Tag: US military

Joshua Key is a Fraud and a Liar and I Have the Facts to Prove It

| February 8, 2009

I appreciate all the links and interest my posting on Joshua Key has created because I believe it is important that the lies he is continuing to repeat are exposed.

US Army deserter Joshua Key in need of a serious hair cut and shower.

Something else I found interesting is that someone has posted over at Joshua Key’s Wikipedia page that the ROK Drop is involved in a “controversy”.  Get this the controversy is that I stated that Joshua Key was the first deserter to go to Canada since the Vietnam War when in fact two other deserters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey went to Canada before him.  I should have been more clear, Key is the first deserter to actually have served in Iraq to seek refuge in Canada.

What you see at Wikipedia is the usual tactic of many people of the far left, they try to twist one sentence to discount everything else that was in my posting about Joshua Key.  Notice they cannot dispute the facts so they try to change the subject.

It is hard to take people like this seriously especially when they write songs like this, The Ballad of Joshua Key:

It is just me or did this guy cover every lefty cliche’ imaginable?

Anyway when I originally wrote the Joshua Key posting I had not read the book and just based the posting off of radio interviews Key did and book excerpts available on the Internet.  I have since read his entire book and the holes in Key’s story are only greater after doing so.  I was just going to let the first posting I did be the final word on what I think about Key, but since Key’s buddies updating his Wikipedia page want people to believe there is some controversy going on, then lets start a controversy; namely one where Key can explain all these facts I’m about to lay out after reading Key’s book.

Fact #1:  Cow Tipping is Impossible

The lies start out early in Key’s book when he is describing his childhood.  On page 25 he talks about how he and his friends would go cow tipping when cows go to sleep standing up. He says the cows would fall over like “bowling pins”.  I grew up in the country with cows in a field behind my house.  Cows do not sleep standing up and cow tipping is an urban legend.  Go to YouTube and find a successful cow tipping.  If it could be done it would be all over YouTube.  Key is lying because there is absolutely no way he was knocking over cows like bowling pins.

If you don’t believe me go try it yourself and film it.  So since he is clearly lying about this it puts into question everything else he describes about this childhood in Oklahoma.

Fact #2:  Timothy McVeigh was Not a Gunnery Sergeant

On page 30 of the book key claims that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a Gunnery Sergeant in the US Army 1st Infantry Division.  McVeigh was not a Gunnery Sergeant because there is no Gunnery Sergeant rank in the US Army.  This book is so sloppily written that the writer Lawrence Hill couldn’t even bother to do a simple Internet check to figure out that McVeigh was a Sergeant in the Army.

It also further shows the incompetence and stupidity of Joshua Key that he didn’t even recognize there wasn’t a Gunnery Sergeant rank despite having once served in the Army.  There are only Gunnery Sergeants in the Marine Corps.

Fact #3:  Key’s Recruiting Claims Are Full of Falsehoods

Towards the beginning of Key’s book he states that his recruiter’s name was a Staff Sergeant Van Houten.  On Army Knowledge Online everyone in the military has an account that can be looked up.  Even people who have retired or left the Army can still be looked up on the system.  So I looked up Sergeant Van Houten on AKO and guess what, there is no Sergeant Van Houten, there is not even one Van Houten of any rank in the Army.

Key also says a government employee by the name of Daniel Russell also worked at the recruiting station.  However, there are no government employees by the name of Daniel Russell on AKO.  There are three contractors, but none of them working for recruiting.

In the opening chapters of the book Key goes on and on repeating every left wing talking point about recruiters praying on poor people and minorities even though as statistics show this is not true.

Key also claims on page 44 that the recruiting building he was in had a poster that said that “Desertion in the time of war means death by firing squad” and that he had to sign a document saying he understood that poster.  This sounds like utter BS to me because I have never seen such a poster and I signed no such document when I joined the Army and I know of no one else who had as well.  So considering Key has an imaginary recruiter this sounds like an imaginary poster and document as well.  Has anyone else seen such a poster and document?

If you listen to this Canadian radio interview with Key he claims 99% of the soldiers in his unit were recruited because they were poor and had no other options in life, but to join the Army.  For you all in the military reading this, did 99% of the people in your unit join up because they were poor and had no other options?  Of course not and the statistics show this.

If you look at this graph that displays recruiting numbers from the Pentagon the highest number of people in the military are from  the middle class.  A very small number of recruits are considered poor and their total number is below the national average for 18-24 year old recruits.  The upper middle class and even the wealthy are at or above their percentage of population for 18-24 years old.  Once again Key is full of crap.

Finally Key claims that his recruiter told him that he would go to a unit that would never deploy or see combat.  If you can believe this Key joined the Army after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and thought he would never have to go to war.  The guy is an idiot if he thinks he would never have to face the possibility of going into combat after 9/11.  He is even more of an idiot that he thought he would never have to go to combat when he voluntarily chose to become a combat engineer.  You would think the word “combat” would have tipped him off.  Furthermore the secondary military occupational specialty of a combat engineer is an infantrymen!

In this Canadian radio interview Key also claims that being stationed in CONUS means you do not have to deploy.  That is not what CONUS means.  CONUS means Continental United States compared to OCONUS which means Outside the Continental United States.  CONUS simply means you are stationed in the mainland US.  It has nothing to do with whether you are deployable or not and Key had to know this unless he is that incompetent.

He additionally says in the interview that 47 Army recruiters went AWOL two months before his interview which is another lie.  In fact 37 members of Army Recruiting Command went AWOL between 2002-2005.  Army Recruiting Command is not all recruiters.  It is a huge organization that has all the elements of a typical Army command to include supply sergeants, personnel clerks, mechanics, chaplains, etc. that could have gone AWOL.  Plus 37 people going AWOL in four years in a unit composed of five brigades isn’t unusual.  Plus many times when people go AWOL they come back.  Key is once again not telling the truth.

Key is clearly both an idiot and a liar.

Fact #4:  Rent in the Military is Free

On page 42 of his book Key claims the military lied to him saying that rent in the Army is free, but when he joined he later found out that they docked $700 a month from his paycheck for rent.  What Key doesn’t tell you is that Basic Allowance for Housing is added to a servicemembers paycheck to pay for housing. I have long chronicled here on the ROK Drop the various people getting arrested for BAH fraud because they were falsely claiming BAH for a city their spouse did not live in.

That $700 coming out of his paycheck every month is from his BAH to pay for his on post housing.  Key is either so dumb he doesn’t know what pay he is getting in his paycheck or he is lying.  Either option doesn’t look favorably upon him.

Fact #5:  You Don’t Receive 8 Shots of Anthrax at One Time

Key on page 43 of his book claims the military gave him 8 anthrax shots at one time.  First of all you do not receive 8 anthrax shots at one time.  In fact only six anthrax shots are given over an 18 month period:

Although many servicemembers experience temporary pain or soreness at the injection site, most individuals experience no significant reaction. The anthrax vaccine series consists of six shots: the initial, then at two and four weeks, then again at six, 12, and 18 months. Following the initial six-shot series, members only require annual boosters. No shots are ever repeated in the series, rather members will receive the next shot they are due based on the last shot they received in the series.   [Osan AB]

This is a straight up lie that cannot be explained away.  However, Key’s lie is even greater because the military was not issuing anthrax injections at the time he claims he received 8 anthrax shots.

1998 — Defense Department starts a program of inoculating troops with the anthrax vaccine.

June 2001 — Inoculating troops temporarily suspended because of a lack of anthrax vaccine when the manufacturer, BioPort, changed its manufacturing process without approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

June 2002 — Defense Department resumes inoculating troops after FDA approves vaccine and manufacturing process, lifting the temporary suspension from a year earlier.  [Stars & Stripes]

Key says the injections took place prior to him signing his Army contract on April 13, 2002.  However, in June, 2001 the Pentagon stopped issuing anthrax shots and did not start issuing them again until June, 2002, which is after the time that Key said he was given 8 anthrax shots.   Key is a total liar on this claim.

Fact #6:  Basic Training is not 17 Weeks Long

On page 47 Joshua Key claims that he was not able to call his family for 17 weeks.  Phone calls during basic training are a privledge but generally soldiers can call their families more then once during basic training.  However, in Key’s case he must of went to some super special long boot camp because I have never heard of a 17 week long basic training.  In fact basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood where Key received his training is only 9 weeks long.

In the book he also states that drill sergeants regularly cursed at him and told him that Muslims were terrorists and sand niggers.  They also recruited Key to regularly beat other recruits.  By regulation drill sergeants are not allowed to curse at recruits, make derogatory statements, or beat other recruits.  Considering all of Key’s other lies in the book I find these claims unlikely.

Fact #7:  Key Changes Story on Wanting to Fight in Iraq

In the book on page 57 Key says:

As I’ve stated, I thought it was better for me to help stomp out terrorism and defend America then to leave the job to my own children.

However, in this socialist newsletter Key writes he had a different reason for going to fight in Iraq:

I called Brandi: “I’ve been fooled!” After several months of training I was re-assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado, to the 43rd Company of Combat Engineers. Brandi came to live on the base with the kids. And, in the fall of 2002, the rumurs about Baghdad began. Everything was done from the perspective of fighting in the desert, against Iraqi troops. The war games became more intense. Whole regiments were kept on stand-by. Be ready to leave from one day to the next, we were told. And myself, I kept on believing, clinging to their promises. I couldn’t believe they’d lie to me. I wanted to put the question to an officer, but I was made to understand that I should keep quiet if I didn’t want my family to suffer. I was trapped.

So in his book he was more then happy to go fight Saddam and then in an interview he only went to combat because he was trapped and didn’t want his family to suffer.  So which is it?

Fact #8:  Highly Unlikely Key was Limited to One MRE and One Liter of Water a Day in Kuwait

On page 59 Key claims that his unit was given only one MRE and one liter of water a day while in Kuwait.  This sounds highly bogus because when I was in Kuwait we had more food and water then we needed because of the contractors that cooked up food for all the servicemembers in these huge circus tents.  In fact we regularly had steak and lobster in Kuwait.  In Kuwait the only time we ate MRE’s is if we had to go out to the range.  If you didn’t watch yourself you could put on wait while in Kuwait.

Key also claims he had to steal water from other units so his unit would have water to drink.  So even if Key’s story is true he admits to being a thief which according to the book isn’t the first time he admits to being a thief because regularly in the book he describes stealing money and jewelery from the Iraqis.

Fact #9:  Highly Unlikely that Under 24 Hours After Being in Iraq Key’s Unit Was Conducting Raids

On page 69 Key claims that under 24 hours after being in Iraq his unit was conducting raids, bashing in civilians, and arresting people for no reason.  Think about this his unit used flat bed trucks to go from Kuwait all the way to Ramadi which would take many hours to complete such a convoy and then download all their equipment.  So after doing such a long movement the first thing the unit would do is go raid houses?!!!  It doesn’t make any sense at all considering they hadn’t even set up a unit area yet.

He also claims that every night they would raid up to four houses and arrest all men over five feet tall.  I don’t know of any company sized element in Iraq that would raid up to four houses every night, especially an Engineer unit.  Once again it sounds like utter BS

Fact #10: There is no M-16 Grenade Launcher

On page 131 Key claims a member of his unit tried to commit suicide with an M-16 Grenade launcher which there is no such thing.  There is an M203 grenade launcher however.

Key said that the soldier shot himself in the ankle with a grenade that didn’t go off.  Anyone with basic training on an M203 knows that a grenade from the M203 has an arming distance. Why would a soldier try to kill himself with a grenade he knows cannot go off?

Fact #11:  You Cannot Take Half Pay for Three or Six Months

On page 133 of his book, Key claims a soldier was docked half his pay for three months for asking a visiting colonel a question about why he did not have Interceptor body armor.  First of all any JAG would have an easy time defending any soldier given non-judicial punishment for simply asking a question.  Secondly Key’s commanding officer cannot legally give such a punishment.

