This Korean family is lucky their child did not drown:
A family visiting Hawaii from South Korea is grateful for the good Samaritans who helped rescue their young son from waters on Oahu’s North Shore.
Cell phone video taken Sunday just after 5:30 p.m. shows 8-year-old Ryon Kim playing in the whitewash near shore at Sunset Beach. His younger brother plays nearby. Their grandfather can be seen gesturing to Ryon, though he does not appear to realize the danger the boy is in.
Ryon attempts to leave the water, but a retreating wave knocks him over and sucks him out into the ocean. His grandfather and mother struggle to reach him and that’s when several people can be seen running in to help, including Ewa Beach native Christopher Tuncap.
“The minute I saw the second wave come, that’s when I got up and I started sprinting,” said Tuncap. [Hawaii News Now]
You can read the rest at the link plus view the cell phone video, but Oahu’s North Shore is infamous for its large waves during the winter months and is not an area for little kids to be splashing around in.
For those that have visited the Yushukan Museum located adjacent to the highly controversial Yasukuni-jinja Shrine, there is definitely an alternative history of World War II taught in Japan. The majority of people in Japan do believe that the Imperial Japanese militarism was a great folly, but there are people who believe the history taught at the Yushukan Museum that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was to preempt an American attack on Japan and liberate Asian people from western colonialism:
World War II era Japanese zero fighter aircraft at the Yushukan Museum in Tokyo.
The Pearl Harbor attack that led the United States into WWII is normally a historical footnote in Japan, rarely discussed on anniversaries or in depth at schools.
That changed when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would visit Pearl Harbor with President Barack Obama on Dec. 27 to offer “comfort to the souls of the victims.”
Most Japanese today view the war as a great folly. The clause in Japan’s constitution that renounces the nation’s right to wage war has taken root so deeply that even new, restrictive laws allowing Japan to defend its allies were viewed with suspicion last year.
However, some divergent perspectives over history remain among two of the world’s closest allies.
Americans are taught that the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked sneak attack.
The view among some Japanese, and particularly among some otherwise pro-U.S. alliance conservatives, is that a Western economic embargo forced Japan’s hand.
By 1941, Japan controlled large parts of China and other parts of Asia. In July, its military occupied parts of Southeast Asia, including a key port in what is now Vietnam.
The U.S., Britain and The Netherlands responded by freezing Japanese assets in their countries, which included access to most of Japan’s oil supply.
“Indeed, the oil embargo cornered Japan,” Emperor Hirohito said in an audio memoir recorded shortly after the 1945 surrender. The memoir was found in 1990 by the Bungei Shunju magazine and then translated by The New York Times.
“Once the situation had come to this point, it was natural that advocacy for going to war became predominant,” Hirohito said. “If, at that time, I suppressed opinions in favor of war, public opinion would have certainly surged, with people asking questions about why Japan should surrender so easily when it had a highly efficient army and navy, well trained over the years.” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but the best book I have read about the period before the attack on Pearl Harbor is Eri Hotta’s: Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy. I highly recommend ROK Heads read this book to really understand why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had opportunities to keep parts of their Chinese and Korean colonies if they would withdraw from other areas of China and Southeast Asia as demanded by the US and its allies. How different would things be today if Japan had been allowed to continue the colonization of Korea and parts of China?
There was actually a lot of dissenting opinions in Japan, but the militarists eventually were able to convince enough people they could replicate the success of the Russo-Japanese War with a decisive naval victory against the US at Pearl Harbor. As history has shown the bombing of Pearl Harbor became one of the great misjudgments in military history.
Regardless of the history involved it is good to see Prime Minister Abe finally make the visit to Pearl Harbor and hopefully put an end to any remaining hard feelings about World War II.
U.S. Pacific Command Commander Adm. Harry Harris says those who served during the attack on Pearl Harbor never failed to stand for the national anthem.
His remarks at today’s ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack generated a lengthy standing ovation from the crowd, with people whistling and hooting. Thousands gathered for the event, held on a pier across the harbor from where the USS Arizona sank during the 1941 attack.
“You can bet that the men and women we honor today — and those who died that fateful morning 75 years ago — never took a knee and never failed to stand whenever they heard our national anthem being played,” Harris said to nearly a minute of clapping, whistles and whoops.
“Hearing the words ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ means something special for every American, every day,” Harris added. “But today, on Dec. 7th, it takes on extraordinary significance, as we’re joined here in this hallowed place by World War II veterans and survivors of the attacks on military bases all across Oahu, including right here at Pearl Harbor.”
In recent months, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others have knelt through the national anthem to protest police brutality and the treatment of minorities, drawing criticism and acclaim alike. Athletes from many sports, from youth to professional levels, have followed Kaepernick’s lead.
