Tag: USFK

It is that time of the month again, USFK has released their monthly court martial results. It was actually a very slow month with only five court martial and four off post incidents handled in the Korean courts and none of them very serious. Just a lot of typical stupid stuff, but the two DUIs in the ROK court are bit of a concern because that makes six DUIs in four months for USFK. That is not a good trend.

Now these two servicemembers convicted in Korean court I just have to wonder what the heck they did:

In Incheon District Court on 10 July 2007, Major Brenda J. Suggars, HHC, EUSA, was
convicted of Trademark Law violations. Her adjudged sentence was a 1,000,000 Won
fine.

In Incheon District Court on 10 July 2007, Sergeant First Class Malanie N. English,
524th MI, was convicted of Trademark Law violations. Her adjudged sentence was a
500,000 Won fine.

Trademark violations? Korea even enforces trademark laws? I wonder if they were selling off pirated DVDs and games? This is the first time I seen USFK servicemembers convicted for trademark violations so this is a new one on me. I have to wonder how often Koreans get arrested for trademark violations because all you have to do is take a stroll down to the Yongsan Electronics Market to see all the counterfeit goods being pedaled out in the open.

Anyway you can view the rest of the results below the fold:

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Located just north of Seoul and about an hour south of Dongducheon, is the suburban city of Uijongbu:

Besides being nationally famous for serving the best budaechigae in the country the city is also home to soldiers of the Second Infantry Division. Below is a graphic of the locations of current and former USFK camps in Uijongbu:

Out of all of these camps only two remain operational today, Camp Red Cloud in the city’s northwest and Camp Stanley to the city’s southeast. All of the remaining camps have been closed since 2005 as part of USFK’s transformation program to reduce the force footprint in Korea. If you look at the map all of these camps used to be on the outskirts of the old city of Uijongbu. However, as Korea prospered economically so did Uijongbu and the camps were completely swallowed up by the surrounding city.

The urban density of Uijongbu played a part in the decision to reduce soldiers and consolidate camps in Uijongbu. After a number of these camps were closed down the anti-US groups started protesting that these camps were polluted wastelands that were a danger to the surrounding Korean community. During a recent visit to Uijongbu, I decided to see what the current status of the camps really is.

The first camp I started at was Camp Red Cloud:

Camp Red Cloud (CRC) is the home to the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Division and a few miscellaneous units associated with the division headquarters. Here is a picture of the camp from a nearby mountain:

The camp’s namesake is Corporal Mitchell Red Cloud, a Winnebago Indian from Wisconsin that was post-humanously awarded the Medal of Honor during the Korean War. The camp is quite nice and has a busy golf course that is usually over flowing with Korean golfers. Here is a picture of the division headquarters:

You can view more pictures of CRC at the below link:

• A Profile of Camp Red Cloud, Korea

From CRC I crossed the busy highway in front of the camp and walked down the road through the small “ville” in front of CRC and towards Camp La Guardia. The ville area in front of CRC is not really your typical soldier “ville” in Korea and is more of what you see in a typical Korean neighborhood. Camp La Guardia like many 2ID camps closed down in 2005. The camp is actually built around an old airstrip that originally gave the camp it’s name by being named after La Guardia Airport in New York. Before closing down, Camp La Guardia served as the home for an engineer bridging company because the runway provided plenty of room to park the large engineer equipment. The engineers are long gone and when I approached the front gate I noticed a ROK Army soldier guarding the gate. I asked him if I can take a picture of the camp from inside the gate and he would not let me. So I took this picture later on in the day from Cheonbosan Mountain that overlooks Uijongbu:

From La Guardia I walked down to the Uijongbu train station which sits adjacent to Camp Falling Water. Camp Falling Water used to serve as the home for the Department of Public Works (DPW). DPW is staffed with Korean workers that are responsible for maintenance operations on the USFK camps. Camp Falling Water is a very small camp, more like a collection of warehouses, that was closed down in 2005 as well.