Here is what company commanders are authorized to give as non-judicial punishment otherwise known as an Article 15:

  • Restriction to specific limits (normally work, barracks, place of worship, mess hall, and medical facilities) for not more than 14 days
  • Extra duties, including fatigue or other duties, for not more than 14 days
  • Restriction with extra duties for not more than 14 days
  • Correctional Custody for not more than 7 days (only if accused is in the grades E-3 and below)
  • Forfeiture of 7 days pay
  • Reduction by one grade, if original rank in promotion authority of imposing officer. Not imposable on E-6 or above for USMC, or E-7 or above for other services
  • Confinement on diminished rations for not more than 3 days (USN and USMC E-3 and below only, and only when embarked on a vessel)
  • Admonition or reprimand, either written or verbal.

Here is the punishment the battalion commander can hand out under a Article 15 offense:

  • Restriction to specific limits (normally place of duty, barracks, place of worship, mess hall, and medical facilities) for not more than 60 days
  • Extra duties, including fatigue or other duties, for not more than 45 days
  • Restriction with extra duties for not more than 45 days
  • Correctional Custody for not more than 30 days (only if accused is in the grades E-3 and below)
  • Forfeiture of one half of base pay for two months
  • Reduction by one (NCO below E-6 in USMC or E-7 otherwise) or more (sub-NCO) grades.
  • Confinement on diminished rations for not more than 3 days (USN and USMC E-3 and below only, and only when embarked on a vessel)
  • Admonition or reprimand, either written or verbal.

No where in there does it say a soldier can lose half his pay for 3 months. Additionally Key cannot even keep his lies straight because in this Canadian radio interview Key says this soldier lost half his pay for 6 months!  So which lie is it?

It is pretty hard to keep all your lies straight, huh Joshua Key?

Fact #12:  You Cannot Get an Article 15 for Crying

On page 148 Key claims an officer from another unit threatened to tell his unit officers that he saw him crying which would lead to him getting an Article 15 and loss of pay.  He evens says the officer gave him a written reprimand.  I have never seen an officer in another unit give a written reprimand to a solider he doesn’t know in an entirely different unit.  It makes no sense because that officer is not his chain of command thus rendering anything he wrote utterly pointless because he has no UCMJ authority.   Plus once again a JAG lawyer would have a field day defending any soldier given an Article 15 for crying.  Finally Key if received a written reprimand, where is it?  What is the guys name because he doesn’t disclose it in the book.

Fact #13:  Avengers Do Not Have Two .50 Cals on Them

On page 169 Key makes the claim that an anti-aircraft humvee, which is an air defense artillery Avenger, used its two mounted .50 cals to kill some civilian crossing into Iraq from Syria by firing hundreds of round at him.

First of all an Avenger only has one mounted .50 cal which is mounted below one of its two stinger missile pods which you can see above.  The .50 cal only holds 200-250 rounds and could not have possibly fired the “hundreds” of rounds that Key claims.

Fact #14:  Key Provides No Evidence to Support his Massacre Claims

At various points in the book Key makes claims about US soldier committing massacres such as on page 81-82 he claims in Fallujah that members of the 82nd Airborne massacred about a dozen civilians for no reason.  He claims on page 106 that members of the Florida National Guard were playing a “twisted game of soccer” with the heads of civilians that they had beheaded.

However, in this video interview of Key, the claim is made that they were the heads of decapitated Iraqi soldiers while in the book they were the heads of civilians that were decapitated by M-16 fire from US soldiers:

Once again it is hard to keep all the lies straight I guess.

He also makes multiple claims about randomly shooting cars while on patrol and makes the outrageous claim that one one of his sergeants used a .50 cal to ignite a trail of gasoline on the road from a car they had shot at and the spark of the .50 cal round ignited the trail of gasoline which caught up to the car and blew up its fuel tank.  I want to see Mythbusters try and prove this Hollywood Rambo story.

He even says they used captured Mercedes to go and conduct raids with.  When I was in Iraq the only servicemembers I saw conducting operations in civilian vehicles was US Army Special Forces soldiers.  Not once did I see regular Army soldiers regularly conducting raids using civilian vehicles like Key claims.  How many of these vehicle would you need to put a platoon of engineers in with all their equipment to conduct a raid?  You would need a huge convoy of civilian vehicles not to mention the extra exposure to IED’s in an unarmored civilian vehicle.  I do not find this claim credible.

The one common thread in all of these incredible stories is that he provides no proof.  How come no one is his unit has come forward to support his claims?  On his webpage and on his Wikipedia page there are no attributions from anyone that served with Key that can verify all his stories. We are left to take Joshua Key’s word that all these wild stories happened as claimed.  However, as I have already shown Joshua Key is a proven liar.

Conclusion

Key has plenty of other stories in the book to include female lieutenants that would go on the prowl asking privates for sex to entrap them and give them punishment, medics not helping wounded Iraqi civilians, soldiers raping Iraqi women left and right, Abu Graib style abuse of prisoners, and get this even soldeers trying to bring ears back with them to the US.  He even says one guy tried to bring a severed arm back with them. When he went AWOL his stories of government agents stalking him was really quite comical considering the Army allows civilian law enforcement to turn in deserters when they are picked up for routine traffic stops.  I wonder if he saw black helicopters looking for him as well?

The bottom line is that any leftist talking point you can think of, Key includes it in his book in order to reinforce all the left wing stereotypes about the military.  So there are plenty of references to My Lai, poverty draft, killing kids, etc, etc.  This book is nothing but pure propaganda.  For those of us who have served in Iraq, Key’s claims are entirely unbelievable and actually quite comical.  If what Key claims is true and he is facing deportation from Canada, then why isn’t he lining up members of his prior unit to testify in his defense?

I think everyone gets the point by now that Joshua Key is a liar and an absolute disgrace not that people on the far left care.  Key is simply a tool for these people to bash the US military with and Key is more then willing to play long because the livelihood of his family in Canada is dependent on him telling his tall tales.  That is why you have all these journalists and radio hosts giving him softball interviews in order to tell his lies.

Key is also part of the leftist attempt to create a perception of discontent within the ranks like the leftist plants from Amnesty International tried to create before the 2006 Congressional elections. This group just happened to be backed with a media campaign led by the biggest liberal public relations firm, Fenton Communications. (You need to read my prior postings here and here to understand what I’m talking about.)

These people are just as disgraceful as Key for spreading blatant propaganda.  I am willing to bet that many people on the far left believe that even if Key and his cohorts are lying, the ends justifies the means.  That is why despite all the evidence to the contrary these people will not denounce liars like Joshua Key. That is why you don’t see anyone in the media trying to locate members of Key’s former unit to interview them to corroborate his stories.  How hard could arranging such an interview be?

The US government needs to bring Key back from Canada and court martial him. I want Key to try and explain the various lies I have uncovered.  Could you imagine what lies an investigator interviewing all the members of his unit could uncover much less what I have disclosed?  He should be deported and be given a fair trial where we can all see if his lies stand up in court.  After seeing what I already have uncovered about Key is it any wonder he has no interest in seeing if his claims would hold up in a court martial and instead prefers to hide in Canada?  Canadians deserve better then to have frauds like Key living in their country.  Hopefully the Canadian courts do the right thing and deport Key back to the US where he would have to take responsibility for substantiating all the tall tales he has told.

Hows that for some “controversy”?

ROK Drop Book Review: Seasons in the Kingdom

| May 28, 2008

There are very few countries that have had as many things happen to it in such a short time then Korea.  The nation in just the past 55 years since the end of the Korean War has faced communist insurgencies, coups, break neck economic development, assassinations, economic collapse, as well as a successful democracy movement.  Throughout all these years American servicemembers rotating for mostly one year tours on the peninsula have bared witness to all the set backs and accomplishments of the Republic of Korea.

Despite this constant presence of the American military in Korean society, very little has been written about the GI experience in Korea.  This is what makes Tim Norris’s book, Seasons in the Kingdom such a unique addition to the growing number of Korea related books.  Norris’s book is a historical work of fiction that follows the life of a US Army soldier who was drafted into the Army and instead of being sent to Vietnam was sent to South Korea to complete a tour of duty on the peninsula between 1973-1974.


1964 picture of ASCOM City.

The soldier, Mike is given orders to work as a guard at the 8th Army Confinement Facility, which at that time was located on the outskirts of Incheon in an area known as ASCOM (Army Support Command).  ASCOM was the US military’s main logistical support hub at the time and the only remnants of it that remains today is Camp Market.  The story initially develops by following Mike’s interactions with fellow soldiers in the barracks before getting into the meat of the story, which is his life in the “ville” which are the small camptowns located outside US military installations in Korea.


1968 image of a ville outside a US military camp.

For those that have served on the Korean peninsula during or near this time frame; this book should really bring back memories of what it was like back then as Norris explains in great detail, not only what the life of a GI was like in the ville, but the girls working there as well.  Norris does a great job describing the girls working in these clubs by really bringing home to the reader that these girls were more than just prostitutes, but people who also had hopes and dreams before being shackled by the club system.


1968 photo of US military barracks bunk.

In order to describe the life of the numerous Korean prostitutes working in the GI camptowns, Norris has Mike meet the beautiful Songhi.  Songhi’s life like many in Korea was filled with bitter disappointment and strife after she was locked into the club system by a scheming ajumma when she was forced to quit college due to her father not having enough money to pay for her education and Songhi’s younger brother as well.  Songhi like many girls working in the ville dream of marrying a GI in order to escape the club system that has trapped her and to bring her a better life in America.

The rest of the story develops as Mike eventually purchases Songhi from the club ajumma to become what was known back then as a “yobo”.  The yobo system no longer exists today, but back then GIs could purchase girls from the clubs, set them up in a small apartment, and that woman would effectively be their girlfriend for the entire year they were in Korea.  Being a yobo was highly sought after by the club girls because it meant they no longer had to prostitute themselves in the club anymore and increased their chances of marrying a GI.


1968 photograph of a Korean girl outside a US military club in Korea.


Sign posted on base in 1968 warning soldiers of club girls with STDs.

As their relationship develops both Songhi and Mike have unrealistic expectations of each other, but neither seems to realize it until Songhi becomes pregnant with Mike’s baby.  The book concludes with Mike completing his tour of duty in Korea and having to come face to face with what kind of life and future he wanted to have with Songhi.

The story is compelling, but the real reason why I recommend people should read this book is not for the story, but to get a better understanding of the conditions servicemembers serving in Korea during this time frame experienced.  This book makes clear the latent racism and the huge drug problem that plagued the US military in the 1970s.  The drug problem in the ranks was so bad that soldiers were arrested for using their M-16s to murder Korean drug dealers when drug deals went bad.  In fact two soldiers were so high on drugs that they took their weapons and had a stand off on Seoul Tower with the Korean police before finally giving themselves up.

The book also describes how some guards used to beat black prisoners and how some clubs became segregated by race as well. The racism was just between white and black soldiers but many soldiers also directed their racism and frustrations at the Koreans as well.  Even in the 1970’s “gook” was still a common term for a Korean.


1969 picture of Korean women in Seoul.

Likewise the Koreans themselves were very racist.  The prostitutes in the ville were considered the bottom of society and often insulted in the streets for associating with GIs, especially black GIs.  Children of these women often had no other options in Korean society other than becoming workers in the camp system themselves.


1968 image of a village woman.

In many aspects the US military’s behaviour back then was less then admirable and it is easy to see why many 386 generation Koreans still hold negative stereotypes of the US military based off their experiences from growing up during this time frame.  Like the incredible progress Korea has made over the years, US military has come a long way as well and this book is a welcome reminder of that.  Hopefully one day the ville system still in place today will be the last reminder of this time.

____________________________________________________

Note: More reviews of the book can be read here and Seasons in the Kingdom is available on Amazon for those interested in purchasing the book.

That Mishelov site is great for pictures of that time period.

A wall with Korean whores names with STD’s. It seems as if Korea was one big whore house then.

I guess with all the red light dist, room salons, business clubs, da bang’s (coffee shops), booking clubs (sure is a long list and there is more LOL)in Korea these days, things sure have changed and sure have stayed the same.

It is a great site for pictures especially high quality color pictures of that time period.

