Great to see USFK helping to combat the massive forest fire in Gangwon-do:

The U.S. military sent four helicopters, including three UH-60 Black Hawks and a CH-47 Chinook, and 21 servicemembers, including pilots and crew chiefs from the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, to help, according to the 2nd Infantry Division.
The helicopters were equipped with specially designed aircraft buckets, known as Bambi buckets, to scoop water and drop it on designated areas, U.S. Forces Korea said, adding that additional assets are on standby if needed.
They worked with South Korea’s military, which provided 35 aircraft, 46 fire engines and some 7,000 troops to fight the blaze, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A command sergeant major tries to enforce a regulation and now she has to deal with this mess:

A Muslim soldier based in Fort Carson intends to sue the U.S. Army over allegations of discrimination and harassment that began shortly after she started wearing a hijab.

Spc. Cesilia Valdovinos, who has been in the military for seven years and has served in Afghanistan, converted to Islam in 2016. Since she started wearing her hijab, a head cover, at work, she has been subjected to name-calling, increased personal inspections and has been demoted, she and her attorney, Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation said. (……..)

After she returned, a command sergeant major of the 704th Transportation Battalion asked her to take her hijab off in a public place to show that her hair was in a bun underneath the scarf, per Army regulations.

Valdovinos, a culinary specialist, said after she removed the scarf, her hair fell out of the bun, making it appear that it wasn’t following code.
But Valdovinos said she was reprimanded for violating Army regulations for women’s hair even though she was in compliance.
Fort Carson officials declined to discuss whether Valdovinos was punished over her hair, saying it would violate Valdovinos’s right to privacy. But Zinn’s statement said the sergeant major acted appropriately by enforcing regulations for how women should wear the hijab.

Denver Post

You can read more at the link, but is anyone surprised that this hijab-gate controversy is happening after she was facing punishment for an inappropriate relationship which she was eventually found guilty of and demoted?

It looks like a perfect storm of events led to the massive wildfire in Gangwon province:

Authorities investigating the wildfires in Gangwon that started Thursday and burned at least 400 houses and 2 square miles of land suspect they began at three separate locations on Thursday.

The first spark came at around 2:45 p.m. on a hiking trail in Inje County. The fire spread quickly in strong winds with speeds up to 6.5 meters per second (14.5 miles per hour) and moved into residential areas. 

Around 95 residents in the area were evacuated. As firefighters fought the blaze near the residential areas, the fire burned through 30 hectares of forests before it was put out around noon on Saturday, according to the Korea Forest Service.

The cause of the spark on the hiking trail is being investigated.

“We have not ruled out the possibility of a fire caused by an accident,” said a police officer. 

The second spark in Gangwon on Thursday came at around 7:17 p.m. on an electric wire connected to a power switch at a gas station in Goseong County. 

The state-run Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) said Friday that the fire seemed to have been sparked when “an alien substance” blown by the wind caught on an electric wire connected to a power switch. 

The fire that began from spark spread quickly due to the wind, blazing through 250 hectares of the county and Sokcho area before it was put out Friday afternoon. 

“We think it is likely that an alien substance, flying in strong winds, that hit the electric wire,” said Kim Chae-hyun, head of the Sokcho branch of Kepco. “Through this force, the wire could have been cut, causing the sparks to fly and catch fire in the vicinity.”

Authorities are investigating Kepco’s management of the electric poles and wires in the area.

In a similar case in the United States, Pacific Gas & Electric Company admitted that its equipment sparked the most destructive wildfire in California in November last year. The company filed for bankruptcy in January. 

The third spark in Gangwon on Thursday is suspected to have came around 11:46 p.m. in a small town in Gangneung. The fire blazed through Gangneung and Donghae, burning some 250 hectares of forests and land, before it was put out Friday afternoon. 

Police are investigating a temple in the town as the starting point of the fire. 

They found four altars at the temple, one of which was burned black, and candles on the altar. The temple is run by a man in his 80s who lives with his wife and daughter nearby.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This just makes me wonder how many other South Korean ships have been violating sanctions that have not been caught yet?:

A South Korean cargo vessel has been impounded in Busan Harbor since last October on suspicions of violating international sanctions on North Korea, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

This is the first time a ship flying the South Korean flag has been accused of breaking United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on the North for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. 

