So does anyone really think Yongsan Garrison will be completely turned into a park?:
A slide presented to Yongsan Garrison residents during a town-hall meeting at the South Post chapel Friday, Nov. 16, 2018, shows expected changes over the next two years.
Garrison commander Col. Monica Washington said the process of returning the land to the South Korean government isn’t likely to begin until July 2020 at the earliest.
“At that point then we think that we will be ready, of course if everything goes according to plan, to begin to look at some of the return, actually going through some of the returns process, which is actually going to take some time,” she told Stars and Stripes.
The next major milestone will be late next year when the Brian Allgood Community Hospital is due to close as its namesake hospital on Humphreys opens. That will trigger the closure of the commissary, the post exchange, the gas station and other facilities.
“There will be a … very minute footprint here on Yongsan, although we will still have families that we will have to support here,” Washington said in a recent interview in her office near a pedestrian overpass that crosses a busy thoroughfare that bisects the base.
She estimated it will take six or seven months to do the closure process, including moving equipment and turning off utilities, once most of the garrison is vacated in December 2019.
The military plans to maintain a small section for residual forces from the Combined Forces Command, USFK, the garrison and supporting agencies on the side of the base known as South Post. Dragon Hill Lodge, a resort-style military hotel, is planning to continue operations despite reports to the contrary. The U.S. Embassy also has residential housing in the area, although it will eventually build a new compound on a corner of the sub-base known as Camp Coiner. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but the ROK government is sticking with the idea of making a city park. I suspect a park will be built one day over the old Yongsan Garrison, but it will be a smaller park the initially envisioned. The rest of the land I would not be surprised is developed for other purposes around the smaller park.
My theory on the current US-ROK cost sharing negotiations is that this will ultimately be tied to a successful second Trump-Kim summit and US dropping sanctions on North Korea. If the Trump administration drops sanctions I suspect that the Moon administration will cut a favorable US-ROK cost sharing deal to pay back President Trump. If sanctions are not dropped the Moon administration will likely continue to play hardball on this issue:
South Korea and the United States failed to reach a deal on sharing the cost of American troops stationed on the peninsula in formal negotiations last week, a government official here said Monday.
Senior diplomats of the two sides had three-day talks on the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) to set the amount of Seoul’s financial contributions for the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was the ninth round of bargaining, as the existing accord, which took effect in 2014, is to expire at the end of this year.
“There was some progress, but no final agreement was reached,” the foreign ministry official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
Differences remain over how much Seoul will pay and some other issues, although the work to draw up a joint statement moved forward in general, he added. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link and draw your own conclusions.
Three South Korean companies have agreed to plead guilty and pay some $236 million in criminal and civil penalties for a “decade-long bid rigging conspiracy” involving contracts to supply fuel to U.S. military bases on the peninsula, the Justice Department said.
The companies — SK Energy Co. Ltd., GS Caltex Corp., and Hanjin Transportation Co. Ltd. — also agreed to pay a total of about $154 million to the United States for antitrust and false claims violations in separate civil claims, according to a statement.
The Justice Department said the criminal charges were the first to be announced in the investigation, which involved allegations that the petroleum and refinery companies and their agents conspired “to suppress and eliminate competition” during the bidding process for contracts from 2005 to 2016.
“Such a conspiracy is no less illegal for being hatched in South Korea, and as this case shows, federal law enforcement authorities can bridge the distance,” said Benjamin Glassman, U.S. attorney of the southern district of Ohio. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but does anyone think this is the only big rigging going on for USFK contracts?
One more thing shutting down further signaling the imminent closure of Yongsan Garrison:
U.S. elementary, middle and high schools on Yongsan will close at the end of this school year as the military population shifts to its new headquarters south of Seoul, officials said Friday.
Seoul American Elementary School and Seoul American Middle High School have been run for decades to serve the children of soldiers and others stationed in South Korea.
But Yongsan’s population has declined sharply as U.S. Forces Korea and the other commands moved to Camp Humphreys, which has its own schools, as part of a long-delayed relocation plan.
“The decision and request by the command to no longer operate schools in Seoul is based on the pace and requirements of the Yongsan transformation efforts,” the military said in a press release. [Stars & Stripes]
I have been saying this for quite some time now, expect every petty USFK crime to now receive attention from the Korean media:
Two United States Forces Korea soldiers were caught stealing clothes from a shop in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, police said Saturday.
They entered the shop at 11 p.m. Friday, and fled with a jacket priced at 60,000 won ($54), according to Gwangju Dongbu Police Station. Officers, called by the shop’s manager, traced the two and apprehended them.
The two suspects, from an air base in Gyeonggi Province, remained tight-lipped, refusing to answer questions from investigators.
Police are reviewing CCTV footage to help them in their investigation. [Korea Times]
This is not something that should make national news, but like we saw during the 2000-2008 timeframe every USFK petty crime made the news to help create the perception of out of control GI crime. It was common for Koreans to think USFK personnel could commit crimes and fly away back to the US. This caused protests and demands for SOFA revisions.
