Almost from the moment the 7th Cavalry regiment unloaded their boats and moved out of Pohang to fight the North Koreans the stragglers of soldiers from the 24th Infantry Division who had been defeated by the North Koreans, and who were retreating South told tales of how the North Koreans were dressing up as civilians to enter the rear areas of the American units to the 7th Cav soldiers. Here is this report from Robert Bateman’s book, Nogun-ri, that chronicles this fear:

… a civilian woman who appeared pregnant and her male companion who were attempting to pass through American lines. At an American checkpoint there were stopped and searched along with other civilians in the group. At that point the searchers discovered that the pregnancy was not real , and that the bulge covered by the woman’s clothing was actually a two way tactical radio. The woman immediately confessed that she was North Korean and was sent to observe and report American positions and to call for artillery fire on them.

Then reports of American GI’s in the rear found with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head began to circulate among the soldiers as well. Long before the 7th Cav had ever reached their defensive positions near Hwanggan there had been plenty of warning about the dangers of letting refugees through the front lines. This was something that was in the back of all the soldiers minds more than the North Korean Army they had yet to face.

The night of 25-26 July, 1950 these inexperienced soldiers would have their first experience with what is know as the “bug out” syndrome that happened to US soldiers in the early days of the Korean War. At about 0200 that night one of the last elements of the 24ID that was lost and unaccounted for finally found the proper road to retreat south on. This unit included a company of tanks. The road they moved south on went right through the 7th Cav’s defensive lines.

It was dark, their was no night vision devices back then, no communications with anyone in the 24ID, lack of combat experience, and just plain fear that caused the soldier of the 7th Cavalry to open up fire on the American unit. The 24ID unit just simply drove through the hail of gun fire and continued their retreat south not really knowing who was firing on them. Fortunately no one from the unit was killed.

Many soldiers of the 7th Cavalry thought that the retreating company of tanks was in fact a North Korean armored column moving through their lines and opened fire. Experienced NCO’s could of detected the sound of the tanks as American tanks and not North Korean tanks, but remember all the experienced NCO’s from the division got pulled in Japan weeks prior, to serve with the 24ID, leaving the 7th Cavalry with no experienced NCO’s. Remember there was Private First Classes serving as Platoon Sergeants. The now, even more frightful soldiers, were thinking that the North Koreans were in their rear waiting to kill them and many soldiers just simply “bugged out” after the tanks passed and left their fighting positions and retreated. Nobody in the infantry likes to have tanks in front of them much less behind them as well.

CPT Melbourne Chandler the commander of H/2-7CAV was able to consolidate some of his retreating troops and other stragglers of the 7th Cavalry in the predawn darkness to form a defensive line with this hodgepodge of troops. The defensive perimeter was set up on a small hill overlooking a bridge near a place called Nogun-ri.

Tomorrow: What Happened at Nogun-ri?

North Korea is reported to be asking the United States to remove all it’s nuclear weapons from the peninsula before the North Koreans would get rid of theirs. The United States has no nuclear weapons currently in Korea because the US can destory North Korea quite easily with nuclear weapons from forward deployed submarines. The US does not need fixed sites in South Korea.

However, South Korea has a plan to meet the North Korean demands:

Both Washington and Seoul deny there are any U.S. nuclear weapons in the South, and South Korea has earlier raised the possibility of opening South Korean and U.S. bases for some form of verification of that fact by the North.

Now that would be something to see, these North Korean inspectors poking around looking for nuclear weapons on Camp Casey.

Here is an article from the Heritage Foundation that tackles the issue of if Korea should be entered into the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Here is why Korea currently is not eligible for the VWP:

The ROK is currently ineligible for the VWP because the refusal rate for nonimmigrant visas for its citizens exceeds the 3 percent maximum allowed under the VWP. The ROK’s refusal rate currently hovers just below 4 percent. [1] Because South Korea is not a VWP member, South Koreans must endure a complicated and protracted process to obtain a tourist or business visa, which has unfortunately contributed to growing animosity towards the United States.

The Heritage Foundation thinks this issue contributes to anti-Americanism in Korea. Trust me, we could enter Korea into the VWP tomorrow and it would change nothing here about the image of the United States. What I’m most concerned about with this issue is fair play with other countries. If the State Department drops it’s standards for VWP for Korea why couldn’t other countries like Pakistan demand the same treatment for helping the US in the War on Terror? Here is the Heritage Foundations arguement for Korea entering the VWP:

These unwieldy visa regulations are a stark con?trast to the strong U.S.–ROK military alliance and trade relationship. The ROK has proven itself a staunch ally of the United States by deploying 3,600 troops to Iraq, the second largest non-U.S. coalition presence after Great Britain. South Korea is also the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner, accounting for more than $70 billion in total bilateral trade in 2004.