From the train station I caught a bus to Camp Kyle that sits on the northeast side of the city. The camp is named after 2nd Lieutenant Darwin Kyle who was post-humanously awarded the Medal of Honor during the Korean War. This camp was also closed in 2005 and was home to a maintenance company and a quartermaster company when it closed. At the camp’s entrance I once again talked to a couple of ROK Army guards that told me I could not take pictures of the camp because it was Top Secret. For being some place so Top Secret it sure was easy to get a picture by walking over to the nearby pedestrian overpass and taking a picture of the camp from up there:

No that is not a massive oil slick on the camp as the anti-US groups would have you believe, but just water from an earlier rain shower. I did see some ROK Army trucks moving around the camp, but besides that no activity at all. From Camp Kyle I walked along the side of the camp and followed a trail that leads up Cheonbo Mountain behind the camp and took this overhead view of the camp:

Notice that some how all these green trees are some how growing on this polluted USFK camp. From up on the mountain I could also see Camp Essayons which lies on the western slope of the mountain:

Camp Essayons many years ago was once home to an engineer unit that named the camp after the Corps of Engineers motto of Essayons, which is French for “Let Us Try”. Camp Essayons was last home to a military intelligence battalion before the camp also closed down in 2005 as part of the USFK transformation.

From the very top of the mountain I could see Camp Stanley as well, that lies to the city’s southeast on the slopes of Mt. Surak:

Camp Stanley is named after Colonel Thomas Stanley who was killed in a vehicle accident in Italy in 1944 during World War II.

Camp Stanley is currently still open and is mainly a logistical base for the 2nd Infantry Division. Camp Stanley has actually escaped being surrounded by urban sprawl due to the fact that is located right next to a Korean prison and it’s adjacent rice paddies. The Korean prison is the building you see above with the blue roof. From Camp Stanley you can sometimes hear the prisoners singing songs and cadence from the prison. You can often see them working in the prison’s rice paddies as well. The picture below is of Camp Stanley as viewed from Surak Mountain:

Across the street from Camp Stanley you can see the rice paddies the prisoners work in that helps give the area a distinct aroma during the summer months. The quality of life on Camp Stanley greatly improved two years ago with the opening of the new PX on the camp:

Camp Stanley is also home to the only real soldier “ville” in Uijongbu where one can find the typical juicy bars, pawn shops, chicken on a stick shacks, counterfeit clothing stores, coin & plaque shops, and other typical staples of a “ville” in Korea:

You can read more about Camp Stanley at the below link:

• A Profile of Camp Stanley, South Korea

Finally, from Cheonbo Mountain I had a bird’s eye view over tiny Camp Sears:

Camp Sears was once home to a headquarters battery of a short-range air defense battalion. The Camp was named after Sergeant First Class Jerome Sears who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross during the Korean War. The camp closed as well in 2005. While walking down the mountain towards the camp I could see that some how locals were growing crops along the polluted fence line of this USFK Camp:

Quite shocking that locals would be willing to eat crops grown in such polluted soil. I then walked to the front gate of the camp and found no one guarding the camp and was able to take this picture of the front of the camp:

Once again the oasis of green growing in the middle of the dense urban jungle of Uijongbu is quite striking. The fact is that these USFK camps are much cleaner than an equivalent ROK Army base that has been open for 50 years. The camps in general are much cleaner than surrounding communities as well. The camps have plenty of trees and open space that could be turned into useful parks and facilities for the city of Uijongbu. The local government had big plans to turn the camps into parks and administrative centers for the city. Camp La Guardia and Camp Falling Water would have been an excellent locations to turn into a large city park in the section of the city in desperate need of some green space.

However, as usual the outside anti-US groups ruined things for the surrounding community by pushing their bogus pollution agenda. Because of the anti-US groups the hand over of the land was delayed for two years and when the camps were finally handed over, the land was given to the ROK Army instead of the local government. Many people I know in Uijongbu are very upset by the interference of the anti-US groups.

