Tag: USFK

That is what the popular Air Force blog JQ Public believes:

Last year, commanders at Osan Air Base in Korea decided to install high-definition, 24/7 surveillance cameras in the common areas of dormitories housing some 3,000 airmen. The rationale stated at the time was, generically, the safety of those airmen. Not litigated at the time was whether the cost of the new capability would be offset by the marginal gain in safety, but such debates are rarely entertained in such an authoritarian system. Ideas are presumed valid, good, and lawful the instant they gain command sponsorship.

Fast forward a year and the system has predictably loosed from its “safety” moorings and morphed into a tool for the control and criminalization of the base’s junior airmen. Over the past few weeks, we’ve received several reports that commanders are not using video footage merely to aid in criminal investigations after a report of wrongdoing, but are proactively reviewing all footage to scan for unreported wrongdoing.

For many, the new policy feels like pre-emptive criminalization — demonstrating that the chain of command is not genuinely concerned about safety or well-being so much as it cares about nailing airmen for innocuous or minor transgressions that would normally fall well below the threshold of official notice.  [JQ Public Blog]

You can read much more at the link and it is an interesting debate.  However, overall I like the cameras in regards to being a tool that can be used to collect evidence if a crime in the dorms was to occur.  However, I don’t think the cameras should be used as a substitute for leadership presence in the dorms.  Instead reviewing hours of video tape leaders should instead be walking in the dorms and communicating with their troops instead.

This is actually pretty applicable training these helicopter crews are doing that could be used not only in wartime, but during disaster response missions as well:

If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, it could be waged in and around thousands of high-rise apartment blocks that fill valleys south of the Demilitarized Zone.

Aware of the challenging environment, the Army has acquired its own high-rise facility at Rodriguez Live Fire Range — a training area near the DMZ — where troops can hone their urban combat skills.

Medics participating in Foal Eagle exercises, underway this month in South Korea, gathered on the roof of the seven-story building Wednesday to learn how to hoist casualties onto a hovering Black Hawk helicopter.

Buffeted by wind from the aircraft’s rotors, the medics took turns strapping into a yellow “jungle penetrator” — a heavy device designed to be dropped through jungle canopy to troops on the ground — and riding the hoist up to the Black Hawk and back down to the roof.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

This has been an ongoing complaint for troops deployed in Korea, but I don’t see this decision changing considering the fiscally constrained environment the Army finds itself in:

 Efforts to encourage U.S. soldiers to eat at on-base dining facilities haven’t gone down well with some hungry troops, who say they’d rather spend subsistence allowances at fast-food joints or off-base restaurants.

A new Army policy called Essential Unit Messing — which went into effect Feb. 1 — requires soldiers deployed with rotational units on the peninsula to eat at the dining facilities or pay out of pocket for food.

Under the policy, the Army deducts meal costs from a subsistence allowance that troops used to be free to spend wherever they liked, Army spokesman Paul Prince told the Army Times.

Despite the change, several dozen soldiers, including some from the 1st “Ironhorse” Armored Brigade Combat Team, were eating lunch Wednesday at Camp Casey’s food court. The Fort Hood, Texas-based unit is there on a nine-month rotational deployment.

Spc. Dartanian Pina, 21, of Rio Rancho, N.M., said he quickly tired of dining facility food and prefers to go off base, paying out of pocket for local fare such as bulgogi (beef stew).

“It’s better than the DFAC (dining facility),” said Pina, adding that he liked the freedom of the old system.

Adding insult to injury, some have complained the dining facilities weren’t giving them enough to eat.

Amanda Ramirez, of Killeen, Texas, whose husband, Steve, is a sergeant serving with the Ironhorse brigade, posted photos online showing the small food portions that soldiers from the unit were getting at dining facilities last month.

“I cannot form a well-written response as to how mad I am right now,” Ramirez said on her Facebook page above the pictures of fairly small portions of chicken, eggs and potatoes. [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

For old 2ID personnel like myself, it still seems weird to hear about an elementary school on Camp Casey.  After only six years of operation the school is closing this summer:

Camp Casey’s elementary school and child development center will close this summer as U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula relocate to Camp Humphreys.

An Installation Management Command memo, dated Jan. 28 and addressed to the parents of children stationed at U.S. facilities north of Seoul, says Camp Casey Elementary School will close in June and Child and Youth Services will end at the base July 1.

“In accordance with the 2002 Land Partnership Plan (amended in 2004), Area I is reducing in U.S. population and bases,” Col. Jack Haefner, U.S. Army Garrison Camp Red Cloud and Area I commander, said in the memo.

Camp Casey’s Department of Defense Education Activity school opened in 2010 with an enrollment of about 250 as part of U.S. Forces Korea’s plan to increase the number of command-sponsored slots on the peninsula. A new wing opened in 2011, nearly doubling the K-8 school’s capacity. However, enrollment has declined over the past year. [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

The man behind the “Pacific Pathways” program which has seen the US Army expand operations throughout the Pacific region has been selected to be the next USFK commander:

Carter also has named Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, if confirmed by the Senate, to be commander of U.S. Forces Korea. Brooks now is commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, Pacom’s Army component.