The ROK-US alliance at the military level I would agree is still strong. US and ROK Army officers and soldiers work well together, no doubt it. However, at the political level is where there are major problems in the US-ROK alliance. Also, Korea maybe the 3rd largest troop dispatch to Iraq, but what are they doing? Countries with less troops are doing more than Korea. Plus an alliance is a two way street. Korea sends 3,000+ soldiers to sit on an airfield in Northern Iraq every year to fix toilets and play Starcraft and the US sends 32,000+ soldiers to Korea every year to dance on top of taxi cabs. It all evens out to me.

Then the fact that Korea is the 7th largest trading partner does not hold much weight with me either because the majority of the trade is going from Korea to the US and the American goods coming into Korea are heavily taxed making most American products here something only the wealthy can afford creating a large trade imbalance between the two countries.

The visa requirements, while arguably necessary due to heightened security concerns in the post-9/11 world, have regrettably discouraged Koreans from vis?iting the United States. Although the total number of Korean tourists traveling abroad in 2004 increased by 27 percent from the previous year, the number of South Korean visitors to the United States decreased by 5 percent, and the number of South Koreans applying for nonimmigrant visas to the United States dropped from 420,000 in 2003 to 360,000 in 2004.

I don’t foresee the US tourism industry collapsing because a few less Koreans are going to the Grand Canyon. I think the US tourism industry will be alright.

The onerous process of obtaining a visa has also inadvertently aggravated anti-American senti?ments, thwarting Washington’s public diplomacy efforts in South Korea.

Like I said before bending the rules and letting Korea into the VWP will not significantly change the image of America here in Korea. Finally the Hertitage Foundation thinks the VWP would reduce the work load of the US Embassy in Seoul.

These requirements have made the U.S. consular section in Seoul the largest U.S. nonimmigrant visa processing post in the world—processing an aver?age of nearly 2,000 visas per day and straining the embassy’s financial and human resources.

If you ever get a chance swing by the US Embassy sometime and see what a mad house that place is every day. The line to get in there stretches for quite a distance. I always find it interesting about how the same people who complain about the US all the time are probably the same people standing in line for two hours to just get in the US Embassy to apply for a Visa to come to the US.

The Heritage Foundation makes a good arguement but some of the points they bring up are common points many Koreans bring up about how they support America, but once you closely scrutinize them the contributions though commendable are not as noteworthy as one is led to believe. I’m of the opinion that the US has a system in place with a set standard. Meet the standard if you want in.

This issue is made to look like America is the bad guys for not letting the Korea into the VWP. It is not just Koreans. Anyone who doesn’t meet the standard is not allowed in. Korea is not being singled out or prevented from entering the VWP, they just need to work harder to meet the standards set by US law. I don’t see any reason why we should bend the rules solely for Korea. If Korea meets the standards then I say let them in and end the chaos at the US Embassy. I’m sure the employees there would be greatly relieved along with everyone else that has ever had to wait in a line there for two hours.

Before the outbreak of the Korean War the soldiers involved in the tragedy at Nogun-ri, soldiers from H Company, 2 Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment which were part of the 1st Cavalry Divison, were stationed in Japan conducting peacekeeping operations in the aftermath of World War II. Due to budgetary reasons most of the resources for training soldiers at the combined arms level were diverted to Europe because of the looming Soviet threat there. No one ever envisioned a war in Korea. This lack of vision would become one of many factors that led to the tragedy at Nogun-ri.

The soldiers of the 7th Cavalry did not train at anything above the company level and spent much of their time conducting occupation related duties, not to mention hanging out at the local clubs at all hours of the night. Plus the units were all short of personnel especially noncommissioned officers (NCOs) to keep the Army divisions in Europe fully manned against the more immediate Soviet threat there. The 7th Cavalry was full of young, patriotic, soldiers who grew up on John Wayne movies and were eager to serve their country. However the majority of these young soldiers were not old enough to have served during World War II and lacked combat experience.

There were a few NCOs and officers in the unit that did have combat experience. However, when the war in Korea did break out the experienced NCOs from the 7th Cavalry were pulled to fill units from the 24th Infantry Division that were the first division in Japan to deploy to Korea to delay the North Korean advance that included units such as Task Force Smith which was featured in an earlier Focus On series.