If anti-US groups like Green Korea really cared about the environment, instead of making bogus camp pollution claims, they should be complaining that USFK should clean the graffiti on Cheonbo Mountain overlooking Uijongbu. This faded unit crest is of the old 702nd MSB unit that was stationed at Camp Sears more than a decade ago:

The mountain also has other smaller patches of graffiti from other units as well. Now this is something that I can legitimately see people complaining to USFK to clean up, however Green Korea is silent. It is because the anti-US groups like Green Korea do not care about the environment and instead were formed to promote an anti-USFK agenda that has since been linked to a North Korean spy ring. Creating as many obstacles as possible to prevent the USFK transformation was the goal of Green Korea and their North Korean puppet masters, not any concern about the environment. So in the end the USFK transformation happened anyway and the only people that lost out due to the anti-US groups were the people of Uijongbu.

If you have an interesting or funny veteran story from your time in Korea I would love to hear it. If it is a good story I am willing to publish it here on the ROK Drop. It doesn’t matter what decade you served just as long as it is interesting or funny. If you have a story to share you can e-mail the story to me.

Thanks for reading the ROK Drop.

Note: You can read more from the ROK Drop featured series “A Profile of USFK Bases” at the below link:

Is anyone surprised that Korean politicians are demagoging the environmental issue:

Politicians are poised for their own investigation into the process in question.

Lawmakers of the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee said they will conduct an on-site inspection Thursday at three bases north of Seoul, which were returned last month.

The inspection is part of preparations for a two-day hearing from June 25 on the issue, in which Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo, and Lt.Gen. Stephen G. Wood, the USFK’s deputy commander, are scheduled to testify.

“We will focus on whether or not the process of returning the bases was appropriate,” said Rep. Woo Won-shik, who recently bolted from the pro-government Uri Party.

Still, it remains uncertain whether the lawmakers will shed light on the allegations raised by environmental activists.

These law makers just happen to be from the liberal political parties like Uri and the DLP who currently have favorably ratings of 9.1% and 10.3%. They are trying to demagogue the pollution issue to their own political advantage. During the 2002 election season they had the June 13th accident to demagogue and since they have no accident this year to demagogue they are relying on the camp pollution issue instead to hopefully rally anti-US sentiment to garner votes.

These environmentalists could care less about pollution in Korea in general because their only concern is manufacturing anti-US sentiment. As many of you I’m sure remember, the environmental groups along with a large block of the DLP political party have been linked to a North Korean spy ring.

These lawmakers and environmentalists have little creditability and I suspect much of the camp pollution findings have been “Dr. Hwang-ed” for political purposes. I have been saying this for months, I would love to see a detailed line by line report on the supposed environmental damage in every camp. What I suspect is going on is that these demagogues are making claims of pollution due to the presence of asphalt on the camps for example. Oil is used in making asphalt thus they can make claims of oil slicks on the camps based on the presence of asphalt.

USFK should use this scheduled hearing to go on the offensive. I have been saying this months as well that USFK should conduct environmental impact studies of the land surrounding USFK camps compared to the land inside the camps. I know quite a few areas outside of USFK camps in Uijongbu that are highly polluted by the local Korean community.

The Korean government would probably never agree to this, but it would also be useful to compare USFK camps to ROK Army camps. I am willing to bet the USFK camps are much cleaner than ROK Army camps. By the government refusing to carry out such a impact study could be used by USFK to support their claims they have met government standards for environmental clean up if the Korean government is not willing to conduct the same type of pollution studies on their own military’s land.

By presenting evidence that USFK camps are cleaner than the surrounding community would greatly diminish the claims by the demagogues. However, what will probably happen is that the demagogues will get their chance to grand stand and bash the US military while USFK officials just take it and hope it all just goes away.

HT: Marmot

Just when you thought you had seen it all in regards to taxi cab related incidents you find out you in fact haven’t. From the Stars and Stripes:

A nude U.S. soldier was struck and killed by an off-base taxi Saturday night, officials said Monday.

U.S. and South Korean officials are investigating the incident in which Spc. Vang B. Her, a 22-year-old fire control repairman with Company B, 302nd Brigade Support Battalion, was killed around 10:30 p.m. near Mount Soyo, about 3 miles north of Camp Casey.

