For soldiers stationed on Camp Stanley in Uijongbu, Suraksan is the mountain they see towering over their camp every day and that is about it.  However, this mountain is actually more than just something to look at while walking around on post.  The mountain also offers a wealth of hiking opportunities as well as a destination to escape the summer time heat by lounging in the mountain streams and waterfalls flowing down the mountain literally right outside the Camp Stanley gates that few people stationed on the camp even know about.

Reaching the stream is an easy walk up a beautifully forested hillside on a well maintained trail:

The trail leads directly to the stream and it is up to you how far up the mountain you want to go to find the right spot to chill out at.  There are a few rock pools to wade in as well as some slow moving streams:

Along with some fast moving streams:

Some of these streams if the conditions are right can actually serve as a natural waterslide that I have tried out on a few occassions:

If lounging in the water all day and drinking a few beverages of your choice is not your thing, you could always hike further up the mountain to get views overlooking Camp Stanley by using the extensive trail network on the mountain:

You can even go for the summit of the mountain if you are so inclined:

If you do hike further up the mountain make sure you bring plenty of water and some good hiking shoes with you because it is a pretty steep climb.  Additionally bring a jacket because weather can often be unpredictable at higher altitudes. 

No matter what you choose to do on the mountain please don’t do what some other soldiers have done and write grafitti on the mountain:

This grafitti remains long after you are gone and other people are stuck having to look at it.  Additionally pick up any trash you leave when on the mountain.  I have had to pick up beer cans and other items before that I know soldiers probably left due to them being American beer brands that are bought from on post.  I know many Korean picnickers pollute the mountain as well, but soldiers shouldn’t take that same attitude as well.  Have a good time on the mountain, but leave it better than you found it. 

To reach the trail to the stream, exit Camp Stanley at the Stanleyville gate and immediately take a right and follow the camp’s fenceline.  The trail you will come across will take you to the creek and further up the mountain.  I have highlighted on the above map about how far up the mountain the creek goes.  It is up to you how high up the mountain you want to go.  Additionally you can see the various trails on the mountain.  If you want to go further up the mountain or even reach the summit from Camp Stanley, stick to these trails.  Trying to reach the summit of this mountain by breaking bush is extremely dangerous due to the steepness of the mountain.  I recommend hiking up one of the trails and then taking the trail to the north and towards Uijongbu.  It is beautiful walk and you can easily grab the bus back to the camp.

For more information you can read my prior posting on Surak Mountain here, as well as viewing additional pictures of the mountain in my Flickr photo album here.   

This is seriously jacked up:

Police have arrested three suspects on charges of detaining a middle school girl and forcing her into prostitution with 800 men including a college professor and a doctor. According to police, the suspects held Jeon, a 14-year-old middle school student, against her will in motels in Gwangju, South Jeolla province and forced her to prostitute herself. The suspects are charged with beating Jeon, who pleaded with them to let her go, once every two or three days and burning her hands with cigarettes.

I wonder if these three pieces of crap will face tough Korean justice of probation and losing your license for sex crimes?

This is quite a bold claim from the Chinese:

An academic will publish this week a complete translation of an official Chinese study that co-opts the early Korean Shilla and Bakje kingdoms for Chinese history. The offending paper was published by a research center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which is under the jurisdiction of the Chinese State Council and includes the Baekje (18 B.C.?660 A.D.) and Shilla (57 B.C.-935 A.D.) kingdoms in addition to Koguryo, where claims have already been documented. The research center is in charge of the so-called Northeast Project.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Chinese are getting bolder in their claims considering the weak response to the Koguryo history controversy.  It is only a matter of time before the Chinese claim that all of Korea was part of China due to its tributary status until the loss of the peninsula to the Japanese in the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War. 

I wonder if we can expect President Roh to declare diplomatic war against the Chinese anytime soon?

Seriously, what is so secret about this “secret weapon”?:

“I’ll seduce Japanese fans with my sexy looks,” promised Lee Hyo-lee, revealing her strategy for cracking the Japan market. Lee was speaking at a press conference on Monday at the Hotel Okura Tokyo in Japan ahead of the launch on Fuji TV CS of her soap “If in Love… Like Them.”

Yes quite the secret weapon. 

The news of an expansion to the Kunsan Air Force Base may become another front in the anti-US movement in Korea:

U.S. Forces Korea and South Korea are planning a large expansion of Kunsan Air Base.