[…] GIKorea at ROKDrop.com reminds us that the US forces in Korea have come a long way since 1974 as well. May 26, 2008 […]

Thanks for the great review of my novel, Seasons in the Kingdom. I appreciate it and all that you do.
Best,
Tim at nandupress!

[…] from reader’s of this novel, many by Korean Service Veterans & others. ROK Drop Review. Go here to read review at ROK Drop, which includes other links for Korea and Korean Veterans. This is the most recent review, but be […]

I was stationed on a missile tact side in south korea in the year 1970, while there i caught Tuberculosis and had to be flown back to the states to be treated for my ten remaining month in the service and was given a early release in feb 3 1972, my memory of the place is not so good , i nearly died over their with active Tuberculosis , and still suffer with breathing problems assocated with my old Tuberculosis, I think if i had not had relationships with the korean woman my health and life would have been of a better quality..but i was young and stupid like all young people back then, and i never knew the risk that i was taking back them as far as my health was conserned, I have never read the book about korea, maybe i will in the future ..good day stanley Ray Mcqueen

Tim no problem it was a great book and I enjoyed reading it.

Stanley sorry to hear about the TB. Korea has come a long ways since then but it is still not uncommon to hear about people getting diagnosed with TB unfortunately. I do recommend you check out the book since you were stationed in Korea back then. You would probably enjoy it.

I visited Ascom City on my recent trip to Korea. Amazingly parts of Sin-Chon, my village, and Cherry Hill are still there. Photos to follow soon on my website. I visited the house where I lived and walked some of those alleyways. The rice fields around our compound are now all apartments blocks that loom over the remaining parts of the old villages. Will update when photos are available.

Best,

Tim Norris

I have just posted images of Sinchon, Cherry Hill, and the village nearby. These images are from my recent trip, but they alleyways are still there from my time in Korea. I also have a few comparative shots of the village from then and now.

Best, and more to come.

Tim

I was on the DMZ in ’67-’68 and I can tell you it was all business when we were on the zone, very serious stuff. There was a huge difference between being stationed on the DMZ and near Seoul. I only made it to Seoul once and it was only about 35 miles away. The life in the ‘ville was probably the same except for the racism, as far as I knew all races coexisted very well. I had a number of black friends, although we didn’t have too many black guys in my infantry unit, perhaps more were stationed down south. The Koreans were still very much appreciative of what we did for them during the Korean War although many GI’s were jerks to the Korean people.

I will buy the book and thanks for writing of your experiences.

I enjoyed reading your book Tim.

As I worked for the NCO Club Admin office I seen a lot of the interaction between the Korean women and the GI’s as you spoke of in your book.

I spent a few days at the Ascom City base just prior to my departure from Korea.

I really enjoyed the Korean language cross refrence in your glossary. I liked the Military Language and Bamboo English too.

I look forward to seeing your recent pictures of Korea.

Paul in Tampa

Tim, great photos of the old ville. I liked your before and after shots that show how much the area has changed.

I’m glad you enjoyed your return trip to Korea.

Sounds like me…I ordered the book…I’m sure it will be a great read and a real memory jogger. I was there in the late 50s and 1969-70.

I was in the 249th 1968-1969

If you will tell me how I will send you a picture.

Paul, be sure to check out my website at http://www.nandupress.com.
thanks tim

Tim

Thank you for helping Ronnie Partin and I to get in touch with each other after over 35 years, since being in the 249th together in 1968.

I was fresh out of basic training in 1979 assigned to the 249th MP Det Confinement Facility. As soon as I reported to the First Sergent he had me, himself and two of my buddies breaking the ice up in the duck pond. I knew this place was wieird. After my tour I releized how much I missed it. No I did’t have a YOBO I was still playing the bars and saving money instead one sucking me dry. We only had one attempt escape.

Steve,

I’d like to hear from you. You would probably down at Camp Humphreys. I remember when we moved the stockade down there in ’75. It was a big deal to move into modern facilities. I have many posted pics and more coming of the 249th at Ascom City. Any photos or stories please send them my way.

Best,

Tim Norris

Steve,

website is http://www.nandupress.com.
Thanks. Tim

Tim,

I have no pic’s I was just 17 and too excited leaving home for the first time, my one year flew by fast. We had a pretty good softball team and that duck pond we had came in handy in the summer months. By the way chickens can swim. The problem with the pond was the ducks and chickens kept missing, we thought it was the KATUSA. found out it was the perimiter guards that stayed in our compound, TASTY If you have pics of the Humphry’s 249th mp could you send them at steven.gunn@kbr.com I’m presently a civilian in IRAQ for DOD.

Hi Tim,

I have just ordered the book! I was one of the few civilian women who followed my husband to South Korea.

05/69-09/70. We lived in the village of Bupyong Dong about a 15 minute walk from the post. We took many pictures as we spent a lot of time at the craft shop on the base. We did the developing ourselves. It sure was an interesting time. We have a lot of stories! I was fortunate to secure a job at the 121st evacuation hospital and witnessed the Pueblo crew arriving. I have often wondered how the area is now. Anxious to read the book.

Jennifer, glad to hear from you. You can contact me direct at nandupress.com…I have my email addresses there. Best to you. Interested in pictures of the village when you have the time to share. Tim Norris

Jennifer,

Thanks for commenting and I would be interested in seeing any photos you may have as well. If you want you can post them over at the ROK Drop Forums to share with everyone:

http://rokdrop.com/forums/

Where is the lovely song you had on your site “arirang”.

tim,

i have many photos of ascom and the guys

in my unit,the 728th MP, company A.

i was stationed there from january 1968 to

may 1969.

have not read your book but plan to do so.

gerry landrum

Gerry,

Thanks for your comments. You may want to check out my website where I have some excellent donated photos to look at. Look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Tim

tim i was in the 249th mp 1969-1970 i was the only one that was in the stockade, tdy and perment party all in 18 months

Gerry,

Just wanted to check to see if you received your book?

Best, Tim

Charles,

Glad you have made contact…check out my website http://www.nandupress.com for photos and other information about 249th MP Detachment…best, tim

Tim

I just came back from Korea, I went in October 2009 returned to America November 2009. I did not go back to where the old 249th was when I served there in 1968-1969,the ASCOM Area, but much has changed and become very modernised, I spent one month in down town Soul Korea on my last trip to Korea in 2009.

Landrum, I was assigned to A Co. 728th MPs November 15, 1970 for about 3 months before being transferred to Yongsan. I never really knew what the hell the post’s name was. Did you know Daniel Dwyer, Joins, or Roy Areana?

Oh! believe me when I say C Co. lived on a condemmed ROK Marine compound it wasn’t better then A Co. barracks. Yongsan Compound was nice but the MPs didn’t live there, we were half way between Yongsan and the Han River, right by the bus station.

I was assigned to A co. 728th MP Co. February 1968 to May 1969. Co. C 728th Mp Bn 1969 to 1971. 1975 Camp Market. 2ND infantry div MP Camp Pelham, PDSK 1978 Wanshmnee Security for the Norther Operations district for the pipeline. A total of 8 years in Korea.

I’d like to comment on Dave L’s statement:

“although many GI’s were jerks to the Korean people.”

John Duncan, director of UCLA Center for Korean Studies, made a similar statement. His first contact with Korea was, you guessed it, via US Army.

“He (John Duncan) also recalled that during his Army stint he was repulsed by the behavior of many fellow G.I.’s towards South Korean employees and locals they came in contact with near the demilitarized zone.”

Here’s the link:
http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/news/arti…

I was stationed at camp Wentzel for a short time in 70. Was a section sgt with a 4 duece mortar platoon 2nd/9th/HqHq. I remember life being quite grand there, modern facilities and all. I remember Spoonbill Bridge as a pontoon structure close by on the river. I also remember my first of many visits to the vil. We soon packed up everything, turned the camp over to the Korean Army and moved down the river just north of Libby Bridge. Our platoon however was stationed several miles away from the main camp out closer to the MDL. Our little camp was knowns as RC#10. It was quite primative but we had alot of freedom there and took turns with long stays in Souel, ChangPaRi and I believe PoeWaNe, parden my spellings. It was an interesting experience at RC#10, to be caressed to sleep each night by the loud Speakers on the north side of the fence. I recall a huge hard drug problem in at the main camp but our tight little group preferred beer and pot. I also recall our platoon being all white or asian. But I had several black friends I had made prior to our separation from the rest of the Company and I often joined them in the village. One night all hell broke loose and two of my black friends came into the club where I was, grabbed me saying nothing and slipped me down a dark ally and they told me to get the hell out of there. The next day I learned that there had been a big clash between black and white soldiers with serious injuries. The girls were my fondest memories as they by the most part were attractive and very pleasant ladies. I had a yobo for most of the time I was there and she was beautiful and very smart. The guys I hung out with were polite and always helpful to the Koren people. Needless to say I enjoyed my stay in Korea and have very fond memories of the Korean People and especially the home rice and the kimchi.

I was at Greaves and Liberty Bell… what camp was north of Libby? I remember RC#4 and Camp Pelham in Sonju-ri, but north of the river, when I was there in the 80’s, we only had Greaves, Liberty Bell and Bonifas (plus tent city).

Found your blog on AskJeeves, great information, but the site looks awkward in doing my browser setup, but will work fine in IE. choose figure.

I read this book and am kind of torn over hit. The story of Mark and Songhi is magnificent and they way he brings the juicy girls into three dimensions is simply wonderful. But the editing was horrible! And I am not referring to a misspelled word here in there. Repeat sentences and even whole paragraphs one after the other is just a total no go!

One minor point. I found Songhi’s background story to be a tad distracting. Yeah, I know you can find club girls in similar situations. But come on, did she have to be a drop out from an elite university?

Was stationed at Taegu with the 503 MP Det. After ASCOM started to close we be came A Co 728th MP Bn, had alot of MP’s from ASCOM. We were split up between Pusan Taegu and Waegwan. I ended up at Camp Carroll in Waegwan with many of the MP’s from ASCOM. Went there the first time to escort three GI’s to the stockade after the Taegu riots.

Chris in Dallas: I agree. I haven’t been able to finish it yet because of the editing and some of the writing. I can’t understand why broken English was used to portray a conversation between two Koreans (presumably speaking Korean). I thought it somewhat demeaning. Also, some of the prose used to describe various scenes was waaaay too wordy. But, I will finish it for no other reason than the story line.

I WAS STATIONED WITH 121ST. EVACUATION HOSPITAL IN ASCOM CITY, FROM NOVEMBER 1960 – FEBRUARY 1962. I WAS A MEDIC WITH THIS HOSPITAL. THE LONGEST TIME I EVER HAD OFF IN ALL THOSE MONTHS THERE WAS 3 DAYS. MY RNR WAS CANCELLED BECAUSE OF WHO KNOWS WHY! THEN I WAS EXTENTED BY UNCLE SAM FOR 3 ADDITIONAL MONTHS. I CAME HOME ON THE USS GAFFEY. AFTER SERVING THERE I WAS STATIONED UPSTATE NEW YORK, WHERE I BECAME ILL AND WAS GIVEN A MEDICAL RETIREMENT FROM THE ARMY.
ALBERT PACELLO

A Profile of the Korea Training Center (KTC)

| May 25, 2008

Introduction

A place soldiers in the 2nd Infantry Division become very familiar with during a tour in Korea is the Korea Training Center (KTC).  The KTC is where gunneries for Bradley and tank crews is often held along with live fire exercises for both aerial and rotary wing platforms.

Helicopters parked at the Korea Training Center.

The KTC has additional ranges and land for just about any other type of training exercise needed for Second Infantry Division units.  The range is located about 16 kilometers northeast of the Second Infantry Division installation of Camp Casey as the crow flies, but due to the rugged terrain the drive to the KTC takes about an hour to complete from the camp by a military vehicle:

The KTC is bordered by the small farming community of Yeongpyeong-ri which is considered part of the larger Pocheon city municipality:

Driving through Yeongpyeong-ri no one would have any idea that in the valley just to north of town is Korea’s premier range training complex if it wasn’t for the one sign indicating which direction to turn to reach the range.  The small village is totally unlike other villages and cities bordering US military installations because there are no clubs and absolutely no signs of a US military presence in the area due to regulations restricting soldiers from leaving the range complex.