The 46-year-old taxi driver is being held in South Korean police custody because he waited about 30 minutes before reporting the incident, Yangju police said Monday.

Police said the driver reported that a naked soldier dashed in front of his taxi and that he was unable to stop before hitting him.

Witnesses, however, gave conflicting reports that Her was lying in the roadway when hit, according to police.

This is really weird because the area around Mt. Soyo has no clubs or drinking establishments that would attract a GI. The only thing around Mt. Soyo are a few hotels and stores for tourists going to visit the mountain. Possibly he was riding on the subway and fell asleep and woke up at the last stop which is the Soyo Mountain station. He would need to cross the street from the station to get on the sidewalk that would lead south back to Camp Casey.

The only way I see the cab driver getting in trouble is if he was speeding which on that portion of Highway 3. Cab drivers and other vehicles are notorious for speeding and running red lights in that part of town because of the light traffic at night due to it not being a night life area. So you may have a case (if he was drinking) of a drunk soldier walking across the street being hit by a speeding taxi cab running a red light. How the heck he got naked though is anyone guess. Whatever happened it is definitely very weird and hopefully the toxicology results and a full investigation will uncover what happened.

In response to this USFK Commander General B.B. Bell issued this Bells Sends message in regards to this accident. General Bell emphasizes the battle buddy policy and the dangers of over alcohol consumption. However, I know the General means well, but do you have to include in the message reminders to look both ways and check for traffic before crossing the road to a bunch of grown adults? Anyway, no matter what happened the loss of life of a soldier is always tragic and I wish this deceased soldier’s family all the best.

You can read more over at Lost Nomad.

One pillar of the anti-US hate groups has collapsed:

Seoul and Washington yesterday finalized the return of 14 U.S. military bases to Korea but the agreement finds Seoul agreeing to shoulder as much as 40 billion won ($42 million) for the necessary environmental clean-up of the military installations.
A total of 18 bases, including four that already have been returned, are now back in Seoul’s hands while negotiations for the return of the remaining 41 bases continues.
Under an agreement with Washington called the Land Partnership Plan, the United States will return 59 bases to South Korea by 2011. Until now, Seoul and Washington have been at odds over how to split the cost related to the environmental cleaning process.

The entire camp pollution issue is a total fraud and now the Korean government is paying for helping perpetuate the fraud. Of course the anti-US group Green Korea has now weighed in on the announcement from the Korean government:

Civic groups such as Green Korea United criticized the government yesterday for giving in to Washington on the issue.
“The U.S. soldiers have left and they left Korea a lot of waste. This should not serve as an example for other bases to be returned in the future. U.S. forces need to be asked clearly to take responsibility,” said the organization in a statement.

Here is the source of Green Korea’s concern about this issue:

In February, Green Korea and some media outlets said they acquired leaked Ministry of the Environment data that showed unsafe ground and water contamination levels at several sites. They included camps Page, Garry Owen, Greaves, Stanton, Edwards, Giant, Falling Water and Howze, the Kimpo post terminal, the Freedom Bridge and the Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and North Carolina firing ranges.

Can you believe that firing ranges have lead contamination? I tell you I am shocked! What is even more laughable about this is that the firing ranges are not used exclusively by USFK but by the ROK Army as well. Why isn’t the ROK Army being investigated for pollution? I found the inclusion of Freedom Bridge even funnier because USFK soldiers guarded that bridge. How the heck do soldiers pulling guard duty which also includes Koreans by the way, pollute a bridge to the point that these environmentalists say it is unsafe for the public? If this bridge is unsafe than every bridge in Korea needs to be shut down!

For those who have never served in Korea, the USFK camps are literally an oasis of green in the middle of dense urban cities. The camps after the Korean war were located on the outskirts of Korean cities but the camps have now been swallowed up by the growing cities which are a sign of Korea’s amazing development since the war. It is partly because of this development that USFK wants to relocate the camps to the sparsely populated Camp Humphreys area. If anything the USFK camps are the cleanest piece of land in the surrounding communities and some have been designated to become parks when handed over; yet the anti-US hate groups have successfully used this issue to further delay the USFK relocation.

