Korean street market in 1960, probably near or in Seoul. The exact location has not been positively identified yet. The photographer, my father Leroy Smothers, did not label the 35 mm slide this image was scanned from. He traveled all over South Korea, so this could be somewhere other than Seoul. (We lived 1960 near Itaewon, south of Seoul.) [Bill Somther’s Flickr page]
Via a reader tip comes news that Yongsan Garrison will have some visitors looking to find evidence of oil leakage from Yongsan Garrision:
South Korea and the United States agreed Tuesday to allow local environmental experts to conduct a field study on a U.S. military base in central Seoul suspected of polluting groundwater and its nearby land.
The Yongsan Garrison is suspected of being the source of leaking oil that has polluted at least 12,000 square meters of land and more than 7 million liters of underground water since 2001 when the first oil spill was reported.
The agreement was reached at the latest Joint Committee meeting on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) aimed at discussing an array of issues governing the legal status of 28,500 U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.
To address the suspected oil leakage, both sides formed a joint working group consisting of officials from Seoul’s environment ministry, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and the Seoul Metropolitan Government in June last year.
“The two sides agreed to allow Korea’s environmental experts to visit the garrison in the near term for a field inspection into possible pollution sources,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “They shared the view that the move will contribute to the fundamental resolution of the matter.”
Seoul has made repeated requests to the U.S. for its cooperation with the inspection of the garrison, which have been long ignored by the U.S. Under the SOFA, the South Korean government can investigate USFK bases only if permission is granted. [Yonhap]
This inspection is really nothing unprecedented because when the camps in the 2nd Infantry Division closed out almost ten years ago the environmental ministry and NGO types visited those camps as well. What is going on with Yongsan is that there has been oil found dripping in the subway lines, but no one has been able to confirm where it is coming from and the Korean government believes it is coming from Yongsan Garrison.
Anyway here is how the article ends with a topic that has absolutely nothing to do with the oil spill issue:
Concerning crimes committed by U.S. forces stationed here, South Korea asked the U.S. to tighten discipline among its soldiers at end-year, the ministry said.
Crimes committed by U.S. servicemen have declined, but sex and drug-related crimes rose between 2011 and 2013, the ministry added. In response, the U.S. said it will sternly deal with any kinds of sex crimes, vowing to cooperate with Seoul over crimes by U.S. soldiers.
South Korean authorities have often failed to take legal action against U.S. soldiers as the SOFA regulations allow the suspects to be handed over to U.S. authorities.
Having compiled these stats in the past I do not trust any GI crime statistics put out by Koreans which are often inflated. With that said that I am sure that drug crimes have risen because of the crackdown the ROK has done on inspecting US mail. There has been plenty of idiot soldiers caught in the past few years sending drugs through the mail.
I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in World War II history to take a read of the below posting that translates a Mainichi Shinbun article that shows how ineffective and incompetent the Kamikaze attacks were for the Imperial Japanese military during World War II:
One of the defining symbols of the vicious struggle between the US and Japan in the Pacific War, this word always conjures up a conflicting mix of emotions inside me. The very word “kamikaze” has become a synonym for “suicide attack” in the English language. The way WW2 was taught in school (in America) pretty much left us with the impression that kamikaze attacks were part of the standard strategy of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy throughout the entire war. However, it was only recently that I was surprised to learn that the first time the Japanese introduced this strategy was on October 25, 1944 during the second Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Mainichi Shinbun here in Japan put together a wonderful collection to commemorate the 70th anniversary of this strategy. It features data that has not only been debated and analyzed from a number of angles, but it also provides statistical evidence that underscores the utter failure of this strategy. The title of the article is “Did the divine wind really blow? ‘Special strikes’ claim lives of 4000,” and it is the second part of a three part series called “Numbers tell a tale—Looking at the Pacific War through data”. The first part was posted in mid-August, and the third and final part is due to be put online in December. The original Japanese version for this special can be accessed here. The slides I refer to numbers “1” to “5” listed at the very bottom of each page. The current slide is the one highlighted in blue.
In this post, I will provide an overview of the information on this site while occasionally inserting my own analysis and translations of select quotes. I hope it helps to paint a clearer picture of a truly flawed strategy that is still not properly understood by both sides. [TheFairJilt.com]
Click the link to read the full article, but some of the interesting facts are that only 11% of attacks were successful compared to much higher percentages for dive bomb attacks. The Kamikaze tactic also caused Japan to lose many skilled pilots and advanced aircraft that led to them having to quickly produce inferior pilots and aircraft to replace them. Very interesting read.
Considering North Korea’s long defense relationship with Syria to include trying to make them a nuclear reactor, it only makes sense that ISIS would have captured plenty of North Korean manufactured weaponry:
The terror group ISIS that is effectively in charge of vast swathes of Syria and Iraq is using North Korean-made tanks and portable missiles, the website NK News claimed Monday.
It cited intelligence sources as claiming tanks used by ISIS in an attack on a Kurdish region in northern Iraq in September were Soviet T-55 tanks upgraded in North Korea, and portable missiles used by militants are of a type manufactured in the North.
Earlier, German intelligence told lawmakers that ISIS has portable surface-to-air missiles that are capable of shooting down civilian aircraft. A photo of an ISIS militant brandishing the weapon was posted on Twitter.
At the time, German intelligence believed the weapon was Russian, Bulgarian or Chinese in origin.