Local Concerns

However, just like we have seen with other USFK range locations, the local residents are demanding compensation for having to live next to the range:

Pocheon city officials are asking the South Korean government for millions of dollars worth of funding to make up for the continued presence of U.S. Forces Korea’s largest live-fire range.

Although USFK plans to relocate its northernmost bases south of Seoul by 2012, it will continue to use the 22 ranges within the Rodriguez Range complex in Pocheon.

Kim Hong-jin, chief of Pocheon’s Policy Development Division, said that local residents put up with noise, property damage and disruptions to daily life that call for governmental compensation.  [Stars & Stripes]

As of 2008 no agreement has been reached on paying any compensation to residents living near the range complex. (Update: As of 2016 still no agreement has been reached.)  I have always found it interesting how it seems that residents only complain about USFK tanks, bombs, and airplanes making noise while the Korean military’s noise does not draw the same complaints.

(Update: Misfired TOW Missile Strikes Building Outside of Rodriguez Range Limits)

Rodriguez Range

For troops stationed in the 2nd Infantry Division the noise at the Korea Training Center means they are receiving the best live fire training available in South Korea:

Tanks doing gunnery at the KTC. Image via VOA News.

The multipurpose range complex (MPRC) at the KTC is primarily used to support Abrams and Bradley gunnery exercises on the main Rodriguez Range (Called Rod Range for short by GIs) as well as on the adjacent Warrior Valley range.  The range is a bit unusual to most gunnery ranges in the United States because units literally fire into the side of a mountain:

On the other side of the mountain there are actually a number of South Korean villages:

With the threat of civilian damage maintaining range fans is extremely important when firing at the KTC compared to firing at ranges located in the United States.  Watching night fires at the range can be extremely impressive when viewing ricochets hit off the side of the mountain and put on a mini fireworks show.

The US armored crews are not the only ones that use the range, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army units use the range as well:

US and ROK soldiers train together at the KTC. Image via Army.mil.

Having fired Bradley Table VIII gunnery on Rodriguez Range more times then I can remember, I have found it to be one of the most difficult ranges to fire on during the summer months because of vegetation and that obscures the green pop up targets. Guys that fire well on Rod Range earn it.  However, I have also fired on the Warrior Valley range and have found that one to be quite an easy range to fire on thus causing most units to want their crews to fire on Rodriguez Range if possible to get the maximum training value out of the gunnery exercise.

Other Training Ranges

The KTC is also able to support Artillery, Mortar, Close Air Support, and Apache gunneries as well.  The range is also used for aerial gunnery from Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters.  The range is also being increasingly used by Stryker units that have been rotating to the peninsula in recent years for training.  The KTC also has a number of small arms and grenade ranges as well for soldiers to train on.  The range is also being increasingly used for convoy live fires by logistical units as well:

Finally the range has been upgraded to include an Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) range.  This new range was recently used by the US Marines who deployed to South Korea during the recent Key Resolve exercise to teach and train with the Korean military in urban warfare tactics:

Support Facilities

Something soldiers stationed in Korea appreciate about the KTC is that the range has a small support area with open bay barracks, showers, a KATUSA snack bar, and even a small pizza shack.

However, for those of us who have under gone Bradley Table VIII gunnery at Rodriguez Range there is little time to enjoy these facilities because firers spend the vast majority of their time out on the range mostly waiting in line to fire and simply sleep in their vehicles.  However, the soldiers out there to support the gunnery live quite well in one of the best support facilities I have seen at a US gunnery range.

Conclusion

Overall the Korea Training Center is a good facility to keep USFK soldiers properly trained and certified on their respective weapon systems.  The range continues to improve with more technological updates and innovations being installed at the range.  There is probably not a more important training area for USFK in all of Korea then the KTC.  This means that the Korea Training Center will continue to play a major role in the training of USFK forces now and well into the future.

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

Comments:

Small update… there is no longer a small pizza shack, as well as a Shopette trailer. Right next to the haircut place, they now have a somewhat bigger shopetter and an american snack bar that serves anthony’s pizza as well. Hell they even now have an internet cafe in there. And as a bonus for shits and giggles they have an ajosshi with a table right outside selling his little wares and every now and then the brand new car salesman are there with a car on display.

Dont know about how well the support facilities compare to others as I havent been to JRTC and NTC in awhile, but YTC (Yakima Training Center near FT Lewis) has pretty good facilities.

Thanks for the update. It appears the support facilities at KTC continue to improve.

Last time I was at NTC just the big shoppette behind where units put their tents up was allowed to be used by trainees. YTC has the small camp area but when I did gunnery there we were not allowed to use it. We stayed out in the field in tents the whole time and fired gunnery and went back to Lewis.

[…] in South Korea were messages to his comrades on top secret military targets. Sometimes he was just too blatant about it. His little “Korea Finder” games he played where readers had to guess the […]

I was stationed in this area on 2 of my tours. I spent several months just north of this at Camp Kaiser, nex to Uncheon City. Back in 1960 it was called Unchon-ni. I drove a truck, and used the back road that went just to the west of Rod Range, up through what was called Greek Valley, then into the rear gate of Cp Kaiser.

The other place was at Camp St Barbara, which was just about 2 miles west of Rod Range, where old highway 37 crossed the Hantan river. There is a air strip there that is still used by some of the aviation units while at Rod. It is R228 or G228.

If any of you guys use 228, please get some pictures. I was there in 1970.

The village there is Baekui-ri. Had some GREAT Times there.

[…] http://www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/ckaiser.htm &#149 Found on Google, Windows Live, Yahoo! Search, Ask.com A Profile of the Korea Training Center Pocheon city officials are asking the South Korean government for …. I spent several months just […]

[…] urban warfare facility at Rodriguez Range has really come along over the last few years to provide some great training for 2ID […]

I was at K-2, Taegu, June 1952 to May 1953. I am looking for the site of the Naktong Gunnery Range so I can post a brass plaque in commemoration of the site. It was on the Naktong River 5 hours in a 6by or 83 miles along the river to the North. No one living today seems to know where it was including 3 who were there. If you know please contact me at 44-208 Malae Place, Kaneohe, Hawaii 808 254-1221. I will give you photos. I have returned to Korea 4 times, 5th at the end of August 2010 on a revisit program sponsered by the Korean Government. I wish to return to the site and leave a commemoration plaque. Please help if you know. aloha, Harry

Bruce,
Here’s a google map shot of Baekui-ri today. If you zoom in you can see the airstrip you spoke of just north of Highway 37. Doesn’t seem like much is happening there that would qualify as GREAT Times. Would love to hear your war stories from back in the day! My first tour there was in 90 and my last in 2011. Trying to get hired as a contractor up at KTC and if I do, I’ll get you some street shots of Baekui-ri when i do.
Matt

Harry,
If you’d like, shoot me any info (local landmarks, etc.) you have near the Naktong Gunnery Range and I’ll do what I can to help. Is it up by Andong? If so, it’s likely a ROKAF range now or overgrown, but I’ve lived in Daegu on and off for six years (my dad was stationed at K2 for a year in 69) and I also do alot of hiking. Wish me luck!
Matt

Matt,
Between some of the readers here, and GI Korea, I have added some recent photos of the southern part of Camp St Barbara and Baekui-ri (called Peggy Lee back in the day). It was a small village, but had at least 8 clubs back in the 60s and early 70s when the camp was occupied full time by US troops.

Here is the most recent photos:
http://www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/stb-now-2.htm

Bruce,
Looking at those pictures gives a great idea of what St. Barbara was like (I’m assuming the camp is now the ROK military camp that abuts the airfield)? The range facilities look like they’re kept up (I noticed range towers near some of them), but I’ll bet most units just roll down to Rod Range to shoot small arms vs. trying to coordinate with the ROKs. Cool! My offer is still on for the street shots if I get that job!
Matt

Matt,
Would love to see anything you can get from the area. The big thing about Cp St Barbara was the 8 inch and 175 mm Arty units that were there, a Battalion of each, plus the St Barbara Artillery Range that was at the north end of the camp. All the 1st Cav, 7th Inf, and 2nd Inf div, and I Corp Artillery units did all there firing there.

The small village was like a large Recreation Center, since the locals treated the GIs very well. I had 4 tours in Korea, and the time at St Barbara was the best of them. I walked the road from there, up past Rod Range, on the back road to Uncheon, called Unchon-ni back then. Nice scenery

i spent three or four days out at G228 in early 2009 for crew drills. it was pretty overgrown at the time. google maps shows some development on the parking apron and nearby that wasn’t there four years ago. sorry no landmark photos, but we took a group picture.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=73457341678
http://goo.gl/maps/Gc4o9

Wow, this brought back a few memories! I was there serving as Apache Troop 1SG Dec 96-Dec 97. Not sure if this is the right forum for a question, however here goes. I Squadron photo was taken at the Korean Training Center during one of our Gunneries. I believe it was mid summer / early fall and was shot between the snack bar and ready line. The photo included the 4/7 Command Group standing in frount of and on top of an M1A1. I would love to have a copy for my collection. I PCSed before I could get a copy. Thanks for listening and loved the site. ‘GARRY OWEN’

A Profile of US Military Bases In Seoul

| May 13, 2008

Introduction

The heart of United States Forces Korea is without a doubt Yongsan Garrison, which is appropriately located in the middle of the city that is at the heart of the entire nation of South Korea, Seoul.

Seoul is a vibrant and massive city with a population of over 10 million people. In the middle of this megalopolis is the expansive USFK camp Yongsan Garrison. To put the location of Yongsan Garrison into perspective imagine a 630 acre foreign military base in the middle of Manhattan in New York. That is what Yongsan Garrison is like.

The camp wasn’t always surrounded by such dense urban sprawl. It was originally constructed as an Army garrison during the Imperial Japanese colonial period of Korea between 1904-1945. In fact some of the older buildings that remain on Yongsan can be dated back to the Japanese colonial period. When the Japanese built the Garrison is was located south of Seoul which was mostly farmland at the time and close to the Han River. The Han River was where boats from the Yellow Sea would travel up to deliver goods to Seoul. This was also convenient for transporting military supplies and personnel as well to the garrison.


Old Japanese brick prison administration building picture via Army-Technology.com.

Interestingly enough the Yongsan area was actually used even prior to the arrival of the Japanese colonial forces as a military area for foreign armies due to its closeness to the Han River. In the 13th century the area was used as a garrison for the occupying Mongolian Army as well as in the 16th century by the invading Japanese samurai as part of the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea. Prior to the Japanese colonization of Korea in the 20th century the area had been used by the Chinese military as well who set up a headquarters in the Yongsan area in 1882. Due to its foreign military history it is easy to see why many Koreans have mixed feelings about the location of US troops at Yongsan Garrison.


Regimental Bachelor Officers’ Quarters; later Imperial Japanese Army Hospital; now JUSMAG-K Headquarters.

During the colonial period, Yongsan Garrison would remain under Japanese control until it was handed over to the United States military with the surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army at the end of World War II. The garrison was used by US military occupying forces until 1948 and after the withdrawal of the occupying force, the garrison was used by the US military’s Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG) soldiers that advised and helped train the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army.

In June 1950 with the start of the Korean War, Yongsan Garrison was captured in less then a week by the invading North Korean forces. With the September 1950 Incheon Landing Operation led by General Douglas MacArthur, Yongsan would be recaptured by the US military to only be lost yet again a few months later with the Chinese entry into the war. By March 1951 the US military and their allies had recaptured Seoul and Yongsan Garrison once again from the Chinese. Considering the amount of warfare the garrison saw during the Korean War it is amazing how many of the old Imperial Japanese buildings actually survived the conflict.

Today most of the brick buildings seen on Yongsan Garrison date from the Japanese colonial period.

After the Korean War, Yongsan Garrison went on to become the home of United States Forces Korea (USFK), the United Nations Command (UNC), the Combined Forces Command (CFC), as well as the home of Eighth United States Army (EUSA). With such commands that are important both militarily as well as diplomatically, Yongsan Garrison is of extreme importance to both the United States and Korea.