That is why I say release the pollution findings with detailed data to check for errors because I wouldn’t be surprised if the findings were “Dr. Hwang-ed for political reasons especially when these so call environmental groups have been linked to North Korean spies.

If USFK really wanted to prove a point they should have environmental studies conducted by their own researchers on USFK bases compared to the surrounding communities. Does anyone think for example that Yongsan Garrison is more dangerous to the environment than Seoul? Case in point while Green Korea is busy complaining about these camps, Korean citizens in multiple cities are drinking water with high levels of uranium and Green Korea could care less.

Prominent K-blog commenter and lawyer Brendon Carr offers some outstanding advice in today’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. Brendon hits on a number of potential issues with soldiers who get in trouble in Korea. Here is probably the most telling statement from the article:

Beyond language difficulties is the prospect that South Koreans who give testimony might feel it culturally acceptable to lie, especially if it will increase their chances of winning bigger damages, Carr said.

This culture, Carr said, does not place the same value on truth or view the truth through the same prism that Americans do. There is very little social disapproval of making false official statements in order to achieve an objective for your friend or relative or for a tribemate.

Once it breaks down to ˜those Americans versus us Koreans, many, many Koreans will perceive it as their duty to make sure that the Korean is the winner of the dispute. So there’s a lot of lying when witnesses come forward, Carr said.

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The Marmot is reporting that the soldier involved in the despicable grandma rape case has been sentenced to 4 years in prison.  The Marmot thinks that the soldier got off light.  In a US court system and especially a military court it appears he did get off easy.  Take the 2003 Camp Jackson sexual assault case for example, the NCO involved in the rape of a KATUSA soldier was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

However, if you compare the soldier’s sentence to Korean rape cases he was actually punished quite heavily.  Take this case of a Korean national raping a US Army private just arriving in country and missed the bus to Yongsan and instead decided to take a taxi.  Instead of a ride to Yongsan she was raped by the cab driver.  What happened to the cab driver you may ask?  Not much:

The Seoul High Court yesterday overturned the conviction by a lower court of a 49-year old taxi driver who had been charged with the rape of a 19-year old U.S. female soldier.
The man had received a 10-month prison term in the original trial after being convicted of luring the newly-arrived servicewoman from Incheon International Airport to a hotel near there where the woman said he raped her.

The woman reported the incident to U.S. military authorities, who asked for assistance from Korean prosecutors.  The appeals court ruled that the woman had shown no evidence of having refused the man’s advances, and that he used not enough violence to constitute rape.

Fortunately a higher court later over turned this ridiculous ruling and gave the guy a sentence of two and half years in prison.  But still two and half years for a predator that raped a 19 year old soldier?  Isn’t this rape case just as disgusting as the rape of a 67 year old woman?  At least this rape had some one arrested for it unlike when a US Army officer was raped by a Korean man in Taegu.  How about this rape of an English teacher in Seoul that is particularly unsettling.  Here is my personal favorite of a Korean man whose only punishment for attempting to rape a woman in his car was to lose his license.  Most recently the ROK Army soldier who sexually assaulted a US female soldier on Camp Casey only received a sentence of 4 years probation.

Going by the Korean standard of recent sentencing of sexual assaults against foreigners, the convicted USFK soldier in this rape case should have received up to two and half years in jail to a minimum of four years probation and possibly lose his driver’s license.

For all the talk about the unfair SOFA Agreement, this is just one case in many I have seen where if the military tried the case the criminal would have probably spent more time in jail.  Perfect example is the Camp Jackson case I mentioned earlier.  Either way the criminal is in jail and justice was served, but it would be nice to see justice served against the criminals committing sexual assaults against foreigners as well.

Robert Neff from the Marmot’s Hole has posted an interesting article in the Korea Times about the 1982 defection of PFC Joseph White to North Korea.  PFC White would remain in North Korea for only three more years until he supposedly died while drowning in a river.  The reason for PFC White’s defection has been a matter of controversy for years.

