Seoul.) [Bill Somther’s Flickr page]

Via a reader tip comes news that Yongsan Garrison will have some visitors looking to find evidence of oil leakage from Yongsan Garrision:

South Korea and the United States agreed Tuesday to allow local environmental experts to conduct a field study on a U.S. military base in central Seoul suspected of polluting groundwater and its nearby land.

The Yongsan Garrison is suspected of being the source of leaking oil that has polluted at least 12,000 square meters of land and more than 7 million liters of underground water since 2001 when the first oil spill was reported.

The agreement was reached at the latest Joint Committee meeting on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) aimed at discussing an array of issues governing the legal status of 28,500 U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.

To address the suspected oil leakage, both sides formed a joint working group consisting of officials from Seoul’s environment ministry, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and the Seoul Metropolitan Government in June last year.

“The two sides agreed to allow Korea’s environmental experts to visit the garrison in the near term for a field inspection into possible pollution sources,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “They shared the view that the move will contribute to the fundamental resolution of the matter.”

Seoul has made repeated requests to the U.S. for its cooperation with the inspection of the garrison, which have been long ignored by the U.S. Under the SOFA, the South Korean government can investigate USFK bases only if permission is granted.  [Yonhap]

This inspection is really nothing unprecedented because when the camps in the 2nd Infantry Division closed out almost ten years ago the environmental ministry and NGO types visited those camps as well.  What is going on with Yongsan is that there has been oil found dripping in the subway lines, but no one has been able to confirm where it is coming from and the Korean government believes it is coming from Yongsan Garrison.

Anyway here is how the article ends with a topic that has absolutely nothing to do with the oil spill issue:

Concerning crimes committed by U.S. forces stationed here, South Korea asked the U.S. to tighten discipline among its soldiers at end-year, the ministry said.

Crimes committed by U.S. servicemen have declined, but sex and drug-related crimes rose between 2011 and 2013, the ministry added. In response, the U.S. said it will sternly deal with any kinds of sex crimes, vowing to cooperate with Seoul over crimes by U.S. soldiers.

South Korean authorities have often failed to take legal action against U.S. soldiers as the SOFA regulations allow the suspects to be handed over to U.S. authorities.

Having compiled these stats in the past I do not trust any GI crime statistics put out by Koreans which are often inflated.  With that said that I am sure that drug crimes have risen because of the crackdown the ROK has done on inspecting US mail.  There has been plenty of idiot soldiers caught in the past few years sending drugs through the mail.

I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in World War II history to take a read of the below posting that translates a Mainichi Shinbun article that shows how ineffective and incompetent the Kamikaze attacks were for the Imperial Japanese military during World War II:

One of the defining symbols of the vicious struggle between the US and Japan in the Pacific War, this word always conjures up a conflicting mix of emotions inside me. The very word “kamikaze” has become a synonym for “suicide attack” in the English language. The way WW2 was taught in school (in America) pretty much left us with the impression that kamikaze attacks were part of the standard strategy of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy throughout the entire war. However, it was only recently that I was surprised to learn that the first time the Japanese introduced this strategy was on October 25, 1944 during the second Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Mainichi Shinbun here in Japan put together a wonderful collection to commemorate the 70th anniversary of this strategy. It features data that has not only been debated and analyzed from a number of angles, but it also provides statistical evidence that underscores the utter failure of this strategy. The title of the article is “Did the divine wind really blow? ‘Special strikes’ claim lives of 4000,” and it is the second part of a three part series called “Numbers tell a tale—Looking at the Pacific War through data”. The first part was posted in mid-August, and the third and final part is due to be put online in December. The original Japanese version for this special can be accessed here. The slides I refer to numbers “1” to “5” listed at the very bottom of each page. The current slide is the one highlighted in blue.

In this post, I will provide an overview of the information on this site while occasionally inserting my own analysis and translations of select quotes. I hope it helps to paint a clearer picture of a truly flawed strategy that is still not properly understood by both sides.  [TheFairJilt.com]

Click the link to read the full article, but some of the interesting facts are that only 11% of attacks were successful compared to much higher percentages for dive bomb attacks.  The Kamikaze tactic also caused Japan to lose many skilled pilots and advanced aircraft that led to them having to quickly produce inferior pilots and aircraft to replace them. Very interesting read.