A final decision on what will fill that expanded base has not been made, a USFK spokesman said Monday.

South Korean Ministry of Defense officials, however, expect two Army helicopter battalions to move there, and an Army Corps of Engineers Web site mentions past planning for such a move.

The 8th Fighter Wing currently is using South Korean relocation funds to build a fence around land bordering the base, USFK spokesman David Oten said Monday.

The defense ministry is clearing 315 acres for the expansion, a South Korean ministry official with the USFK relocation business division said Thursday.

92 Korean households need to be relocated due to the expansion with 31 families already agreeing to move.  However, the remaining home owners want an increased compensation package because they claim the government is offering them $65 per pyong while the land is supposedly worth $108 per pyong.   If this doesn’t get worked out it will be interesting to see if the anti-US hate groups will mobilize to oppose the Kunsan expansion just like they did to oppose the Camp Humphreys expansion. 

I kind of like the Make A Liberal Friend Your Enemy Package.  What a great idea.  Any thoughts?

HT: Tim Blair

For those who have read my series of postings about General Haydon Boatner (Part 1 begins here) you may be interested in visiting the modern day site of the Geoje POW camp.  Today a small section of the former Goeje Island POW camp has been reconstructed into a museum to remember this little known chapter of the Korean War. The museum is located adjacent to the modern day city Gohyeun which is more well known for its massive ship yards than for its significant Korean War history.  At the entrance to the museum visitors are greeted by the flags of all the nations that participated in the defense of the Republic of Korea during the Korean War:

Just passed the flags is this quite impressive fountain and statue of a rifle with a fixed bayonet:

One thing about war memorials in Korea that I have always liked is that they have a lot of really impressive sculptures and this one is no different. Before heading into the main camp visitors will go through the prison’s museum. Inside the museum they have artifacts and recreations of what happened here during the Korean War using mannequins:

These recreations do a good job of visually displaying how large the camp once was as well as the tough living conditions the prisoners found themselves contending with:

Of course the recreations include the final uprising in the prison:

Unfortunately I could not find a recreation of North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku hiding in a ditch after the uprising. The recreation pictured above actually reminded me of some of the protesters I’ve seen outside of Camp Red Cloud before. Just take PW off their shirts and I would think they were Hanchongnyun members.

Once you finished checking out the museum you can walk towards the actual prison camp recreation by crossing a bridge over the tree line and then walking through the gate you see below:

Inside the enclosure there is a number of tents and buildings that were used to house the prisoners.  Here is an example of your typical quonset hut building of the day:

Many of these buildings were also used as classrooms to teach democracy and capitalism to the prisoners while other ones served as job training centers. There are also the ruins of a few of the actual buildings from the 1950’s that are still visible:

This ruin used to be the camp’s post exchange (PX). The floor to the PX was paved with concrete because the building also served as the officer club and dances were often held here. It makes me wonder if this was the building where General Boatner was invited to a cocktail party when he first arrived at the out of control prison camp?

Here is a view from slightly above the camp that shows the modern day city of Gohyeun that is adjacent to this museum:

Now compare this picture with what this place looked like during the Korean War:

As you can see the camp’s tents and buildings used to fill the entire valley that is now occupied with the high rise apartments and buildings Gohyeun.

Overall, a visit to the museum may be worthwhile if you are visiting the island anyway or if you are a Korean War scholar that likes to visit historic sites like this from the war. However, what I didn’t like about the museum is that it felt more like a Korean War theme park than an actual museum. The perfect example of this picture below:

Visitors can have their pictures taken as prisoners in the camp. This seemed pretty outrageous to me since this place should have a more solemn tone to it considering the serious and tragic nature of what happened here. Most of the Korean War memorials in the country do have a solemn tone to them so the fact that this one has turned into a carnival atmosphere is actually an exception to the rule. Never the less an interesting place to visit, but probably not worth your time to see if your sole purpose for coming to Goeje Island is to visit this museum.

It is about time these camps were finally handed over:

South Korea has concluded its negotiations with the United States on the relocation of nine U.S. military bases in its country, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.

   The process was concluded Thursday as a joint committee under the South Korea-United States status of forces agreement (SOFA) approved and signed the agreement on the relocation of the bases, the ministry said.

   “After taking necessary steps for the efficent use of the land at an early date, the government plans to consult with local autonomous bodies to map out how to use the returned land,” the ministry said in a press release.