Here is the theory from the article that I would put money on:

There is another theory. One American soldier claims that White fell in love with a North Korean agent in a club in the village of Bongilchon and that she disappeared on the same day White did. Allegedly she either guided him to the North Korean positions or she met him in the North.

PFC White was an introvert and when he enlisted in the military and was posted in Korea; he became a big fan of the ville culture.  PFC White probably never had such attention showered on from women before and enjoyed the attention from the Korean women in the ville so much that he even wrote letters home to his mom about it.  I don’t think it is too far fetched of an idea that a woman is the reason he defected.

I have seen soldiers do many stupid and criminal things due to juicy girls in the ville, so the possibility that PFC White defected due to juicy girl is definitely plausible to me.  Anyway interesting read and I encourage everyone to check it out.

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

We had some hints before that USFK was not happy about the announced Camp Humphreys delay and cutting of funds by the South Korean government and finally, the USFK commander has come out fighting:

The top U.S. military commander in South Korea said Friday that he would “fight” any move to delay the much-awaited relocation of U.S. forces to a base south of Seoul.

“I am opposed to any decision to stretch this out for any reasons, whether it’s political or it’s fiscal… or whatever it is,” Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) told a news conference at his office at the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.

He stressed that the expansion of Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 70 km south of Seoul, should be completed by 2008 as scheduled.

The commander was responding to media reports that the South Korean government has decided to postpone the relocation move until as late as 2013 due to a backlash by residents and financial constraints.

All I have to say is what took so long?  I’m figuring the anger had been building up inside of General Bell since the delay was first announced and had just been itching to unload on the Korean government, but has been waiting for authorization from the Pentagon.  The Pentagon recently got their Defense Secretary transition and the Iraq troop surge plan completed and now can focus some attention on Korea.  I don’t really think the relocation will be completed by 2008 but is just using this date as a starting point for negotiations.  I am willing to bet that he would accept a 2009 relocation with a simultaneous hand over of operational control to the Korean military.Â

General Bell also wanted to focus attention on USFK living conditions:

The four-star general became emotional, saying U.S. soldiers here, who now total around 30,000, badly need new facilities to live in with their families for a “normal life.”
“We hope … that this consolidation effort corrects a wrong that we have tolerated for years, and that is lousy living conditions and lousy facilities,” he said. “I don’t want my families and my service members to live in those conditions. I want them to be normal. I am fairly emotional about this.”
He added that the deadline was fast approaching and he didn’t care if the problems were political or financial, saying “I will fight this (delay),” and urging the South Korean government to show its firm commitment to the project rather than being swayed by other conditions.

I will have to assume he is talking about the conditions in 2nd Infantry Division which living conditions have improved in recent years, but still do not meet living conditions in the states and most importantly soldiers cannot receive command sponsorship to bring their families to Korea with them.  He is probably also referring to the Hanam Apartment ghetto in Seoul where some of the few soldiers stationed at Yongsan Garrison who do receive command sponsorship, live.

If you read the actual press release General Bell brings up the living condition issue mainly because he feels strongly that soldiers shouldn’t be serving one year unaccompanied tours in Korea.  He wants this to end.  He is absolutely correct on this account. In the past sucking up one year away from your family in Korea wasn’t as bad as it is now when you have so many soldiers that have already served a year or more away from their families in Iraq or Afghanistan and are then asked to go to Korea after that.  I had an E6 who was with the 101st Airborne and deployed to Afghanistan and then came back after a year in Afghanistan and then deployed to Iraq to fight Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 101st and then came back to the states again after a year in Iraq to get orders to Korea. This E6 had a wife and three kids and came to Korea extremely demoralized because his wife wanted a divorce. He eventually ate his way out of the army by becoming overweight and out of shape so he could be chaptered so he could get back home.  He loved his family more than the Army, can you blame him? Â

