Tag: USFK

I wonder if the Korean National Police requested this or is something USFK has been pushing to do?  Regardless I am always uneasy with pushing personnel in uniform to patrol Korean neighborhoods, especially a college district.  It just helps to legitimize all the leftist propaganda in South Korea about USFK being an occupying force:

U.S. Forces Korea and Seoul police began joint patrols of the popular Hongdae neighborhood over the Halloween weekend and will continue them through the end of the year, officials said Wednesday.

Although Seoul police haven’t released reports of significant incidents involving USFK personnel recently, Hongdae has been the scene of multiple, high-profile arrests over the past decade.

The neighborhood includes a large college student population and several bars and clubs.

Most personnel in South Korea are law-abiding, but such patrols are an additional prevention measure against misconduct, USFK officials said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

This report makes it sound like the US and the ROK will just wake up one day and decide to launch a preemptive attack against North Korea.  The reality is that this “4D” concept would likely happen in response to a North Korean provocation to where there is clear intent to launch missiles against the ROK and the US:

The new operational concept jointly adopted by South Korea and the United States to destroy North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities is expected to prompt the North to launch fresh provocations, sources said Tuesday.

The allies approved the implementation guidance on the “4D Operational Concept” during the annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held in Seoul, Monday, as a means to carry out preemptive strikes against the North’s missile threats, containing nuclear, chemical and biological warheads.

The guidance, which is designed to detect, disrupt, destroy and defend — the 4 “D’s” — has the major implication that the allies have revived the concept of preemptive strikes against the North’s strategic facilities. A ministry official noted on condition of anonymity that “disrupt and destroy” contains the connotation of preemptive strikes.

In an apparent response to the allies’ endorsement of the new operational concept, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed a live-fire exercise for anti-aircraft artillery.

Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA: “We should actively push for the development of a variety of advanced anti-aircraft guns that meet the requirements of modern warfare.”

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told reporters, “The report came right after South Korea and the U.S. approved the 4D Operational Concept. It seems the North had the intention to respond to the allies’ cooperation.”

Officials said Seoul and Washington have prepared the guidance since 2013 while having experienced various provocations from Pyongyang including a third nuclear test in February that year and the test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in May this year.

The preparation comes at a time when the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the North remain stalled since late 2008, due to the insistence by the North that it should join the talks with the status of a nuclear power and without any conditions attached.

The guidance will reportedly be reflected in a new joint wartime operational plan between the allies, dubbed Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5015, focused on preemptive strikes on strategic sites in the North. The allies signed OPLAN 5015 in June to replace the existing OPLAN 5027, which was more about how to defend the South. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

A united group of villagers scuffles with police in front of the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, a U.S. military firing range, in Pocheon, north of Seoul, on Oct. 28, 2015, as they attempt to storm the range in protest of stray bullets from the range. The range, about 24 kilometers south of the tensely guarded Demilitarized Zone, has been a source of grievances for the residents of neighboring towns following a series of ricochets that have come out of the firing range and landed in residential areas. (Yonhap)

US and ROK military forces need live fire training to maintain readiness and there is no where in Korea to do this as well as Rodriguez Range.  I look at this as I would an airport.  People need airports just like the military needs a live fire range.  Should airports be closed as well because of noise and the remote chance of a crash?  How come I have the feeling this has a lot to do with money?

A united group of villagers set fire to bundles of straw near the U.S. military firing range in Pocheon on Wednesday in protest against stray bullets from the range.

The Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, about 24 kilometers south of the tensely-guarded demilitarized zone, has been a source of grievances to the residents of neighboring towns following a series of ricochets that have come out of the firing range and landed on residential areas.

Most recently in October, a 105-millimeter anti-tank shell flew from the shooting range before ricocheting off a house in a neighborhood and landed on a farm.

Earlier that month, a practice projectile was found in a pine field following three similar cases of ricochets in proceeding months.

“Day and night, the sounds of firing never cease in Pocheon, the home to dozens of military bases, camps, a military airfield, ammunition dumps and the Eighth U.S. Army’s Youngpyoung (Rodriguez) firing range as well as the South Korean Army’s ranges,” the villagers’ committee on the ricochet issue said in protest.