Once it came time for the 1st Cavalry Division to deploy to Korea, it was deployed in piece meal and not as a complete division due to the nature of limited ports in Korea and the division being spread out all over Japan due to occupation duties. So when the 2-7 Cav’s transport from Japan arrived in Korea on July 22, 1950 they were acting semi-autonomous from the division command structure they were used to, plus they were about to undertake operations they had never trained for because they had never done any training above the company level and were about to undertake operations in a major theater war that featured many uncontemporary operating environment problems such as security in the rear areas and a massive refugee crisis no one had any prior experience or training in to deal with. They were literally making up doctrine as they went through trial and error. To make matters worse they were short NCO’s across the regiment that enforce standards. It was so bad that there was some Private First Classes serving as Platoon Sergeants. The officer ranks weren’t much better as the battalion only had one officer with combat experience at the time and that was the commander of G company, 2-7 Cav, CPT Henry West.

This lack of inexperience and training would all have a part to play in the tragedy that would occur four days later.

Tomorrow: From Pohang to Nogun-ri

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young is at it yet again. Chung who is South Korea’s official Kim Jong Il butt kisser and bribe giver to ensure unification doesn’t happen some how feels his position gives him the authority to open his big mouth and bash the US whenever he feels like it. Here is his latest rant:

“A hundred years ago, the Philippines became a U.S. colony and the Korean Peninsula a Japanese one owing to the Taft-Katsura Agreement” of 1905, Chung said. “The division of the nation and Korean War were not our will either,” nor was the failure of the Gwangju Uprising. A century later, Chung promised “a hot summer in which our fate will be decided not by North Korea, China, the United States, Japan or Russia, but by our own pride and self-determination.”

This guy blames the US for the Japanese colonization of Korea, the Korean War, and the Gwangju Uprising. He might as well blame America for Dokto while he is at it too.

First of all, how is the US to blame for the Japanese occupation? Is it not Korea’s responsibility to defend their own country from the Japanese? It is not America’s fault that Korean society was so fractured between the Yangban and peasant classes and that the royal leadership was so ineffective. This all contributed to Korea’s isolationist policies that prevented the country from modernizing and having effective control of the country. This allowed Korea to become easy prey for outside powers like the Japanese. Chung must of forgot it was America that freed this country in 1945 from the Japanese. Korea didn’t do that.

Secondly, how is the Korean War anyone elses fault when Kim Il Sung is the one who pleaded with Stalin to allow him to go to war. The war actually would of started sooner if Stalin didn’t keep delaying Kim to make sure that America would not respond. Last I checked Kim Il Sung was Korean and it was a Korean civil war thus making it a Korean caused problem. It took 32,000+ American lives to correct this problem. Chung forgets that too.

Finally, the Gwangju Uprising has nothing to do with the US. This was a Korean internal dispute but some people like to bash the US for the harsh crackdown because the US military did nothing to stop it. I would not feel comfortable as a soldier being put into a situation like Gwangju where you have no idea what is going on and may have to engage ROK soldiers. In a situation like that the US military would probably do more harm than good. But once again you had Koreans shooting Koreans, how is that America’s fault?

Chung is trying to play to Korean nationalism by continuously blaming foreign countries for all of Korea’s problem and taking credit for things that he feels Korea accomplished independently when in fact America is partly responsible for the success of this country. Here is the reason he is playing to Korean nationalism:

Chung also asked the Uri Party to double inter-Korean cooperation funds, which currently stand at W500 billion (US$487 million) a year.

That is a lot more money he can give to Kim Jong Il. I wonder how much of that Chung gets to keep?

Anyway I hope someone at the US Embassy calls out Chung publicly on his statements. I get tired of the US government sitting back and taking this crap, which is sadly what we will probably do yet again. I wish someone would get this guy to shut his mouth for once.

Check out The Marmot for some more great commentary on this as well.

Yesterday, at Haeundae Beach in Pusan.

How do people find this relaxing, hanging out with 800,000 other people?

UPDATE: I highly recommend everyone read my prior postings on this subject:

• Responding to the Bridge at No Gun Ri
• The Forensics of No Gun Ri
• Revisiting No Gun Ri
• Transcript of Briefing to Seoul Rotary Club
• The No Gun Ri Document Shell Game

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Recently many Korean news media have been providing inaccurate reports about the tragic events that happened today, 55 years ago, on July 26, 1950 near the village of Nogun-ri during the first month of combat during the Korean War. In an effort to set the record straight and hopefully educate the wide audience I have and appreciate that read my blog, I have decided to have my next Focus On series dedicated to the tragedy that happened at No Gun-ri during those dark days of the Korean War.

