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.
So did any ROK Heads see this pier being built last month?:
A Trident Pier supports Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore 2015. CJLOTS is an exercise designed to train U.S. and Republic of Korea service members to accomplish vital logistical measures in a strategic area while strengthening communication and cooperation in the U.S.-Republic of Korea Alliance.About 17,000 U.S. service members — including Marines, sailors and soldiers of the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary)’s 10th and 11th Transportation Battalions from Fort Eustis — deployed to Korea last month to build the world’s longest floating pier.
The Republic of Korea Army also participated in the exercise called Combined Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore, which allows the services to transfer cargo from the sea to shore. Essentially, a temporary pier is fixed to a barge off the coast connecting it to shore, so supplies including troops and equipment can be driven across the floating dock. This is one of the 7th brigade’s key functions.
The training lasted two months from May to July near Amyeon Beach on the western shore of Korea, and it was one for the record books, according to a statement from Fort Eustis. The pier the soldiers built measured 560 meters, or about one-third of a mile. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link.
All you keyboard warriors in Korea have fun the next two weeks:
The U.S. and South Korea quietly kicked off their annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise Monday, despite protests and warnings from North Korea.
The annual computer simulation drill is scheduled to run through Aug. 28, with about 50,000 South Korean and 30,000 U.S. troops taking part, according to South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense.
Combined Forces Command described UFG as “a routine and defense-oriented exercise designed to enhance CFC readiness, protect the region and maintain stability on the Korean peninsula.” The exercise is planned months in advance and is not connected to real-world events, it said. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link.
1967 is when the first US-South Korea Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was signed which handed over legal jurisdiction of crimes committed by US troops while off duty to the Korean authorities. The most serious case that was first tried in a Korean court involving a US servicemember was the 1967 murder of Chun-ja Kim by Private Eugene D. Taylor. Taylor was a cook assigned to Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry DIvision. Taylor was just days away from completing his tour of duty in Korea when he arrested for the murder of his Korean girlfriend on November 5, 1967.
From the November 27, 1967 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Before redeploying to the US, Pvt. Taylor decided to go on a drunken bender at his girlfriend’s residence. For some reason during his drunken bender he decided to strangle and kill his Korean girlfriend, Chun-ja Kim that he supposedly had plans to return to Korea to marry. He committed this murder two days before redeploying to the US. This just shows that even back in the 1960’s soldiers at high risk of getting in trouble are those within 30 days of going home. It also shows that the old Korean complaint of GIs committing crimes in Korea and then getting away with them by flying back to the US was also not true back then.
From the February 8, 1968 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
The landlord of the home that Ms. Kim lived at discovered the body in the morning along with Taylor bleeding with a neck wound. He claims that when he woke up and discovered Kim’s dead body that he tried to commit suicide by slashing his neck with a piece of broken glass. It appears he was drunk enough to kill someone else, but not drunk enough to kill himself.
From the March 7, 1968 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Ultimately Pvt Taylor was convicted of the murder of Ms. Kim and sentenced to 8 years in a Korean prison. It seems like a pretty lenient sentence, but the Korean court took into consideration the mitigating circumstances of him being a soldier deployed to defend Korea and the fact he was drunk. So being drunk back in the 60’s was considered a mitigating circumstance just like it is today in Korean courts.
From the April 11, 1968 edition of the Stars & Stripes.
Taylor’s crime is now long forgotten in the dustbins of USFK history, but he does have the dubious distinction of being the first American servicemember convicted and sentenced for murder in a South Korean court. This case shows that US servicemembers were held accountable for the crimes in Korean courts back then and continue to be held accountable today.
Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link:
U.S. and ROK forces to hold unscheduled live-fire drills near North Korean border after DMZ ambush HT @ISNJH @140DPRK http://t.co/1ZJ4FYz558
— Andrew NK (@northkoreafront) August 12, 2015
Gen. Curtis Scaparroti (L), the new commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, along with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Choi Yoon-hee (C), comforts Ssg. Kim Jung-won at the Army’s hospital in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, on Aug. 12, 2015, in this photo released by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kim is one of the two South Korean staff sergeants who were seriously injured on Aug. 4 as they stepped on three wooden-box land mines on the southern side of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. South Korea has accused North Korea of intentionally burying the mines. (Yonhap)