The residents near the range started to desert their hometown in fear of stray bullets, they claimed in the protest rally near the U.S. military range.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea commander provides a lecture on leadership to United States Military Academy cadets during a Comparative Politics class Oct. 19.  [USFK Facebook]

YONGSAN GARRISON, Republic of Korea – Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea commander and Col. Yancey S. Cowen, Assistant Chief of Staff J1, present Ms. Yi, Chi Yong a community relations specialist with the Korean Service Corps Employee of the Year award during the 2015 USFK Civilian Employees of the Year award ceremony October 8, 2015 at the Dragon Hill Lodge. (Photo by CPL Choi, Woo Hyuk, USFK Public Affairs)

Finally someone confronted Donald Trump on the false claims he has been making that the South Koreans pay the US nothing for assisting with their defense.  Unfortunately Trump was allowed to now claim the South Koreans pay peanuts which is not true.  The ROK has historically been paying anywhere between 43% – 47% of the cost of the US-ROK alliance.  This year the ROK is paying $861 million which is not peanuts.  Like I have always said, if someone wants to have an argument that the ROK should be paying more, that is a valid argument, but to claim they pay nothing or now pay peanuts is not accurate.  However, Mr. Trump likely knows this, but is just making a political argument that sounds good to uninformed voters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDLKsY1UkzQ&t=34m33s

It is good this guy was caught and sentenced, but how stupid and gullible are the victims to fall for this scam?:

A former Camp Stanley employee has been sentenced to five years in prison for fraud and related charges after selling nonexistent base jobs to more than two dozen South Koreans.

The employee, surnamed Gang, worked more than 20 years in the Uijeongbu-area base, most recently as an ambulance driver, before being fired in March over the allegations.

Gang used a U.S. soldier who was unaware of the scam to interview Koreans by phone to test their English, South Korean police said. More than 30 victims paid him a total of $750,000 for the fake jobs over six and a half years, according to sentencing documents from the Anyang branch of the Suwon District Court.

Gang was also convicted of counterfeiting documents and circulating forged documents. He wrote 11 false letters of employment, using a computer at a U.S. military medical facility in Uijeongbu to produce at least one of the letters.

Among his victims was a woman who paid Gang 25 million won (almost $21,500) in 2013, believing she was securing a civilian job for her son with U.S. Forces Korea. Another woman, police said, paid Gang 100 million won (about $86,000) for administrative jobs for her husband, son and daughter. Gang promised some of his victims he would pay the human resources manager at an Army hospital, and their jobs would be guaranteed until retirement at age 68.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

A comment I recently received discussed a helicopter crash that occurred back in 1973 at Camp Page.  What was strange about this helicopter crash was that it involved family members of the pilot.  Digging through the Stars & Stripes archives I was able to locate the details about this crash.  The crash happened on April 7, 1973 when the pilot of the UH-1 Huey helicopter from the 55th Aviation Company crashed into the Han River near Camp Page:

The above article is from the July 12, 173 edition of the Stars & Stripes newspaper.

Inside of the helicopter was the pilot, his wife and son, and two soldiers.  Tragically the pilot’s 18 month old son died in the crash along with one of the soldier crew members.  The two bodies were recovered by two USFK personnel who happened to be scuba certified.  Talk about a horrible tasking to be stuck with:

The above article is from the April 11, 1973 edition of the Stars & Stripes newspaper.

The pilot who survived the crash would go on to be medically retired and wrote a book about his helicopter flying experiences in Vietnam.  He then became an ordained minister and currently lives in Nebraska with his wife that survived the helicopter crash.  I could not find anything that said what caused the crash, but regardless a pretty sad story that fortunately the pilot and his wife were able to rebound from the loss of their son.

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

The strategic messaging to the Kim regime in North Korea continues:

South Korea and the United States performed a joint war simulation on Friday involving live-fire bombings and flights of combat jets in the latest show of joint force against North Korea.

The allies mobilized the biggest-ever number of troops, artillery pieces and military vehicles for this year’s Integrated Firepower Exercise 2015, marking the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule in 1945.

Under the scenarios of a local attack and all-out aggression by North Korea, the forces fired off K-55 and K-9 self-propelled guns, recoilless guns, and Vulcan automatic cannons at mock enemy camps in a remote drill field in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, near the border with North Korea.

A host of KF-16, F-15K and F-4 fighter jets were also flown to bombard mock enemy command facilities, with A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, tanks and machine guns spreading a barrage of shells and rockets.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.