The command has administrative control over all U.S. Army forces in the Pacom area of responsibility and provides forces and performs theater security programs with 36 countries from the Asia-Pacific regions of Alaska, Japan and Korea.

Carter said U.S. Forces Korea “is part of U.S. Pacific Command, but is a major political military command, a place where we need our very best, and Vince is that, and also an officer with tremendous operational and managerial experience.”  [Defense.gov]

You can read the rest at the link.

It looks like South Korea is going to see some troops wearing the 82nd Airborne patch starting this summer:

About 400 U.S. troops will deploy to South Korea later this summer to help deter North Korean aggression, the Department of the Army announced Sunday.

The troops with the 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division will make a rotational deployment to the Asian ally, the department said in a statement.

“Our Soldiers and units are skilled, tough and stand ready around the clock to defend America. They are ready … to deter North Korean aggression,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, said in the statement.

Col. Erik Gilbert, commander of the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, said that the squadron is an “exceptionally well-led and highly trained unit with very talented and adaptable troopers, which represent both the last and also the very best of the U.S. Army Kiowa Warrior Squadrons.”

“I know they are ready for any contingency and am confident they will be a superb addition to U.S. Forces assigned to the defense of South Korea, particularly at this time of heightened tensions,” he said.   [Yonhap]

A U.S. Army Stryker armored personnel carrier (L) and a South Korean Army K-200 armored vehicle mobilize as soldiers of the two allies take part in a street combat drill at the Rodriguez complex in the city of Pocheon, northeast of Seoul, on March 15, 2016. (Yonhap) (END)

Current USFK Commander General Scaparrotti is very close to doing something that few USFK commanders have done before, be forced into retirement:

When U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti takes up the job of NATO Supreme Allied Commander in the months ahead, he won’t be facing the tranquil European security scene that greeted his most recent predecessors, who walked into the job trying to make a friend of Russia.

If confirmed, Scaparrotti will take his seat at the old desk of Dwight D. Eisenhower with a European mission transformed: Cold War-style tensions with Russia, a refugee crisis threatening Europe’s political order and a NATO alliance still trying to adapt.

On Friday, the White House nominated Scaparrotti as the next chief of European Command and SACEUR.

“His experience as a commander at every echelon while facing incredibly demanding security challenges in our country’s hottest spots give him the experience and skills needed for Europe and our nation at this time,” current EUCOM chief Gen. Philip Breedlove said in a statement. “’Scap’ is a superb match for the security situation in Europe as it is rapidly evolving and becoming more complex.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but General Scaparrotti next just needs the Senate to approve the nomination which I would be very surprised if anyone tries to block it.

Of note is that ROKHead extraordinaire, @JoeC, did the research and determined that the last USFK commander to receive a follow-on assignment was John Wickham, who went on to become Army Chief of Staff from 83-87. His predecessor, John Vessey was given Army Vice Chief of Staff from 79-82, then became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 82-85.  The only USFK commander given a follow-on job as regional commander was Dwight Beach as commander US Army Pacific from 66-88. Scaparrotti will be the second to get a follow-on regional command.  To complete the list, the first USFK commander. George Decker left USFK to become Army Vice Chief of Staff from 59-60 and Army Chief of Staff from 60-62.

Via a reader tip comes this article stating that US and ROK forces are possibly exercising beheading strikes against the Kim regime during the current Foal Eagle/Key Resolve exercise:

Massive joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are a spring ritual on the Korean Peninsula guaranteed to draw a lot of threat-laced venom from Pyongyang. This time, not only are the war games the biggest ever, but the troops now massed south of the Demilitarized Zone have reportedly incorporated a new hypothetical into their training: a “beheading mission” against Kim Jong Un himself.

It’s the kind of option military planners tend to consider but almost never use. Neither the U.S. military nor South Korea’s defense ministry has actually said it is part of the Key Resolve-Foal Eagle exercises that began this week and will go on for about two months.

But Pyongyang, already feeling the squeeze of new sanctions over its recent nuclear test and rocket launch, is taking a plethora of “beheading mission” reports from the South Korean media very seriously. That goes a long way toward explaining why its own rhetoric has ratcheted up a decibel — even by its own standards of bellicosity. It could also explain some subtle rejiggering afoot in the North’s military strategy.  [Business Insider]

You can read the rest at the link.

Over the next few weeks there will be more military traffic and personnel in South Korea as part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises that begin this week:

South Korea and the United States will launch their largest-ever joint exercise this week to warn North Korea against further provocations, a South Korean military official said Sunday.

The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises running from Monday through April 30 will be the largest in scale since Pyongyang’s torpedo attack on the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010, which is what triggered these annual drills, the official said on the condition of anonymity.

This year’s exercise will involve more than 300,000 South Korean and 15,000 U.S. troops and simulate previously unattempted strategies.

The Key Resolve portion of the exercise will include OPLAN 5015, which aims to remove the North’s weapons of mass destruction and prepare the allied troops for a pre-emptive strike in the event of a North Korean attack.

“The OPLAN 5015 was included in the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) exercise last year, but this is the first time for it to be carried out in a Key Resolve exercise,” another South Korean military official said.   [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.