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Trump Picks Fox News Personality as the Next Secretary of Defense

Peter Hegseth has long been an advocate for U.S. troops, however he has to be one of the least qualified Secretary of Defenses we have ever had. With that said anything considered “woke” in the military is likely to be gone considering his past statements:

– U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tapped Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary on Tuesday, describing him as a “warrior for the troops and for the country.”

Trump issued a statement on the designation of Hegseth, an Army veteran with tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, as America’s next defense secretary is tasked with handling a series of tough security challenges, including North Korea’s military threats, Russia’s war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East.

The Pentagon chief post requires Senate confirmation.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

U.N. Cemetery in Busan Buries First Unidentified Remains from the Korean War

This is interesting, I did not realize that the U.N. Cemetery in Busan has never buried remains of an unknown remains from the Korean War:

Military veterans and troops from more than 20 countries gathered here Monday to pay their respects as an unknown Korean War service member was laid to rest at the U.N. Cemetery in Korea. Roughly 1,000 people attended the service on International Memorial Day for U.N. Korea War Veterans, observed each year on Nov. 11. It was hosted by the U.N. Command and South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, or MPVA, at the only cemetery overseen by the command.

The burial ground, roughly 200 miles southeast of Seoul, holds the remains of 2,329 veterans from 14 member states who participated in the 1950-53 Korean War. They include 40 service members from the United States; 892 from the United Kingdom; 38 from South Korea; 462 from Turkey; and 281 from Australia. Monday’s service honoring war veterans included the cemetery’s first interment of an unidentified U.N. Command service member. The remains were initially recovered from Yeoncheon county in 2010 by South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense Agency for Killed in Action Recovery Identification. (…….)

DNA testing and dental records determined the 17- to-25-year-old service member was of Caucasian descent and likely to have been from Britain, according to the MPVA. Unable to confirm the identity or nationality with certainty, the South Korean government allowed the service member to be buried in a new plot dedicated to unidentified remains.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Army Veteran Receives Commendation for Helping Elderly Korean Woman Out of Burning Home in Pyeongtaek

Good job by this Army veteran living in Pyeongtaek:

A quiet evening at home took a chaotic turn for U.S. Army veteran Arthur Chavarria when his wife, Kim Dong Young, opened the door on Nov. 1 and shouted, “There’s a fire!” Chavarria was headed for bed that night, but instead slipped on a pair of flip-flops and ran toward smoke rising from an old house in Seokgeun village near Camp Humphreys. “I heard a woman screaming — a really loud, desperate scream,” he told Stars and Stripes by phone Wednesday. “The moment I heard that, I just ran toward the residence.”

What happened next earned the couple a commendation from the Pyeongtaek Fire Department and praise from Fire Chief Kang Bong-ju. “We would like to express our gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Chavarria for quickly reporting the fire and rescuing a precious life,” Kang said at Wednesday’s commendation ceremony. When he rushed outside that night, Chavarria saw a neighboring homeowner, an elderly woman, heading back into the burning structure. “I thought, ‘There’s probably somebody in there if she’s going back inside,’ ” he said.

Chavarria followed her in and quickly realized she was alone, attempting to fight the flames with a garden hose. “She was handing me the hose, wanting me to help her put out the fire,” he said. But the smoke was heavy, and he could not let her stay. “She could’ve passed out or worse,” he added.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

U.S. Confirms that North Korean Troops Have Begun Combat Operations Against Ukrainian Troops in Russia’s Kursk Region

As has been predicted here by myself and other ROK Heads, North Korean troops are being used to push Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk region:

The United States confirmed Tuesday that North Korean troops, who have been deployed to Russia’s western front-line Kursk region, have begun engaging in combat operations against Ukrainian forces.

Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department, made the remarks amid growing concerns that the North’s troop deployment could expand Moscow’s protracted war in Ukraine with security implications for both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. (…..)

“Today, I can confirm that over 10,000 DPRK soldiers have been sent to eastern Russia, and most of them have moved to far western Kursk Oblast, where they have begun engaging in combat operations with Russian forces,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but using the North Koreans to fight in Kursk makes sense because Russia would then not need to redeploy their own troops continuing their long grinding offensive in Ukraine.

South Korea Recently Test Fired Domestically Produced Ballistic Missile

Maybe South Korea should mass produce these missles and sell them to Ukraine?:

South Korea’s military test-fired a short-range ballistic missile Thursday to demonstrate it could “respond to any North Korean provocations” following the communist regime’s recent missile launches.

The South Korean Missile Strategy Command fired a Hyunmoo-2 missile from South Chungcheong Province, about 65 miles southwest of Seoul, to demonstrate the command’s ability to make “precision strikes against the enemy’s origin of provocation,” according to a news release Friday from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The domestically made weapon flew roughly 125 miles to strike a simulated target in the Yellow Sea, also known as the West Sea, the Joint Chiefs said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

North Korean Defector Group Delivers Propaganda Leaflets to Ukrainian Embassy

The propaganda balloon wars between South and North Korea could now spread to Ukraine and Russia:

A group of North Korean defectors delivered propaganda leaflets to Ukraine on Monday, encouraging North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia to defect, as thousands of North Korean troops have been sent to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The “Defectors’ Propaganda Corps,” comprising North Korean soldiers-turned-defectors and defectors whose sons served in the North Korean military, delivered the propaganda leaflets to the Embassy of Ukraine in Seoul for the distribution to North Korean soldiers in Russia, the group said.

The leaflets carry messages encouraging North Korean troops to defect, along with instructions on how to defect. Audio files with similar messages were also delivered to the embassy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Ukraine sends propaganda balloons towards North Korean troops in Russia, I wonder if Kim Jong-un will have his troops send garbage balloons into Ukraine in response?