I long ago showed the problems with the anti-US activists complaints about the US-ROK SOFA and I am still awaiting for one person to point out an example of a crime committed by a GI off duty and the USFK refused to hand him over? The anti-US activists keep complaining about GI’s getting away with crimes and can’t point out a specific example of when this happened.
Gen. Robert Abrams (R), the new commander of U.S. Forces Korea, shakes hands with retired Gen. Paik Sun-yup, a Korean War hero, during a ceremony at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul on Nov. 9, 2018, to open an exhibition celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Seoul-Washington alliance. (Yonhap)
Condolences to Sergeant Aguon’s friends and family:
A 1st Armored Division soldier died after being found unconscious at a base in South Korea, the Army said Wednesday. The cause was under investigation.
Sgt. Marcos John Aguon, 28, was a cannon crew member with the Fort Bliss, Texas-based 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, which rotated to South Korea last month.
He was found unconscious at Camp Hovey and pronounced dead Sunday at Joongang St. Mary’s Hospital in the surrounding city of Dongducheon, which is near the border with North Korea. [Stars & Stripes]
Professor Sung-Yoon Lee at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University has an article published in the National Interest that hits many of the same theme I have shared on this site about any peace treaty signed with the DPRK:
Almost immediately in the wake of the signing of an end-of-war declaration, the UN Command, shorn of its mission to defend the peace in the peninsula, would be dismantled. Moreover, OPCON transfer, now envisioned to be completed by 2020, would defang and dismantle the Combined Forces Command. Why? Despite protestations to the contrary, no U.S. commander would submit his command over U.S. forces-the preeminent military in the world-to a foreign commander in the actual prosecution of war.
The joint communique of the recently concluded 50th U.S.-ROK Security Consultative Meeting (SMC) states that the two sides, following OPCON transfer, shall “maintain the current CFC structure” and that the post-OPCON transfer CFC shall “have an ROK four-star general as the Commander and a U.S. four-star general as the Deputy Commander” (Paragraph 9). It’s a proposition that sounds as credible as Richard Nixon’s promise to Park Chung-hee that no U.S. troops will be withdrawn just a year before the withdrawal of an entire division of twenty thousand soldiers.
A peace treaty between the United States and the DPRK, a long-held goal by North Korea, would call into question rationale for maintaining U.S. troops in South Korea. If and when such a treaty comes into effect, then the question “Why are the troops there, in South Korea, when the U.S. and North Korea have a peace treaty?” would be raised repeatedly by politicians and the public in Seoul and Washington, not to mention Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow.
Once the U.S. forces leave South Korea, the bilateral alliance will be that only in name. Beyond the loss of credible U.S. commitment to the defense of the ROK, the virtual abrogation of the alliance would leave some glaring holes in the ROK’s defense capabilities, for example: Surveillance-reconnaissance-signal intelligence capabilities, early warning and missile defense, counter-battery fire and sensitive military technology procurement abilities, just to name a few. [The National Interest]
Gen. Park Han-ki (L, back row in vehicle), chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Vincent Brooks (R, back row in vehicle), the outgoing commander of U.S. Forces Korea, review troops at a farewell ceremony for Brooks at the JCS headquarters in Seoul on Nov. 6, 2018. (Yonhap)
Here is a fun but unusual story about a unit mascot deployed to South Korea:
Maj. Shane Andrews operates on Pfc. Tank Chester, the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division mascot, at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018.
A Texas-based unit’s youngest and furriest soldier is breathing easier, literally, thanks to a Halloween-night surgery in South Korea.
Pfc. Tank Chester, a 7-month-old Victorian bulldog who serves as mascot for the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division “Bulldogs,” had his soft palate trimmed and nostrils widened at Camp Humphreys’ veterinary clinic to ease the airways for the member of the notoriously hard-breathing breed.
“He’s the face and symbol of who we are,” Cpl. Mitchell Duncan, Chester’s handler, said at the clinic Wednesday.
Chester, along with the rest of the Bulldog brigade, arrived in South Korea last month taking the reigns as the 2nd Infantry Division’s sole brigade combat team on the peninsula.
While technically an elective surgery, it’s a nearly necessary one for the active mascot, who like his predecessors is expected to ride shotgun with the unit’s command team in everything from helicopters to tanks as they inspect and boost morale to the brigade’s troops.
“With these English bulldogs… we’ve bred in the smoosh face, which looks really cool, however it comes with its own complications,” said Camp Humphreys veterinarian surgeon Capt. Sean Curry. “It’s really a struggle for them to breathe.”
Chester is the ninth of his name since the first was donated in 1940 by the British as a “token of appreciation,” Duncan said. He comes with a full complement of soldiering gear, including identification cards, a passport and a rank he’s still living up to.
“He’s a Pfc. for a reason — he’s got an attitude, he’s a little stubborn, and he still does things his way,” the 24-year-old from Redfield N.Y., said jokingly. “He’s your typical bulldog. He loves people; loves attention. His idea of fun is sitting on the couch and watching TV with you.” [Stars & Stripes]