But NK News said ISIS got its hands on North Korean-made weapons by capturing them from government forces in Syria. The two countries maintained close ties since the 1970s and the North exported various weapons to Syria, including the upgraded T-55 tanks and portable surface-to-air missiles. [Chosun Ilbo]
The original NK News article for those that have a subscription can be read at this link.
If goods exports hit $600bn next year (KITA), South Korea may rise to #5 in world, overtaking Netherlands & France: http://t.co/8FqI1UnVbW
— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) December 8, 2014
1st Lt. Alvin Anderson, one of the many repatriated POW’s to return home aboard the USNS Marine Phoenix, embracing his mother and sister as other members of his family look on. Fort Mason, CA, September 14, 1953. Herb Weiss. (Army)
This appeal court case depending on how it goes may end up helping this Special Forces Colonel who is being charged for getting a female partner infected with HIV:
A Kansas airman accused of aggravated assault for exposing multiple sex partners to HIV at swinger parties in Wichita will have his appeal heard this week before the nation’s highest military court.
The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces will on Tuesday take up the case against David Gutierrez, an appeal the defense contends could upend similar prosecutions in the U.S. military.
“This case will have the potential of decriminalizing sexual contact with someone with HIV,” defense attorney Kevin McDermott said.
Air Force prosecutors have declined comment.
Gutierrez was a sergeant at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita in 2011 when he was stripped of his rank and sentenced to eight years behind bars.
In addition to aggravated assault, Gutierrez also was found guilty of violating an order to notify partners about his HIV status and to use condoms. He was also convicted of indecent acts and adultery. He has not been accused of actually infecting anyone with HIV.
In his appeal, Gutierrez has challenged whether the risk to his sexual partners was high enough to constitute aggravated assault, arguing that laws covering exposure to the disease are outdated since the statistical probability of heterosexual transmission is low and medical advances have made the disease treatable. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but I do not see how giving someone HIV should not be considered a crime of some kind regardless of how treatable it is now a days. It is something that at least permanently negatively alters the life of anyone who catches it and can lead to deadly consequences. Also of interest with this story is that Gutierrez is also claiming he is not guilty of adultery since his wife participated in the swinger parties. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out and its ramifications on the UCMJ.
I wonder if this brothel owner was not making the appropriate bribes to get raided like this:
“Put your clothes on,” shouted a police officer as he entered a small room during an evening raid on a massage parlor set up as a front to conceal a brothel in Gangnam, southern Seoul.
A man and a woman lying down on a single bed tried hastily to cover their naked bodies with a large bath towel.
The man turned his face away from the officer, while the woman bowed her head.
Four other officers entered another seven rooms connected by a network of underground corridors.
Five government human rights officers and a reporter from The Korea Times accompanied the raid conducted by officers from Gangnam Police Station on Nov. 18.“You have the right to remain silent,” the officer began reading the couple their rights.
The brothel was located in a nondescript, three-story building located in Nonhyeon-dong.
A neon sign was on one corner of the building but it did not specify any of the services available or the activities conducted inside. Outside a man was standing guard with a walkie-talkie in his hand.
When the policemen told him to move aside, he offered little resistance.
A door was then flung open and the policemen ran downstairs.They reached a lounge where a hidden corridor was discovered after an air conditioner was removed.
The operation was made possible by two undercover officers inside the building who posed as customers and text-messaged reports to colleagues waiting outside.
Although the remaining seven rooms were also occupied, officers struggled to break the locks on the doors. By the time they gained entry, men and women inside the rooms were fully clothed and officers were unable to find physical evidence such as used condoms in the room and had to let them go.
“We just had a chat,” said one man, who was accompanied by a woman.
“I was unlucky,” said the man who was caught in bed with a woman, as he was escorted into an unmarked police van.Also taken into custody was a blind man who managed the premises, but officers said he was just a front man and not the real owner. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link.
Via a reader tip comes this news that the daughter of the Chairman of Korean Air decided to have a airplane returned to the gate to boot a stewardess she was unhappy with:
The daughter of Korean Air Lines Co. Chairman Cho Yang Ho ordered a plane back to the gate so she could remove a crew member who gave an incorrect answer to a question on how to serve macadamia nuts, the airline said.
Heather Cho, 40, a vice president of the airline, ordered the head of the service crew on Flight 86 from New York to Seoul to deplane after an attendant earlier had served Cho macadamia nuts without asking, the carrier said. Cho then summoned the purser to ask a question about the airline’s policy on serving nuts. Cho ordered the man to leave the plane when he couldn’t answer. Under the carrier’s rules, passengers must be asked first before serving.
The purser didn’t know the company’s procedures and “kept on making up lies and excuses,” Korean Air said in a separate statement late yesterday.
The aircraft had already left the gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport for takeoff on Dec. 5. It took no more than 2 minutes to return to the gate to deplane the crew member, according to the airline. The flight was 11 minutes late when it arrived in Seoul on Dec. 6.
Korean Air in its statement late yesterday apologized to passengers for the inconvenience the incident caused. It noted the plane was less than 10 meters from the gate at JFK when the decision to return was made. [BusinessWeek]
You can read more at the link, but I can understand her unhappiness because serving nuts for example to a kid without asking could cause an allergic reaction and open the airline to a lawsuit. So I understand where she is coming from, but with that said what gives her the right to turn around a plane? Shouldn’t the pilots due to an emergency be the ones to make that decision? I would not classify this as an emergency and just something that the airline could of took care when the plane arrived back in Korea.
Kim Jong Un Inspects Air Force Unit | @KCNAWatch http://t.co/p8xWrjlnUD pic.twitter.com/hnkckRFLCy
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) December 8, 2014