Unaccompanied tours in Korea for one year are becoming increasingly unbearable for military families and many are instead picking up and moving to Korea on non-command sponsored basis which means living in a Korean ghetto apartment outside a US military base subject to the many Korean landlord predators that prey on these non-command sponsored families with illegal rental contracts, over priced rental fees, unsafe housing conditions, poor water quality, and the siphoning of electricity from the family’s home to name a few common complaints.  Plus the non-command sponsored families do not receive the same level of medical care, education, and other military services compared to command sponsored family members.  Non-command sponsored family members are truly put on the back of the bus in Korea.  General Bell wants to end this segregation between non-command and command sponsored families by getting the facilities built at Camp Humphreys that will allow all families to move to Korea similar to how all families are allowed to move to Germany.

By also building the family housing at Camp Humphreys it will not only improve quality of life for US service members, but also save the American tax payer millions of dollars due to ending agreements with Seoul landlords that rent their apartments at inflated prices to USFK at fixed rates well above their market value.  It is all part of the USFK gravy train in Korea that has been operating for years that General Bell is trying to end.

General Bell also talked about the recent US-ROK cost sharing agreement:

Bell also reiterated his complaints over a recent agreement between Seoul and Washington on sharing the expenses for maintaining U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.

Last month, South Korea agreed to pay 725.5 billion won (US$789 million) to Washington next year and the same amount in 2008 with an adjustment for inflation, which Bell said is far short of the U.S. military’s minimum demand for 832 billion won.

He said the USFK may be forced to lay off South Korean employees at its bases and cut the number of contracts with local construction firms to offset the shortfall.

Mentioning laying off of USFK workers is a way to get the USFK labor union to begin taking action against the Korean government.  This has happened before where the union began protesting the Korean government because of prior South Korean USFK budget cuts.  However, I wish that General Bell would have mentioned the over $1 billion dollars in aid budgeted for next year to be sent to North Korea compared to the much less money budgeted for the US-ROK alliance.  This would have been a huge body blow to the Korean government because of the increased media attention to the subject that few people know about, that the South Korean government is more willing to pay more to the gangsters up North than pay for their own national defense.

Here is what General Bell had to say about the operational control hand over issue:

The commander expressed hope again that Seoul and Washington will soon fix a date for the transfer of wartime control of the South Korean military back to Seoul.

The U.S. is pushing to return control to South Korea in 2009, while South Korea wants a few more years to prepare for it.

“I am sure, as cooperative allies and through close consultations, we will be able to determine a transition date satisfactory to both sides. I hope that we can reach an agreement on that by this summer,” he said.

The Rumsfeld Pentagon was dead set on the 2009 hand over of operational control, hopefully Secretary Gates stays committed on this issue to keep the hand over to 2009.  If you read the actual full press release General Bell says himself that he believes the hand over can happen by 2009.  I highly recommend you read the whole press release, available on the USFK website.  It provides much context and better meaning of what General Bell was trying to convey than what the media reported.Â

If the Koreans continue to delay then use the words of their own President against them:

President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday said Korea is capable of exercising sole wartime operational control of its troops even if we get it back now. In an interview with the Yonhap news agency, the president said, The South Korean military’s capability is sufficient and it can get U.S. military support.”

So the bottom line is will this hand over happen by 2008?  General Bell was asked that by one of the reporters.  Here is his answer from the press release:

Building stuff is a function of two things. It takes money and time to put brink and mortar in place. If you mess with either one of those, it’ll take longer. What I’m looking for is a commitment to do this as expeditiously as possible. I realize there have been many complex issues surrounding the Camp Humphrey’s move. Politically, there have been protestors, some wonderful Koreans have been displaced, and I regret that. But this is an agreement between two governments. And now that we’ve made the agreement, and now that the citizens have been displaced and now that the land has been prepared or is being prepared, I think that it would serve both nations well to allocate the money necessary to do this as quickly as our construction companies can do it. I think that if we stretch it out because of money it won’t serve our purposes. So it’s not only about the physics of building with brick and mortar.