Yongsan Garrison Today

Yongsan Garrison is currently home to over 25,000 US military servicemembers, DOD civilian contractors, and their families. In addition approximately 1,000 Korean Augmentees to the US Army (KATUSAs) serve on the compound along with 3,000 Korean civilian employees. Some of the major units stationed on Yongsan or its satellite camps are the USFK headquarters, 8th US Army headquarters, 18th Medical Command, 121 General Hospital, 175th Finance, Armed Forces Network Korea, Corps of Engineers Far East District, 1st Signal Brigade, and the 501st Military Intelligence to name a few.


8th Army Headquarters on Yongsan Garrison.


Combined Forces Command Headquarters on Yongsan Garrison.

Yongsan Garrison is currently considered one of the top installations in the entire US Army by recently receiving third place in the Army Communities of Excellence competition. The recognition is well deserved considering the excellent facilities on the post. The post is divided into North and South Posts which are divided by a wide Korean public road. In recent years an overpass was constructed over this road to allow vehicles to drive from each side of the garrison without having to exit on to the Korean road.


121 General Hospital image via Wikipedia.

As I said before the facilities on the post are excellent. Yongsan has a very big Post Exchange (PX) and a massive commissary stocked with every type of American food you can think of. The post has most of the popular fast food restaurants as well as fine dining at restaurants located at the four star hotel the Dragon Hill Lodge on south post. The post’s Navy Club also continues to be a popular attraction on the compound. (Update: Navy Club closed in 2015.)


The Post Exchange (PX) on Yongsan Garrison.

An important difference between Yongsan Garrison and most other USFK facilities in Korea is the amount of families that live on Yongsan. Due to the number of families living on the post the installation operates a number of schools and community programs to create a good family environment on the compound. For soldiers stationed in the 2nd Infantry Division without their families it is a strange experience to go to Yongsan and see junior NCOs driving privately owned vehicles and taking their families shopping at the commissary.


Yongsan Apartment Housing.

The majority of the command sponsored families live on South Post or over at Hannam Village. The majority of housing on South Post is in individual homes while Hannam Village is composed of a highrise apartment complex of 1162 apartments that vary between 2, 3, & 4 bedrooms that are a 20 minute walk from Yongsan Garrison. I have heard nothing but good things about the housing on South Post where the majority of senior leadership lives; however I have heard nothing, but bad things about the Hannam Village where mostly junior soldiers live. Not only have I heard and read bad things about the apartments from people who live there, but the Stars & Stripes has reported on it as well.  (Update: Hannam Village was closed in 2014.)

Those that are not housed on South Post or over at Hannam Village are authorized to live in an off post apartment. Off post apartments can be very hit and miss in quality and are notorious for landlord sharks defrauding the military and servicemembers out of money.

Dragon Hill Lodge

One of the key attractions of USFK is without a doubt the Dragon Hill Lodge hotel located on the south post of Yongsan Garrison. This massive hotel opened in May 1990 and was constructed using Morale Welfare & Recreation (MWR) funds raised through soldier programs such as the slot machines in operation on USFK camps in Korea. No Congressional funding was used to construct the hotel and to this day the hotel operates through an MWR program called the Armed Forces Recreational Centers. The Dragon Hill Lodge is one of four AFRC hotels across the globe with the others being in Hawaii, Germany, and Florida.

The hotel has 394 rooms and suites that come with queen size beds, sofas, private bathrooms, DVD players, etc. The hotel also has a number of western style restaurants to include fast food such as Subway and Pizza Hut. My personal favourite is the Oasis Mexican Restaurant that I believe serves the best Mexican food in Korea. The hotel also has a massive exercise and swimming facility for its guests. It is also popular for weddings and other large catered functions.

The Dragon Hill Lodge is rated as a four star hotel and for those staying there it definitely deserves its rating. I have only stayed at the Dragon Hill Lodge on TDY orders and have enjoyed every time I have stayed there. However, the one downside of the hotel is its price. Prices for rooms are based on rank and duty status and the average cost for a room is over $200. There are various reasons for the high prices at the hotel, but for soldiers on leave most can get a hotel room for less then a $100.


The Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan Garrison.

Even with the projected closing of Yongsan Garrison by 2012 the Dragon Hill Lodge is scheduled to remain a US military property which will mean that US servicemembers will be able to continue to use this great facility even after it closes.

Camp Kim

Located literally across the street from the main post of Yongsan Garrison is Camp Kim. Camp Kim is known to most GIs stationed in Korea as where the Seoul United Service Organization (USO) is located. Going to the USO is the only reason I have ever personally visited Camp Kim. The USO actually runs an excellent facility at Camp Kim and the best I have seen in USFK. Definitely worth checking out if you are a soldier stationed in Korea.

However, there is more to Camp Kim then just the USO. The camp is also home to the Special Operations Command – Korea (SOCKOR) which is the lone US special forces unit assigned to the Korean theatre of operations. The 1st Signal Brigade Project Support Directorate is also located at the camp. This directorate provides a number of technical and communications support capabilities for USFK.

Camp Kim also houses the Vehicle Processing Center for USFK which provides customer service for privately owned vehicles (POVs) of USFK servicemembers and their families. Finally the Korean Service Corps (KSC) is based out of Camp Kim which is a large organization of Korean civilian workers that provide direct peace time and combat support services to the US military in Korea.

Camp Coiner

On the northern part of the land that encompasses Yongsan Garrison is the small USFK installation of Camp Coiner. This camp was named after 2nd Lieutenant Randall Coiner assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division who was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for actions taken in 1953 during the Korean War near the village of Sokkagae.

Quonset huts on Camp Coiner.  Picture from the Stars & Stripes.

Prior to the US military taking control of the camp from the Imperial Japanese Army, Camp Coiner was used as a garrison for a horse drawn artillery unit. Currently the camp is home to elements of 8th PERSCOM, the 8th MP Brigade, 17th Aviation Brigade, and the 1st Signal Brigade. The camp is relatively small and only encompasses a total of 55 acres.  (Update: In the future Camp Coiner will be tore down and become the location of a new US embassy compound.

Far East District Compound

The US Army’s Corps of Engineers Far East District has been based out of the extremely small Far East District Compound a block from Seoul’s massive Dongdaemun shopping district. The land that the compound was constructed on was originally owned by Seoul National University, but with the outbreak of the Korean War the South Korean government seized the land in order for the Corps of Engineers to start operations from the camp in 1951.

Since then with the economic development of Seoul, the surrounding community has swallowed up the small camp which some citizens of Seoul view as a eye sore. It also has been targeted by anti-US protesters from Hanchongryun that burned a hole in the US flag on the post. Recently the camp has been targeted by protesters angered by not being paid for services rendered while working on the project to expand Camp Humphreys.

The Far East District Compound is scheduled to be handed over back to the Korean government as part of the USFK transformation plan which has led to internal Korean fight between the ROK Ministry of Defense and Seoul National University over who really owns the land. Currently the compound is scheduled to close by 2012 and the land will be sold by the Ministry of Defense to the Korean National Housing Corporation. The camp is 142,000 square feet in size and is estimated that each 10.8 square feet in the compound is worth $85,000. The property is worth hundreds of millions of dollars thus making it quite clear why Seoul National University and the Ministry Defense are fighting over who controls the property.

Camp Jackson

Located in the far northern Dobong-gu suburb of Seoul is the small US military installation Camp Jackson. The camp was named after Private First Class George W. Jackson who was awarded the Silver Star during the Korean War. The camp is one of the smallest in Korea but probably has the prettiest back drop of any camp with the massive granite spires of beautiful Mt. Dobong soaring over the camp.

Camp Jackson used to be home to a field artillery Target Acquisition Battery that was assigned about 100 soldiers on the camp. In 1968 on the slopes of Mt. Dobong outside of the camp a continuing gun fight with Korean soldiers against North Korean infiltrators sent to kill Korean President Park Chung-hee erupted and could be heard from the camp.

Today there is no field artillery unit stationed on the installation and instead Camp Jackson is home to the Wightmen Non-commissioned Officer Academy that trains newly promoted US Army E-5 sergeants in basic NCO skills. Camp Jackson is also home to the very unique Korean Augmentee to the United States Army (KATUSA) training academy. Korea is the one US ally that has a sizable number of soldiers that serve side by side in US units. These Korean Army soldiers are called KATUSAs. The KATUSA program was first initiated in the early years of the Korean War to provide US units with translators and local cultural knowledge. KATUSAs continue to provide these important capabilities along with conducting clerical, driving, maintenance, etc. work within their respective units.

All ROK Army draftees that are selected for the KATUSA program after passing rigorous English language tests must attend the KATUSA academy at Camp Jackson. For all KATUSAs this is their first initiation into serving with US soldiers. The NCOs that train both the NCOs and KATUSAs at the academy are of high quality but unfortunately a sexual assault against a KATUSA trainee mired the school’s image a few years ago. Since then the academy has had a clean record and continues to produce great young NCOs and KATUSA soldiers for the United States Forces Korea.

Camp Jackson is scheduled to be handed back over to the Korean government as part of the USFK transformation plan by 2012.  (Update: The relocation plan to move the NCO Academy to Camp Humphreys has been delayed to 2017.)

K-16

The K-16 airbase is located just south of the Han River in the Seoul suburb of Soengnam. The airbase was actually the old Seoul City Airport which during the Korean War was converted into a full time military base. It received the name K-16 because airfields during the war were given code names. The original name of the base was Seoul Airbase but its codename of K-16 is what stuck and it continues to be identified as K-16 Airbase to this day.

The airbase today is 86 acres in size and controlled by the Korean Air Force 15th Composite Wing who plays host to the US Army’s 2-2 Aviation Battalion and its support units such as the 595th Maintenance Company. The 2-2 Aviation Battalion is equipped with Blackhawk helicopters and only moved to the base in 2005 from their former home at Camp Stanley in Uijongbu. The battalion was moved from Camp Stanley as part of the USFK transformation plan. K-16 also hosts a small security force that is responsible for defending Camp Post Tango located on the base. CP Tango is the primary warfighting center where any contingency on the Korean peninsula would be commanded and controlled from.

The airbase is also the entry and departure point for many VIPs flying to and from Seoul to include the South Korean president and American government officials. However, the thing that K-16 is probably most known for to USFK servicemembers is the nearby Sungnam golf course. The Sungnam golf course is not only popular with US servicemembers but with Koreans as well.

It is important to note that there are no plans to close the airfield as part of the USFK transformation plan to consolidate units around the hubs of Camp Humphreys and Osan Airbase. In fact money is actually flowing into K-16 now with major upgrades to the facilities taking place including brand new apartments for the servicemembers to be housed in.

Camp Market

Camp Market is yet another military installation that was originally constructed by the Imperial Japanese army in the 1930’s as a logistics base for supplies coming through the port of Incheon. Like with Yongsan Garrison, the Camp Market area was handed over to the US occupation troops after World War II. The area was captured by the North Koreans in the opening week of the Korean War and was recaptured in September 1950 with the Incheon Landing Operation. After the landing General McArthur used the area as a logistical base. The camp was lost again in December 1950 with the entry of the Chinese into the war. The camp was recaptured from the Chinese in March 1951.

After the Korean War the area became known as a logistical base for the US Marine Corps and in 1963 the area was given to the US Army which established the Army Support Command (ASCOM) in the area. ASCOM became the main logistical hub for the US military until most of the land and facilities for ASCOM was closed and turned over to the Korean government in 1973. Only the Camp Market area was not turned over and remains a small logistical base for USFK in Incheon.

Today Camp Market is composed of 34 warehouses that has a combined total of 852,495 square feet of storage space to store goods and supplies for USFK facilities. The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office as well as the Army Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) distribution and bakery is based out of Camp Market to provides products and baked goods to PXs and commissaries across USFK. Approximately 600 civilians work at Camp Market with the vast majority of them being Korean contract workers.