According to the official, the ship, named Lunis, was one of four held in South Korean ports since October for having allegedly transferred banned petroleum products or coal to or from North Korean ships. The other three vessels are reportedly registered in Togo, Hong Kong and Panama.

The shipping company working with the South Korean vessel has admitted to a transfer of refined oil to a tanker from the North through a ship-to-ship operation, the official said. 

All four ships, including the Lunis, were among dozens of foreign vessels named in a U.S. Treasury Department report released March 21 for allegedly having engaged in such illicit transfers of oil or coal to or from North Korean vessels.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

China will complain that it increasingly being seriously compared directly with Nazi Germany is unfair.

But there is an easy way to avoid being compared to Nazi Germany and that's to not act like Nazi Germany. https://t.co/A4J4hsWN5i

— ImperiumVita (@ImperiumVita) April 4, 2019

Sorry I could not resist making the title for this post:

The head of the California Air National Guard, Maj. Gen. Clay Garrison, was relieved of command and replaced by Brig. Gen. Gregory Jones two months after a newspaper detailed the fallout from a scandal involving someone urinating in the boots of a service member. A Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Shiroma, on Friday confirmed the shake-up, but he did not have additional details.

The command change follows a Los Angeles Times report on allegations that whistleblowers at the Guard’s Fresno base suffered reprisals for questioning actions or conduct, including an incident in which a female guardsman discovered urine in her boots.

In interviews with the Times, several current and former members of the Guard described a culture of retaliation by high-ranking officers and mistrust in the inspector general system intended to hold them accountable.

Air Force Times

You can read much more at the link, but this is just a weird case. First of all I don’t know of anyone that leaves their uniform in a urinal and I have also never heard of anyone ever urinating in someones boots which is extremely unprofessional. Then to top it off the bathroom was considered a “crime scene” according to the LA Times that required two Security Forces investigations and there was even demands for the FBI to investigate. Then there was even an effort to conduct a DNA test of the urine and then senior officers tried to cover up this stupidity by ordering the evidence destroyed.

This whole stupidity reminded me of back in 2003 when my unit was waiting to cross the berm into Iraq from Kuwait. The camp in the middle of the desert we were at had a number of porta-potties. Someone was going around and shitting all over the porta-potties and would leave messages taking responsibility for the mess. The perpetrator went by the name “Shithouse Bandit”.

It became a running joke trying to find out who the Shithouse Bandit was. I guess the porta-potties should have been sealed off as a crime scene, multiple investigations conducted, called the FBI and had DNA tests done to uncover who the Shithouse Bandit was. To this day I continue to wonder who it was crapping all over the porta-potties.

The good news is that one of the largest wildfires in South Korean history is now under control; the bad news is that one person lost their life and hundreds of homes and buildings were destroyed:

More than 400 homes and 920 livestock facilities were confirmed to have been burned in a devastating forest fire that raged through east coastal regions this past week, government data showed Sunday, as more damage has been discovered after the blaze was brought under control.
The fire, which started Thursday night in the county of Goseong, about 160 kilometers northeast of Seoul, spread quickly to neighboring cities and counties, reducing forests about 742 times the size of a soccer field to ashes.
One person was killed in the blaze, one of the biggest wildfires in South Korea.
According to the government’s anti-disaster office, the human casualties remain the same, but more property damage has been identified.
So far, a total of 401 homes, 925 livestock facilities, 77 warehouses and 100 buildings have been confirmed to have been burned. In addition, 241 agricultural machines and 15 cars were also lost in the fire, according to the office.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I am really not surprised at all by this decline, it was actually very predictable considering his economic and North Korea policies had little chance of ever working:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has hit the lowest level of his presidency while his disapproval rating reached its highest point, according to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday.

According to the weekly poll, Moon’s approval rating was 41 percent and 49 percent gave negative responses to Moon’s performance. 

Moon’s approval rating, which skyrocketed in his early months of the presidency, has now dropped to the level of the share of votes he won in the presidential election two years ago. Moon has lost additional supporters, mostly moderates, that he had attracted since he first took office.

Moon started his presidency in May 2017 with an over 80 percent approval rating and maintained strong figures throughout his first year. In May 2018, shortly after Moon’s first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, his approval rating was 83 percent, according to Gallup Korea.

Joong Ang Ilbo

Keep in mind that President Moon’s approval rating dropped to 41% even though he forcibly took control of most of the major media in South Korea and has been imprisoning opposition journalists.