This topic is highly controversial and filled with inaccuracies and mythology that is taken to be fact by many people who have certain anti-military or anti-USFK agendas or are just not aware of all the changing stories and retractions made from the original Pulitzer Prize winning AP story from 1999.

Unfortunately this perception of war criminal GIs from the Korean War created by this irresponsible reporting continues to slime the slowly dying generation of veterans who left America to fight for the freedom of a country that many of them had never heard of before.

In an effort to get the opposing viewpoint of what happened at No Gun-ri out and restore honor to these veterans, I wrote a series of articles on the topic that are posted below to help people become more educated about what really happened at No Gun-ri:

Controversies of the Korean War: The Tragedy at No Gun-ri?

Part 1 – Who Were the Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry?
Part 2 – What Happened at No Gun-ri?
Parth 3 – The Aftemath of No Gun-ri
Part 4 – The Media and No Gun-ri

The AP tried everything in their power to discredit Robert Bateman who wrote the book No Gun-ri which challenged the original misreporting by the AP. The AP even contacted his publisher and boss at West Point to intimidate them. This is your freedom of the press in action. It didn’t work and his book was published, which exposed the distortions, frauds, and dishonesty in the original AP article.

Amazingly one of the AP reporters found time to even go after me for posting about No Gun-ri. I guess my No Gun-ri postings have been getting to many hits from readers which they don’t like.

The No Gun-ri issues continues to be a hot button issue that has been shaped with to much emotion and myth making and not enough facts. Unlike the AP I want you to judge the facts of No Gun-ri for yourself and make your own decision about what happened at No Gun-ri. Read all my postings and then I highly recommend you read both Bateman’s and the AP’s books and then judge the information for yourself. It also helps to read some of the good quality Korean War books available as well to further educate yourself about the Korean War.

Below are more No Gun-ri related postings that I have done and I update this list as new No Gun-ri information becomes available:

No Gun-ri Compensation Money Goes Unused

Claimants Want Washington to Show them the Money

Oh My News and No Gun-ri

AP Reporter Charles Hanley Responds to GI Korea Criticism

No Gun-ri Compensation Money Goes Unused

No Gun-ri Movie Completed

No Gun-ri the Comic Book, Coming to Europe

What Does Iraq and No Gun-ri Have in Common?

Bateman Responds to Latest AP Scandal

No Gun-ri Misreporting Continues

The Muccio Letter: Making Old News New Again

Fishing for the Next No Gun-ri

Andy over at Flying Yangban pointed out this article in the Chosun Ilbo that featured the below photograph:

The picture is supposed to be of a sandstorm hitting the Korean Zaytun unit’s base in Irbil, in Northern Iraq. However, Andy points out that this picture is not from the Korean base in Irbil but of Al Asad Airbase in Western Iraq. Here are some more pictures of the sandstorm:

This pictures bring back memories of my time in Iraq. This is how the sandstorms looked like though I remember them being darker then the reddish color in the pictures. Could be because of the sunset. These sandstorms looked like something straight out of The Mummy. When my men and I first saw a sandstorm or in Arabic, Shumali, heading straight for us we just kind of glanced at each other in disbelief wondering if this was natural or not? Everything was perfectly calm as the storm approached. However, once it hit you the calm instantly disappeared and all hell breaks loose as any exposed skin you may have begins to feel like it is being pricked by needles. You must have eye protection to see or you risk blinding your eyes. We actually had people get lost, wandering around in these sandstorms when they had to go to the bathroom. The shumali that hit during the combat phase of the war even had a name given to it by the GI’s, a MOASS (mother of all sandstorms).

This is one GI who will never complain about monsoon season or the heat here Korea this time of year, because trust me, I have been through worse.

Courtesy of the Budaechigae via the Infidel is this picture of ROK Army soldiers:

No that is not water they are washing their faces with, but feces from the cans at the bottom of outhouses. I further checked out the link where this picture came from and I found even more interesting pictures:

I don’t know where these pictures came from or how old they are, just that they were published on the above link from some Japanese guy named Suika Dorobo. They don’t appeared to be staged or Photoshopped either. If anyone can tell by looking at the pictures how old they are or if these are real photographs, please feel free to comment.

However, maybe the next time someone in Korea takes a cheap shot at the US military over Abu Graib, they will think twice about it instead.

I sure hope that this is not the next Japanese cultural transfer from Japan to Korea. On second thought maybe this isn’t such a bad idea? Wouldn’t this leave more girls here for the rest of the guys not in love with a doll?