Reached later, Pacific Command spokesman Robert Shuford said Harris’ comments “speak for themselves.” [Star Advertiser]
Fortunately the article that sparked the controversy was just a Chinese style Onion click bait site which I am not going to provide a link to. However, it shows the ridiculousness of China’s recent territorial claims that people were actually taking it seriously for a while:
Even though the map and article were someone’s attempt at a little fun, there is a larger point. China’s use of maps, passports and other mapfare-style methods of pushing a narrative of rightful territorial claims whether over Taiwan or the 9 or actually 10-dash-line in the South China Sea and others areas has been part of Beijing’s toolkit for sometime now. The fact that none of us at the conference were shocked speaks volumes to the now ingrained perception of China on the international stage as a power bent on changing the status-quo—no matter what the cost. A reputation as some sort of rogue state is a tough thing in international politics to change—and it’s something Beijing should bare in mind. [National Interest]
It looks like an area of the UCMJ that will need to be updated is to include same-sex prostitution as a crime. This reminds of the Air Force colonel trying to get his adultery charges dropped because the UCMJ does not include same-sex adultery as a crime:
An Army medic charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of his wife was sentenced Saturday in military court to 27 months in federal prison and a dishonorable discharge for possession of child pornography and soliciting others to engage in sex for money.
Sgt. Michael Walker, who was assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center, pleaded guilty Saturday to three counts of solicitation and not guilty to one count of possession of child pornography before a military judge at Wheeler Army Airfield’s courtroom. (…………)
Walker, who has been in the military for 12 years, was charged with solicitation instead of prostitution because the Uniform Code of Military Justice, under which Walker was found guilty, defines prostitution as between a man and a woman.
In his court-martial, Walker admitted to placing two ads in September 2014, seeking people to have sex with in exchange for money. He said in the ads that he was looking for “generous men to spend time with” or “looking to have some fun.”
In court, he said, “My purpose was to find people to have sex with and at the same time to give me money.”
Walker said he met with three men that fall and had sex with them for money on multiple occasions. He said one man paid him $400 for an encounter. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read much more at the link, but this guy still faces even more time in jail when his murder trial comes up.
The crew members of South Korea’s Aegis-equipped destroyer, the King Sejong the Great, pose aboard the decommissioned USS Missouri in Hawaii on June 17, 2016. The battleship participated in World War II and the Korean War (1950-53). The South Korean Navy dispatched the destroyer to join the U.S.-led multilateral maritime warfare exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) set to be held from June 30 to Aug. 4. (Yonhap)
This murder case in Hawaii has just gotten a whole lot weirder. Obviously this NCO has some serious sexual issues if he is having affairs, watching child porn and prostituting himself to other men:
An Army medic charged with conspiring with his lover to kill his wife in Hawaii will be court-martialed for child pornography and prostitution charges that surfaced while investigating the killing.
Sgt. Michael Walker’s general court-martial is set for June 20 and June 21 at Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu, said Jim Guzior, spokesman for Tripler Army Medical Center, where Walker has been assigned since 2013. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for next week.
Walker has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in civilian court in the killing of Catherine Walker, who was found stabbed to death in November 2014 in the military housing the couple shared in Honolulu.
Army prosecutors revealed new allegations during a military judicial hearing in March, where they said Michael Walker is accused of possessing and viewing child pornography and receiving money in exchange for sex with men. [Stars & Stripes]
Some people should not be allowed to board a airplane. This story makes me wonder if alcohol was in any way involved or if he is just an old guy with mental issues?:
A Japan-bound airplane returned to Hawaii because of a violent passenger who wanted to do yoga instead of sit in his seat, the FBI said.
The pilot of the March 26 United Airlines flight from Honolulu International Airport to Narita International Airport turned the plane around after hearing that Hyongtae Pae was yelling at crew members and shoving his wife, the FBI said in a criminal complaint.
Pae told the FBI he didn’t want to sit in his seat during the meal service, so he went to the back of the plane to do yoga and meditate. He became angry when his wife and flight attendants told him to return to his seat. “Pae pushed his wife because she was trying to make him stop,” the complaint said. “He felt that she was siding with the flight crew.”
He tried to head-butt and bite Marines who were passengers on the flight and tried to force him back to his seat, Assistant U.S. Attorney Darren Ching said at Pae’s detention hearing Wednesday.
According to the complaint, he threatened to kill passengers and was yelling that there is no god.
Pae went into a rage because he felt the flight crew was ordering him around, Ching said.
Ching said Pae shouldn’t be released because he’s a danger to his wife, himself and others. Pae urinated on himself and was on suicide watch at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center, Ching said. [Associated Press]
I would not be surprised if in the next few years garrison commanders don’t start implementing this on their installations with or without a state law in effect:
Beginning New Year’s Day, military installations throughout Hawaii will prohibit anyone under age 21 from buying or using tobacco.
The new rules by the Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force coincide with a similar measure passed by the Hawaii legislature in June that takes effect Friday.
Hawaii is the first state to institute an under-21 ban on tobacco sales and possession, which also includes so-called e-cigarettes, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. More than 100 U.S. municipalities have raised the minimum age for tobacco sales to 21, with California considering a state-wide ban.
Military installations don’t always follow state law on such matters. Even though Washington and Colorado have legalized recreational use of marijuana, servicemembers are not allowed to use the drug in those states.
The Navy’s ban does not apply to personnel or transactions while aboard U.S. naval vessels because they fall under federal laws. Tobacco is sold aboard some ships. The Navy banned smoking in submarines at the end of 2010, but talk last year of a fleet-wide ban met resistance from some members of Congress. [Stars & Stripes]