   The relocation of the bases are part of a long-term, multi-billion dollar project to realign and move the U.S. forces in South Korea further south to the rear of the inter-Korean border.

   The bases to be relocated include Camp Edwards in Paju, just north of Seoul, Camp Sears and Camp Essayons, both also just north of the South Korean capital, according to the ministry.

As OFK has rightfully pointed out the North Korean stooges usual suspects are complaining about environmental damage and cost sharing for the USFK transformation.  The pollution argument is of course bogus as I have pointed out before and the cost sharing is even more laughable considering the property value of the land being returned to the Korean government that the closed out USFK camps occupy is of much greater value compared to the price of land for some rice paddies outside Camp Humphreys.  If anything the Korean government is going to turn a profit on the land especially when it aquires the Yongsan Garrison land in the heart of Seoul. 

Here is one of the more amazing and unusual defections from North Korea I have read about:

Japan is likely to offer temporary protection to four people believed to have fled North Korea who are seeking asylum in the South after they arrived by boat at a Japanese port, Japanese officials said on Sunday.

The three men and a woman, who were taken into Japanese custody on Saturday, claimed to be a family, a police official said. They told authorities they had been out at sea in the small wooden boat since May 27 after leaving North Korea for the South.

They told Japanese officials they had left Chongjin on the east coast and headed south, but then changed course due to heavy security and ended up at Fukaura in Japan’s Aomori prefecture, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the east, the police official added.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out considering the issue of the kidnapping of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans is still a hot topic in Japan. 

This is actually the first defection by sea by North Koreans to Japan.  This feat is quite impressive considering they survived in a small wooden boat for nearly a week to cross the Sea of Japan which is well known for its rough waters. 

You can read more over at DPRK Studies where a map of the approximate route of the defectors is posted.  Just by taking one look at that map you can see what they did was no small feat.  Hopefully Japan grants them asylum and they can find a better lives for themselves away from the hell of North Korea.

The translation issues for US servicemembers facing trial in Korean courts continue:

A U.S. soldier has admitted that he attempted to rape an off-duty South Korean policewoman last month, according to his defense team.

Sgt. Anthony Q. Basel initially denied attacking the woman in an off-post bathroom, but later confessed to the April 5 incident, defense officials said outside the courtroom Friday following their first court appearance in the case.

Basel, answering a prosecutor’s questions through a translator, admitted to being in the bathroom the night of the attack.

Fellow soldier Pfc. Marc C. Feldman, also charged with attempted rape, told the prosecutor he wasn’t in the bathroom.

Before questions could continue, Basel’s defense attorney, Jin Hyo-guen, complained about the quality of the translation and requested a temporary halt to the trial. The prosecutor also asked for more time to investigate what he called inconsistent statements from the defendants.

This is a continuing problem in Korean Courts, that one would thnk would be easy to fix.  As we have seen in the past fair trials for US soldiers are not what the Korean court system is about.  I’m not saying these two are innocent but they do deserve at least adequate translations of the court proceedings.  I do have to say that this excuse is being used an awful lot now a days I have noticed:

The 23-year-old, who lost five friends in Iraq and escaped a bomb that exploded in front of his vehicle, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from Iraq, Hayes said. Basel dropped out of a treatment program because he feared it would harm his chances of being promoted, Hayes said.

First of all a lot of people have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and do not go around committing crimes.  PTSD is real issue but it is being used as a blanket excuse way to often.  The US military has plenty of mental health services for those with PTSD.  As far as alcohol treatment he must have been a voluntary referal into ASAP (Army Substance Abuse Program) and than completed the Track 1 phase of it.  His commander could have command referred him for further treatment.  The excuse that he quit treatment out of fear of not being promoted is inaccurrate.  The ASAP counselors give commanders updates on a soldiers progress in the program and recommend further treatment for the soldier or not.  His commander and First Sergeant could have command referred him for further treatment if they felt it was necessary based on the advice of the ASAP folks as well as their own personal opinion of the soldier.  I know the ASAP program in 2ID real well and they are very vigorous about ensuring soldiers make all the meetings and if they don’t they call the commanders.  Upon completion of Track 1 the counselor will do outbriefs on the soldiers progress with the commander and First Sergeant.

Obviously his commander felt he didn’t need further treatment and did not keep him in the program.  Promotions has nothing to do with it and sounds more like grasping for straws.