It’s a May Day Open Thread. Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

This must must have been a awesome moment for these veterans:

Eight veterans of the Korean War arrived from Commonwealth countries in time to mark the 75th anniversary of a crucial battle of the war and their historic contribution. Approximately 2,500 troops from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with support from the U.S. and South Korean armies, held back 10 times their number at the Battle of Gapyeong on April 23-25, 1951.

The Commonwealth troops held back the Chinese Spring Offensive and spared Seoul from recapture by Communist forces. A total of 26 veterans and their families arrived as guests of South Korea on April 22 in Seoul to pay tribute at the War Memorial and visit the Commonwealth Monument in Gapyeong, about 40 miles northeast of the capital. Saturday, they visited Panmunjom, the truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link as well as read my prior posting about the Battle of Gapyong.

The natural questions becomes if U.S. troops are cut from Germany will South Korea be next? I don’t think Trump would be able to legally reduce troops in South Korea without the approval of Congress due to legislation passed before he became President:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States is weighing a possible reduction of American troops in Germany, with a decision to be made over “the next short period of time,” after he decried European allies over a lack of support for the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

Trump made the remarks in a social media post following a recent report by The Wall Street Journal that his administration is considering punishing some members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that he perceives as unhelpful to the United States during the war in Iran.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Hegseth is not wrong about his overall point in regards to North Korea developing nuclear weapons. What he is wrong about is why no prior president struck the Kim regime to stop their nuclear program. It was not because of ballistic missiles, it was because of the country’s massive artillery capacity located along the DMZ that effectively held the millions of people who live in the Seoul area hostage. No U.S. President was willing to strike the Kim regime’s nuclear program and put that many lives at risk from retaliation:

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday described North Korea’s menacing nuclear program as “the lesson” to learn, as he defended the U.S. military operation against Iran, which a Pentagon official said has cost an estimated $25 billion.

Hegseth made the remarks during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, stressing that Iran’s strategy to build nuclear weapons mirrors that of North Korea, as he pointed out that like Pyongyang, Tehran had been building a “conventional shield” of missiles to double down on its nuclear program.

“North Korea is the lesson. Everybody thought North Korea shouldn’t have a weapon,” he said.

“Under the Clinton administration, they gathered so many ballistic missiles that their ballistic missile shield allowed them to blackmail the region and the world (and) to say, ‘We’re going to get a nuke and you can’t do anything about it,'” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is an example of why I believe the only way Yoon will ever get out of prison is if a conservative President takes power again to pardon him. The Korean left is just going to keep finding ways to bury him with prison sentences to where he will likely never get out. For whatever reason it seems like they hate him more than former President Park Geun-hye:

An appeals court on Wednesday increased the sentence for former President Yoon Suk Yeol from five years to seven years in prison on obstruction of justice and other charges stemming from his failed martial law bid.

The Seoul High Court handed down the heavier punishment in a live-televised ruling, finding the ousted former president guilty of obstructing investigators from detaining him last year over his short-lived imposition of martial law in late 2024.

Special counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team had sought a 10-year prison term for Yoon.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I always caveat information like this coming from activist groups because it is so hard to know with certainty what is going on in North Korea:

 Executions rose sharply in North Korea for offenses including watching South Korean cultural content during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed Tuesday.

The report, released by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based NGO, examines executions and death sentences over the 13 years of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rule from 2011 to 2024.

Of the 144 confirmed executions during the period, 65 occurred after the North closed its borders at the start of the pandemic. The findings are based on testimonies from 265 North Korean defectors and reporting from five media organizations covering North Korea through in-country contacts. SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap) — Executions rose sharply in North Korea for offenses including watching South Korean cultural content during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed Tuesday.

The report, released by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based NGO, examines executions and death sentences over the 13 years of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rule from 2011 to 2024.

Of the 144 confirmed executions during the period, 65 occurred after the North closed its borders at the start of the pandemic. The findings are based on testimonies from 265 North Korean defectors and reporting from five media organizations covering North Korea through in-country contacts.

Executions had declined from 2015 to 2019 amid heightened international scrutiny following the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea, according to the report.

But they surged again after the COVID-19 border closure in 2020. Over the five years that followed, executions and death sentences rose by 116.7 percent and the number of individuals affected also rose by 247.7 percent. Notably, executions linked to South Korean cultural content, including K-dramas, films and K-pop, as well as religious practices, surged by 250 percent after the border closure, the report said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.