The Future of USFK Facilities in Seoul

As the decades passed in Seoul and the Korean economic miracle took hold of the city, it began to grow at a remarkable rate to where today Yongsan Garrison has been totally engulfed and surrounded by the city. A dense urban environment surrounds the garrison on all sides instead of the farmland that surrounded the garrison when it was first constructed by the Japanese.

This urban development has caused many problems for the US military in Korea because the 630 acres that composes the garrison causes both development and traffic problems for the city of Seoul. The location of the garrison also allows activists groups to easily use the garrison to conduct their anti-US protests at any time.

Recognizing the problems of the current location of Yongsan Garrison the United States military has tried for years to get the base relocated outside of Seoul and has been continually met with South Korean governmental delays to any proposed move. The first proposal to move the garrison was actually initiated back in 1987 with then Korean President Roh Tae-woo. By 1990 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to relocate Yongsan Garrison.

However, in 1993 a new Korean president had come to power, Kim Young-sam who that year canceled the plan move, deeming it to expensive because Seoul was to pay for the cost of moving the garrison. However, it was probably no coincidence that the Korean government also killed the Yongsan move the same year the North Korean nuclear crisis was happening and the nation was on the brink of war with the North Koreans. After war was avoided with the signing of the Agreed Framework talks about relocating the garrison were effectively delayed even further with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.

Talks to relocate Yongsan did not seriously heat up again until 2003 when US President George Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed the Korean government to relocate the garrison. On January 17, 2004 during the Sixth Future of the Alliance talks, an agreement was struck to relocate Yongsan Garrison to Camp Humphreys which is located about 50 kilometers south of Seoul. A small area of land would remain controlled by the US military at Yongsan to serve as the home for a new US embassy as well as keeping the Dragon Hill Lodge for the use of US servicemembers. The remainder of Yongsan was supposed to be turned into Seoul’s very own Central Park, but business interests and politics may sink this idea.

The original plan was to have the base relocated by 2008. However, technical problems and South Korean governmental delay games pushed the date of the relocation back to 2010, then 2013 and then finally back to 2012. Now there is even attempts by the South Korean government to push the relocation all the way back to 2015. With such governmental delay games being played out it is easy to see that Yongsan Garrison is probably going to be around for many more years to come and I can think of quite a few people who will be happy about that.  (Update: Most of Yongsan Garrison is hoped to be moved to Camp Humphreys by the end of 2017.)

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

Comments

 

[…] TChahng: May 12th, 2008 at 10:55 pm […]

In my opinion the 2012 move date will never happen. Years ago I believed all the misinformation being put out by leadership about a 2008 move – not anymore!

Great work GI Korea, nicely written. And thanks for including the FED Compound. Most folks don’t even know we’re here.

Just one correction. The Google Earth image for Dragon Hill incorrectly identifies the building. The push pin identifies the First Replacement Company’s facility, Bldg. 4034 which is across the parking lot from DHL. DHL is actually the large “X” shaped gray roof at the bottom of the image (under the copyrights).

thanks again.

Fred, thanks and you are correct about mislabeling DHL. I was sloppy with the pin mark and have fixed the image. Thanks.

Pete I am at the point now that I won’t believe Yongsan will really move until I actually see it happen with my own two eyes.

Great post. How do you find the time to do these?

And I think you’re right on the final point, Yongsan will likely be a USFK base for the foreseeable future. Any ROK politico with half a brain knows that soon after the U.S. is gone from Seoul and then Korea, either the Chinese or the Japanese will want to establish a foothold. Stability in northeast Asia hinges on stability on the Korean peninsula.

Who can Korea depend upon to be the Hidden Dragon behind her Crouching Tiger? Someday that will be necessary, and I will say, Hell Yes!

These long posts like this one I actually type up as a Word file and leave it saved on my desktop and just slowly add to it over time. Once it is done I just cut and paste it into my blogging program. I have been slowly typing up this Yongsan post for probably about three months.

You forgot CP TANGO…

I too admire how you can keep a fairly steady stream of these posts coming week after week given your busy professional schedule.

I admire the consistency – which I sorely lack. I can only manage to work in heated spurts.

[…] Click here to read more. Click here to return to Korea Click here to return to MySpace News. […]

[…] main logistical support hub at the time and the only remnants of it that remains today is Camp Market.  The story initially develops by following Mike’s interactions with fellow soldiers in the […]

[…] … metacomm.co.kr/forum/USAG%20Humphreys%20Relocation… • Found on Google A Profile of USFK Camps in Seoul May 13, 2008 … The US Army?s Corps of Engineers Far East District has been based …. Camp […]

[…] expect to live in back in the states. Even families that are command sponsored find themselves in Yongsan for example living in the Hanam Apartments which I have often heard referred to as “The Ghetto”. This is a […]

I was in the 135th FST and i served in Korea from 1996 to 1997, i will never forget the team of people i met there, if anyone can read this please email me any jobs that can help our soldiers in the duty. I am a US Army Vet, and i am so proud of the work we did there, we took over Mash, i designed the coin for the 135th FST, I would love to hear from anyone there, it really brings back so many good memories. To all those in 121 GH i miss you all…….

Great stuff. I have a picture of Camp Coiner in my collection that will show how the area looked in 1960. I am sure you can not see any of that big hill now, since the area is all high rises now.

http://www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/cpcoiner1960.jpg

I spent 61-62 at Camp Coiner and going to all signal corps sites to set up our carrier communications deuce and a half. any pics of TV hill Uijongbu, Pyontec

I was with MILPERCEN-K at Coiner in 80-81 and USAGY in 84-85 (and even Camp Stanley in 73-74). If anyone has any photos of these locations during these periods, I’d appreciate the memories.

Station at Camp Coiner, 67-68, looking to conect with others, signal

Stationed at Camp Long Wonju 1973-1974 lookimg for buddie Robert Gambrell stationed Camp long 1972-1973

in 1973 K-16 was little more than the small Air Base and maybe 10 farm houses across the road does CXamp Long still exist where I set up communications van on a duce and a half with generator

I was station at Camp Market. It seems surreal that I spent two years there. I was only required one year, but within the first 6 months I extend my tour for the rest of my enlistment. What a weird place. You could run around the installation in less than half an hour and it was surrounded by large apartment buildings. At times it was a lonely place when everyone left home for the weekend. Once you step outside, it was a diffrent world. It seemed I was the only foreigner walking around on that part of the city. I use to get stared at all the time. Alot of shady deals went down at the commisary and at the “club” or casino. Korean women who were married to officers showed up in their BMWs and load their vehicles with beer and other items they would sell of post. The casino was closed for GI’s at 10pm during the weekend, but oddly you could see the Korean national patrons playing the slot machines with the doors locked. The club manager always kicked me out when I showed up with my camcorder!

I was 1SGT of an MI Co on Camp Coiner in 1987-88 (the Olympics). Great tour of duty, loved Itaewon.

What can you tell me about Camp Grey (not to be confused with Camp Grey Annex), located (previously) in Yongdungpo.

Greatest time of my life spent @ Seoul American High School,,71-74..Those who hated Korea, never really “saw” Korea, the culture shock of the far east and the pre concieved ideas blind some people.

Raul N Aguilar

I’m wondering why it never occurred to me to extend my stay in Korea at Camp Pelham in 1983. Had I known how boring stateside duty was (at least at Fort Ord)I would have spent my whole enlistment time in Korea. I clearly remember that moment on the runway..leaving the country..we all cheered when we heard and felt the rubber wheel lift off that runway when we departed. But deep down I felt sad..feeling like I had just scratched the surface of the experience and yet was leaving and would probably never be there again. I’m so grateful for sites such as this where I can check out the scene there a little bit and see the same sort of sentiments from others who served there. If ESL teaching paid a bit more..I’d probably be heading back now.

For anyone that served in the Seoul area in the 1950s or 1960s the below link may be of interest:

http://rokdrop.com/2012/06/28/filmmaker-looking-to-interview-us-rok-military-veterans-for-documentary/

I think there is a small error about Ascom City in your history. Ascom was indeed a Marine supply point during and for a short time (no pun intended) after the Korean War, but I think it became property of the US Army in early 1954. I went to Korea on my first tour in 1956 on the USS Freeman and we processed through Ascom and boarded unheated trains for Uijongbu. I spent a month in the 121 Evac hospital in 1961 on my second tour and it was indeed at Ascom and I didn’t see a Marine. The Marines withdrew from Korea in either 1954 or ’55 and the 24th Infantry Division took their place. I served with the 7th Div just south of Kumwha.

Richard Sullivan has it right. I went thru there in Feb 1960 also was assigned there July 1962 thru August 1964. It became ASCOM when the seven technical services were combined and consolidated I believe early 1963 to form a depot. I worked on the eventual movement of supplies to Waegwan Camp Carroll before I went to Japan.

Ascom was a supply depot before the Korean War as I was surprised to read on page 509 of Roy Appleman’s “From the Naktong to the Yalu” nearly 50 years ago in his account of the Inchon landing and subsequent liberation of Seoul.

“…During the night of 16-17 September, the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, occupied a forward defensive position commanding the Seoul highway just west of Ascom City. Behind it the 1st Battalion held a high hill…”

Anyone as rabid about military history as me or someone with just a little curiosity of what happened where they were assigned would find the Army’s official history very interesting.

Ascom was a supply depot before the Korean War thats very true I believe the 24th Infantry Division had it prior to the war but not sure. I actually found a picture showing the Marines moving thru Bupyong Dong about three days ago sent it to my son who was a marine and a avid Korean War junkie. Him and his brother actually lived for a year on that same street while I was in Vietnam.

Sorry Richard your right 24th took it after the war from the Marines my mistake. Sometimes its had to keep it straight in my head. Ha Ha

Ron, I never made a MISTEAK! Where/when were you in Vietnam? I was there also.

1st time was 1965 at the Inventory Control Center down by the docks in Saigon. Then I was at Hq,USARV Long Binh 1968,1969. I was pretty lucky tour wise. Also spent two tours on Okinawa, Panama,Hawaii,Korea (two times) and one year at the Pentagon before I retired.

My 1st tour in Korea was 1960 7th Cav Camp Custer. I recall the 1st meal in Korea while at ASCOM was always a steak. Anytime of the day. Beat that junk on the ship.

I arrived in Korea on 5 January 1965 at Incheon aboard the USS Breckinridge bound for 7th Inf Div at Camp Casey. On Aug. 15, 1965, was transferred to Yongsan Garrison for assignment with the 199th Personnel Services Company. Separated from the US Army as SP5, at the 38th Replacement Co., then stationed at ASCOM/Camp Market on 23 Feb. 1966. Was hired as a temp GS3, Clerk-Typist with the ACofS, G5, Civil Affairs, 8th US Army on May 1, 1966. Thus began my civil service career. With the exception of nearly 3 years (Oct ’81-April ’82 and May 2007 – May 2009) I have lived in Korea and worked as a Public Affairs Specialist or Officer for about 35 years. Retired on 30 Sep 2008 at my last Public Affairs Officer position with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Sacramento District, California with 41 years of service (included 2 years of active duty). Worked on Yongsan Garrison for most of my life and living in numerous places in Seoul and now living in Yongin, near the Korean Folk Village.
I enjoy living in Korea and probably know more about this nation than I do about the US. I’ve traveled to almost all of the US military installations in Korea in the ’60s and ’70s and less travel in the ’80s, 90s and later.
Enjoy reading the comments and seeing the photos on the web related to our US military presence in the Republic of Korea. Appreciate the efforts of people like you who post these items of history.

I was never a military brat but I lived with my father in Seoul for many years. My dad worked for Dunham and Smith who supplied the military with food stuffs, electrical goods and you name it. So I was familiar with many of the bases. Especially Osan. I am looking forward to going back to Yongsan where I spent many of fond memories.