The physics do take some time but it’s also about commitment, frankly by both countries, to get this done. And if they don’t commit to an aggressive building program it will take decades. In the mean time, the quality of life for the military members and their families here will continue to degrade. Don’t forget, as I’m looking at Camp Humphreys, nobody will let me spend any money on the old facilities because they see that as a waste. So I’m caught in a soft seam here. I’m caught. I can’t fix up the old places and I can’t build the new places. That’s not fair. So I think we ought to build the new places. We’re great allies. We have a great alliance. We’re going to sit down and figure this out. We’re not going to debate this in the press. We’re going to find a way to go ahead and we will. We will sit down through the correct processes, both our Status of Forces Agreement process and our political processes where necessary, like Strategic [Security] Policy Initiative meetings, and iron this thing out and figure out where we are. I hope we will be able to do this sooner than later. I can’t offer you anything else today because I don’t have any other facts right now. All I know is what I read in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago.

General Bell is analyzing this correctly and wants money for construction to be authorized as soon as possible.  I have seen entire cities built in Korea in 2 years, a military base can be built in 2 years as well.  General Bell makes it out to be a matter of money which it really isn’t and he probably knows it.  Korea has money to make this happen which is evident by the over $1 billion dollars in aid being sent to North Korea next year.  Money is not the obstacle, it is a question of will power.  The Korean government does not want the USFK transformation to happen and I have outlined my reasons for this before.

Is General Bell being undiplomatic by openly criticizing the Korean government in a public forum like this?  For anyone that is concerned about the undiplomatic tone of General Bell’s comment I highly recommend you read the entire press release followed by reading this brilliant posting from OFK about South Korean diplomacy towards the United States and then tell me who is not being diplomatic.

In a normal country General Bell’s words may be seen as undiplomatic, however South Korea is not a normal country.  Remember this is still a country that decides liability of fender benders with fists fights and debates in the Korean parliament often turn into wrestling matches.  General Garry “Give Me My Damn Bombing Range” Trexler openly threatened the Korean government with the removal of the entire US Air Force in Korea if his air crews were not given a bombing range to replace the one they lost due to totally unreasonable and ridiculous anti-American protests.  Guess what his threats worked and within days he was given his bombing range.  General Bell hasn’t reached the point of ultimatum time yet, but after reading this press release the time may be coming closer than we think.

Finally, isn’t it some what amazing that the commander of US Force in Korea, a four star general to boot was not given any fore warning from the Korean government about the Camp Humphreys delay?  He found out about it like the rest of us by reading it in the newspaper?  Is this still an alliance?Â

You can read a whole lot more on this over at:

Marmot’s Hole

Lost Nomad

One Free Korea

Here is something that is no shocker to those of us who have spent plenty of time in USFK:

One man is in custody and three more face charges in connection with a black-marketing operation that was being run out of an Army and Air Force Exchange Service store at Camp Long, near Wonju, South Korea, authorities said Wednesday.

The case was a result of a yearlong investigation and involved more than 21,000 cases of beer from AAFES, according to Kim Jong-mu, a Seoul-based South Korean customs officer who is the case’s senior investigator.

The duty-free beer was driven off base in a U.S. government vehicle and sold to middlemen, who in turn resold it on the South Korean market, he said.

The four suspects in the case were AAFES employees, he said.

AAFES employees are really the brains behind the black marketing scams in Korea. Here is how these criminals have been pulling off their scam:

The 21,300 cases of beer believed to have been smuggled over the past year was valued at 700 million won, or about $750,000. Kim said investigators believe the suspects have been involved in black marketing for many years.

The Camp Long smuggling was done by loading cases into a vehicle with USFK plates and driving the beer to a middleman waiting off base in an identical vehicle with South Korean license plates, Kim said. Then the plates were switched and the beer was delivered to liquor merchants in Seoul’s Namdaemun Market, he said.

They black marketed $750,000 in just beer, imagine how much they are making from Spam, ox tails, and other popular food items as well. I’m willing to be their black marketing ring was bringing in close to $1 million a year and they have been getting away with this for years. This is a huge amount of money and this is just from Camp Long.