GI Myths: Is the US Military Crime Rate in Korea Out of Control?

| February 26, 2008

Quiet possibly the most common complaint from Koreans about being host to thousands of American servicemembers is that they commit an inordinate amount of crime and then get away with it because of the “unfair” Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). This belief is widespread and believed by many in the country with no one stopping to ask themselves is it true?

usfk logo

I have even heard from KATUSAs (Korean Augmentees to the US Army) that GIs commit crimes and get away with it because of the SOFA. When I challenge them and others that have made these statements to provide an example of a soldier committing a crime and getting away with it because of the SOFA, they always bring up the 2002 Armoured Vehicle Accident as evidence. I always appreciate them bring up that tragic accident because it is so easy to debunk and makes a great teaching point. The accident in question happened while the soldiers were on duty which clearly states in the US-ROK SOFA that it falls under the jurisdiction of the US military just like the SOFAs the Korean government has signed with nations that host Korean troops.

The American SOFA with Korea is actually better than the SOFAs that Korea has signed with other countries because it allows US soldiers to stand trial in Korean civilian courts for crimes committed while off duty while the Korean SOFAs do not. Some examples of the Korean SOFAs being activated to clear Korean soldiers from being tried in foreign courts include the 2005 shooting of an Iraqi soldier by a Korean servicemeber[i] as well as a 2006 traffic accident that killed a Kurdish political official in Irbil, Iraq[ii]. Each of these incidents were handled by Korean military courts because of the SOFA Korea signed with Iraq. Even more telling is that ROK military servicemembers in Korea do not stand trial for crimes committed while on or even off duty. This just begs the question of if Korean civilian courts are not good enough for their own servicemembers who speak Korean and understand the system, than why should Korean civilian courts be good enough to try US servicemembers who do not understand the system much less even speak the language?

Let me make clear before I move on that I am not advocating for any revision of the current SOFA to exempt American servicemembers from Korean courts. I am only pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of those in Korean society who do want to change the SOFA to be able to try US servicemembers for incidents that happen while on duty when it is something their own military will never agree to, even for crimes committed while off duty.

Despite Korean conventional wisdom that the SOFA allows GIs to literally get away with murder and fly back to America, the truth of the matter is that there is not one reason to blame for why GI incidents occur; GI incidents are a product of simple statistics, the environment in Korea, and leadership. Statistics of criminal activity show that the usual troublemakers are immature, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Guess what USFK is primarily filled with, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Then these soldiers are thrown into a sleazy “ville” (entertainment areas outside US camps) filled with alcohol and prostitutes; is it any wonder why these soldiers commit the most crimes in United States Force Korea (USFK)? Trouble from this pool of soldiers has happened long before now and will continue to happen in the future. It is a statistical certainty. What is important to determine is the measures taken by USFK to limit incidents from happening and how the USFK crime rate compares to the local population.

When looking at GI crime rates, people need to take a historical perspective on incidents in Korea. Just a decade ago the ville was a much more misbehaved place than what it is now. Back then I was appalled by the conditions in the entertainment districts located outside US military bases. I could not walk through the Dongducheon ville north of Seoul without being approached by multiple prostitutes or seeing a fight break out somewhere. Some of the older soldiers in my unit were stationed in Korea in the 80’s and they told me the ville was tame compared to what I saw then. With the environment that soldiers were thrown into in the ville it should come as no surprise that in prior decades there was much more serious crime occurring involving USFK servicemembers than there are now.

A Historical Look at GI Crime
The USinKorea website maintains an archive of GI Crimes in Korea through published American newspaper reports such as the New York Times and the Washington Post[iii]. The newspaper articles show that there were a number of violent incidents involving US servicemembers over the decades that are truly a disgrace to anyone wearing the uniform, however they also show that since the US-ROK SOFA was first signed in 1966 that US servicemembers have been regularly tried in Korean courts to include even receiving the death penalty. For example the first documented rape that was handled by Korean courts was in 1967, the first murder was handled by the Korean courts in 1968, and the first reported taxi cab related incident was in 1969. The rapes and murders continue through the years and this list is just what the site’s webmaster was able to dig up through published US newspaper reports, imagine how many more incidents happened that were never published. As appalling as all these incidents may be it is also instructive because it shows that the argument that US soldiers can literally get away with murder in Korea and fly home because of the SOFA is totally untrue and has been untrue for decades because all these American criminals that were tried and convicted in Korean courts.

Part of the reason that feeds this perception of GIs getting away with crimes is that in the past the Korean media which was controlled by authoritarian governments would not publish stories about GI crimes fearing that it would harm the alliance between the two countries. As democracy came to the country and the media received increased freedoms, stories about GI crimes began to appear in the news such as the 1992 murder of a Dongducheon bar worker Yoon Geu-mi by Private Kenneth Markle[iv]. Markle had brutally murdered the woman after he found out that she had been with another man the night before. Markle bashed her and then sexually assaulted her with an umbrella and Coke bottle before pouring laundry detergent over the body. The scene was horrific and photographs of the murder spread across Korea and the conventional wisdom soon became that US troops have been doing these types of crimes for a long time and had been getting away with it. However, as I have already demonstrated yes, horrible crimes have happened over the years involving USFK servicemembers, but they were tried and convicted in Korean courts for those crimes; it was just that the Korean public never heard about them. Markle went on to be tried and convicted in Korean court and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, just like the GIs criminals that came before him starting way back in 1967. The only thing that made his case different was that it was widely published.

Reporting GI Crime Today
In the past the Korean media may not have reported incidents of GI crime, but today the exact opposite has happened. Now the media reports the smallest incidents involving GIs. For example just last year a Korean newspaper ran an article about how an American GI brushed a Korean woman with the mirror of his car[v]. Would such an article have ever been published if the woman was brushed by the mirror of a vehicle driven by a Korean? Of course not, but the Korean media will report any incident involving a GI which further feeds the conventional wisdom of out of control GI crime.

Additionally, the proliferation of the Internet has only further added to the perception of surging GI crime. Often times the Internet will be the catalyst to publicize a perceived injustice by a USFK servicemember. For example the 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Incident and the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident were greatly amplified with an incredible amount of disinformation and outright lies on the Internet before the media picked up the story and reported the same disinformation to further inflame the Korean public.

To further add to the perception of out of control GI crime is the sensationalism that the Korean media often adds to the reporting to inflame public anger. The best example of this is the 1995 Seoul Subway Brawl involving four USFK soldiers[vi]. One of the soldiers on the subway patted the behind of a Korean woman with him. A group of Korean males than confronted the American soldier about patting the woman’s behind. The woman explained to the male Koreans that she was in fact the soldier’s wife. After hearing this, the Korean males began to spat on and slap the woman for being married to the soldier. Needless to say the husband and friends intervened to prevent the Koreans from beating the soldier’s wife. However, the story that was published in the Korean media was one of drunk, American GIs sexually assaulting a Korean woman on the subway until confronted by concerned local citizens.

Here is how the Korea Times reported the case[vii]:

“The four went on the rampage in the subway station in May and beat Cho who tried to stop them, causing him injuries requiring three weeks of treatment, the prosecution claimed. They were indicted without physical detention on May 19.”

With a dishonest media narrative such as this, the incident quickly became one that inflamed anti-US sentiment in the country. This belief was only reinforced when the four GIs and the Korean wife were arrested and convicted of assault. Three of the GIs received monetary fines while the GI husband was sentenced to six months in jail while his wife, the one spat on and slapped, received a fine. The Koreans that started the fight in the first place were never even indicted. This is justice in Korea, that I show later in the essay, continues to be practiced to this day.

A year later the GI husband was able to successfully appeal his case and quietly his jail term was reduced to a fine just like the others involved. If the US-ROK SOFA had not been in place at the time he would have been imprisoned in Korean jail the entire time his case was awaiting appeal for an obvious travesty of justice. This case is one of many examples of why the US needs a SOFA with a country like South Korea where a sensational media and rampant xenophobic nationalism often makes any fair trial of an alleged crime by a USFK servicemember difficult.

Another more recent example of an outrageous arrest of USFK servicemembers was in 2002 when three American GIs were assaulted and then kidnapped off a Seoul subway by known anti-US activists.[viii] One of the kidnapped soldiers was taken to a packed college sports stadium and forced to make a coerced statement to the crowd condemning USFK that was broadcast on national television. Then the soldiers were taken to a hospital and forced to apologize to the anti-US activist who attacked them on the subway in the first place. Despite being assaulted on the subway, kidnapped, and then forced to make coerced statements on national TV, the soldiers were then booked by the police for assault.

A travesty of justice doesn’t begin to describe how despicable this case is. Could you imagine what the Korean reaction would be if a mob of US soldiers assaulted three Koreans, kidnapped them on to a US military installation, and then forced them to make coerced anti-Korean statements on the Armed Forces Network? There would be nation wide outrage in Korea, yet when it happens to US soldiers they are the ones charged with a crime. It truly boggles the mind.

As evidence that the railroading of American soldiers in Korean courts continues to this day look no further than the case of PFC Mark Feldman. Feldman was convicted of attempted rape of an off duty Korean policewoman, along with another USFK servicemember SGT Anthony Basel. Basel confessed and was convicted for the crime, but Feldman told police that he was outside trying to catch a taxi while Basel was using the restroom where the attack occurred. The victim did not see Feldman in the bathroom and initially the restaurant owner that broke up the attack did not see Feldman either in his initial sworn statement to police. However, later the police were able to get the restaurant owner to change his statement and were able to arrest and convict Feldman. Additionally the police pressured Basel to write a statement implicating Feldman in order to reduce his own jail time. During Feldman’s trial he was not even given an adequate interpreter to understand what was going on.

When Feldman was convicted the senior judge presiding over the case encouraged Feldman to appeal the conviction because it was so dubious, which he did. After sitting in Korean jail for 113 days PFC Feldman’s conviction was reversed because of lack of evidence and changing witness statements[ix]. Under the pre-2001 US-ROK SOFA, Feldman would have never been in jail to begin with because the old SOFA only sent USFK servicemembers to Korean jail after their appeals process was complete. Since the 2001 revision soldiers are now handed over to Korean authorities before the completion of their appeals process. Yes the SOFA is unfair; it is unfair towards American soldiers not Koreans.

The Statistics of GI Crime
The Korean media and politicians like to play with statistics as well in order to feed the conventional wisdom of out of control GI crime. Often statistics will be released that shows a high USFK crime rate, however the media will inflate the statistics by including such minor offenses as parking tickets to support their claim of out of control GI crime. Left wing Korean politician Lee Young-soon in 2005 released statistics from the Seoul police department that USFK soldiers committed 780 criminal acts over a six-year period and were not held for trial[x]. To sensationalize this statistic even further, the newspaper headline read, “No US Soldiers Held in Hundreds of Crimes”. Of course this statistic was inflated with unpaid parking tickets but the article also made no distinction of whether the soldiers not tried in Korean court were found to have no involvement in the crime by the police or were handed over to the US military for trial for minor crimes. From personal experience I have seen Korean police hand over soldiers for minor crimes such as urinating on a building to be handled by the military justice system so they do not have to prepare all the necessary paperwork to handle a US servicemember case in the Korean justice system. It should come as no surprise that this politician was later linked to a North Korean spy scandal[xi].

So what do the real criminal statistics say about GI crimes in Korea? For example let’s start with the statistics for SOFA status persons convicted of crimes in Korean court in 2007. These statistics are compiled from the ROK criminal court records involving USFK members published every month on the USFK website:

  • Crime Soldier Dependent Contractor
  • Rape 2
  • Sexual Assault 1
  • Assault 11 2              1
  • Bodily Injury 5
  • Larceny 3
  • Robbery 1
  • Drugs 2
  • DUI 10
  • Prostitution 1
  • T.M. Violation           2
  • Totals: 36 4 1

USFK currently has approximately 27,500 soldiers stationed in Korea. This means that .00131% of the population of USFK servicemembers in Korea are the ones causing trouble while the other 27,464 soldiers are minding their own business and respecting Korean law. Further more if the number of USFK servicemembers is divided by the number of incidents the ratio comes out to 1 criminal incident for every 764 soldiers.

This ratio is even further improved when just serious crimes are considered. The Korean National Policy Agency considers Murder, Robbery, Rape, Violence, & Larceny as major crimes when compiling Korean crime statistics. Of these five major categories USFK soldiers committed 23 cases of serious crime. When the USFK population is divided by this number, the ratio comes out to 1 serious crime for 1196 soldiers.

So how does this compare to Korean crime rates? The Korean National Police Agency has 2007 statistics for serious crimes committed by Koreans on their website. The KNPA has arrested 385,704 Koreans for serious crimes out of a population of 49 million Koreans[xii]. Here is how the statistics break down:

  • Crime Number
  • Murder – 1,062
  • Burglary – 3,731
  • Rape – 7,795
  • Theft – 102,688
  • Assault – 270,428
  • Total – 385,704

Korea has a conviction rate of 99% which means that of the 385,704 people arrested that comes out to roughly 381,847 people convicted.  If the total Korean population of 49 million is divided by the number of serious criminal convictions, the ratio comes out to 1 serious crime for every 128 Koreans. As I have just demonstrated the USFK crime rate isn’t just lower than the Korean crime rate, but is significantly lower.

These statistics are even more interesting when compared by individual crime. For example by using the same equation as above, for assaults 1 in every 183 Koreans are arrested for assault compared to 1 in every 1,718 USFK servicemembers. The Korean statistic for rape is much high then the USFK number with 1 in every 6,350 Koreans are arrested for rape compared to 1 in every 9,166 USFK servicemembers. For combined burglary and theft 1 person is arrested for every 181 Koreans compared to 1 person arrested for every 6875 USFK servicemembers. Finally, for murder 1 in every 45,623 Koreans are arrested for murder compared to zero arrests for murder for USFK servicemembers.

These numbers are truly stunning and show how hard USFK has worked in recent years to lower what was already a low crime rate to begin with. The most stunning statistic the last few years has been that no USFK servicemember has been involved with murdering a Korean.

If you look at murders from 1990-2000 there was the infamous 1993 Kenneth Markle murder[xiii] of a Korean prostitute in Dongducheon, followed by another murder in Dongducheon in 1996 of another prostitute by Steven Munique[xiv], then a 1998 murder by Jerome Henrix[xv] of a prostitute in Itaewon, and then the 2000 murder of yet another Itaewon prostitute by Christopher McCarthy[xvi]. Additionally a USFK dependent murdered a Korean man at the Itaewon Burger King in 1997[xvii].

Now compare these murders to the time period between 2001 through 2008 where not one murder of a Korean civilian was perpetrated by a USFK servicemember. In fact a USFK servicemember was more recently murdered by a Korean than vice versa when in 2000 Major David Berry was murdered in broad daylight in Itaewon by a deranged Korean man[xviii].

The Spread of Disinformation
What else is interesting is that the most notorious Korean anti-US group USA Crime has launched a campaign claiming that USFK is releasing mentally deranged soldiers into Korea due to their service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that they are committing increasing crime in Korea[xix]. The statistics above prove that this is nonsense especially the murder statistics. How does USA Crime explain that during the peace time military before 9/11 that USFK servicemembers were responsible for murdering four Korean civilians, but after 9/11 not one Korean civilian has been murdered by these so called mentally deranged soldiers? They can’t explain it and they won’t explain it either because their sole purpose is to spread anti-US disinformation to the Korean public, which they are very effective at doing. They could care less about the actual truth of USFK crime rates.

It is because of the blatant smears, disinformation campaigns, and subsequent publicity that the Korean public continues to believe that USFK is responsible for an inordinate amount of crime in Korea. This perception problem has caused a command environment within USFK where commanders are trying to prevent every incident when preventing all incidents is statistically impossible. There is approximately 40,000 USFK servicemembers, contractors, and family members in Korea. Is there a town of 40,000 people in either the US or Korea with no crime?

Conclusion
The USFK attempt to create a crime free utopia is statistically impossible. In order to create this utopia, a curfew is implemented, the battle buddy policy exists, the loss of driving privileges for most of USFK service members was enacted, blood alcohol content (BAC) regulations in the 2nd Infantry Division were implemented, certain areas of Korean cities are put off limits, along with a host of other regulations to limit the amount of incidents involving USFK servicemembers.

All these regulations greatly effect soldier life in Korea which effects morale and has the side effect of creating a negative perception of Koreans because everyone knows these restrictions are enacted on them because of a general Korean public that believes GIs are out of control criminals. This perception will not change until the Korean media stops reporting every Korean brushed by a USFK servicemember’s car mirror as well as the media stopping the sensationalizing of major USFK crimes without providing context of how the USFK crime rate is significantly lower then the Korean crime rate.

The Korean media is only going to change the way they report when USFK and the American government begins to vigorously defend the rights and reputations of American servicemembers stationed in Korea. Korea has a long pattern of arrests of GIs, such as the 1995 subway incident that are driven solely by xenophobic nationalism. When these incidents happen why are American politicians and media silent while US soldiers are being railroaded through Korean courts? As long as America’s political leaders and media continues to be ignorant of the treatment of USFK servicemembers on the peninsula, cases of nationalistic xenophobic prosecutions will continue for little regard of whether the soldier is guilty or not simply to appease the masses in Korea that desperately want to believe GIs are out of control criminals despite all evidence that says otherwise. Just because Korean authorities are more concerned with appeasing the masses instead of rendering justice doesn’t mean our political leaders should be as well. USFK servicemembers deserve better than this.

________________________________________________

Note #1: I would appreciate if everyone DIGG this story by clicking here and if you have a blog to link to this posting. The internet is filled with disinformation about USFK GI crimes and I want to get this posting pushed up the Google page rankings as much as possible to combat the high level lies and propaganda on the Internet that only continues to feed the perception of out of control GI crime in Korea. Thanks.

Note #2: This posting has been updated with the latest 2007 KNPA criminal statistics and adjusted to reflect a 99% ROK criminal conviction rate.

[i] “Korean Soldier Accidentally Killed Iraqi”, Chosun Ilbo, 13 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504130032.html

[ii] Jung Sung-ki, “Kurd Official Killed in Traffic in Erbil”, The Korea Times, 02 February 2006, http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2006/2/kurdlocal98.htm

[iii] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/, accessed 14 February 2008-02-14

[iv] “Former GI Convicted of Murder Released from South Korean Prison Early”, Stars & Stripes, 29 October 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40120&archive=true

[v] “Woman Demands Justice for Hit & Run Accident”, The Hankyoreh, 27 June 2007, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/218697.html

[vi] Nicholas Kristof, “Subway Brawl Inflames Issue of GI’s in Korea”, New York Times, 24 August 1995, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEED81430F937A1575BC0A963958260

[vii] “US Sergeant Involved in Subway Brawl in May Given 6 Month Jail Sentence”, Korea Times, 22 December 1995

[viii] UsinKorea Site, http://usinkorea.org/issues/subway/, accessed 07 February 2008

[ix] Jimmy Norris & Hwang Hae-rym, “Soldiers Jailed in Attempted Rape of South Korean Policewoman Freed”, Stars & Stripes, 16 January 2008, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59127&archive=true

[x] “No US Soldiers Held in Hundreds of Crimes”, Chosun Ilbo, 26 September 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200509/200509260010.html

[xi] “Prosecutors Accuse 5, Including American of Spying for North Korea”, USA Today, 08 December 2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-08-korea-espionage_x.htm

[xii] Korean National Police Agency, http://www.police.go.kr/eng/index.jsp, accessed 14 February 2008

[xiii] “Former GI Convicted of Murder Released from South Korean Prison Early”, Stars & Stripes, 29 October 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40120&archive=true

[xiv] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/1996_murder/, accessed 14 February 2008

[xv] USinKorea Site, http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/1998_murder/, accessed 14 February 2008

[xvi] “US Soldier Guilty of Sex Killing”, BBC, 16 June 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/793426.stm

[xvii] Terri Weaver & Hwang Hae-rym, “South Korean Murder Victim’s Family Wins Settlement”, Stars & Stripes, 21 January 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=33581&archive=true

[xviii] “US Strengthens Safety for Its Troops in South Korea”, CNN, 19 July 2000, http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/07/18/skorea.us.military.ap/

GI Myths: The Unfair US-ROK SOFA Agreement

| February 21, 2008

Introduction

A myth in Korea that is persistently held by many in Korean society no matter how discredited it is, is the belief that Korea has signed an unfair Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States. A SOFA is a document signed between the US and the host country of US military personnel in order to clarify each side’s rights and responsibilities in regards to a variety of issues that arise with the stationing of US troops in a foreign country.

korea us flag image

A SOFA between different nations is never the same because each nation has different legal and political systems that influence the way in which a SOFA is written. For example in the United States people expect that someone accused of a crime should have the right to remain silent and have access to lawyer. It is important to realize with Status of Forces Agreements, that unlike civilians, troops are ordered to go overseas. Since troops are under orders they are owed the legal protections they would find in the United States. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard summarizes this best, “we sent them under our system, and we owe them those protections.”[i]

Not all countries the United States has troops in respect these rights. For example the SOFA between the US and Japan allows the military to hold servicemembers accused of crimes until they are indicted by a Japanese court, to which then they are handed over to Japanese authorities[ii]. The holding of a servicemember prior to indictment is to protect their rights to remain silent, not to have coercive interrogation tactics used against them[iii], and have access to a proper lawyer, which is not something readily available to them if held by local Japanese authorities[iv]. It is legal differences such as this that make detailed status of forces agreements necessary.

The US-ROK SOFA

Like all other nations that hosts US troops, Korea has its own SOFA in regards to the stationing of United States Force Korea (USFK) personnel in the country[v]. Here is how USFK summarizes it responsibilities under the US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement:

The SOFA sets forth each nation’s responsibilities with respect to many subjects, including facilities and areas used by U.S. forces, entry and exit of U.S. personnel, customs, taxation, criminal jurisdiction, claims procedures, health and sanitation, use of utilities and USFK’s employment of Korean citizens.

The SOFA applies to members of the U.S. armed forces, civilian employees, invited contractors, technical representatives and their dependents. Civilian and military personnel of the U.S. Embassy and JUSMAG-K enjoy privileges under the SOFA, but are covered by separate agreements with the ROK government.

SOFA-status personnel are obliged to respect the laws of the ROK and abstain from any activity inconsistent with the spirit of the agreement and, in particular, from any political activity. In some cases the SOFA supersedes or abridges Korean law. For example, active-duty military personnel are exempt from passport and visa requirements and SOFA-status personnel are exempt from Korean taxes on wages and salaries paid by the U.S. government. […]

The SOFA also fully acknowledges the ROK government’s right to exercise criminal jurisdiction over USFK personnel accused of violating Korean laws. Accused military personnel may be placed in ROK custody upon indictment in serious cases, and the ROK may retain custody upon arrest in some of the most serious murder or rape cases. Civilians may be placed into ROK custody if the charges are serious and their presence for trial cannot be guaranteed.[vi]

The original SOFA was established in 1966 and has numerous revisions over the years with the most recent revision coming in 2001 that take into account the maturation of the Korean legal and political systems, which leads to the transfer of more rights and responsibilities to the Korean government.

However in Korea the SOFA has become a very convenient issue for the anti-US movement in the country to demagogue in order to create anti-US sentiment within the general Korean population. Like many of their other misinformation operations in Korea, the anti-US groups have succeeded in creating a widely held belief in the country that US servicembers can literally get away with murder and there is nothing the Korean government can do to stop them.

The 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Scandal

One of the more recent and well known attempts to pass off this disinformation to the general Korea public was with the 2000 Yongsan Water Dumping Scandal where a USFK mortician ordered 20 gallons of formaldehyde to be disposed of down a sink in the mortuary. The formaldehyde was of no threat to the public because it was diluted with water and passed through two different water treatment plants before the wastewater was discharged into the Han River[vii]. Despite these facts the anti-US groups in coordination with their media allies were able to launch ferocious anti-US protests over this issue claiming that USFK was intentionally poisoning the Seoul city water supply and exposing everyone in the city to cancer. These groups distorted the amount of chemicals poured as well as the fact that they could not cause any cancer because they passed through two different water treatment plants.

waterdump2
Korean activists protest the dumping of formaldehyde by a USFK mortician.

These were inconvenient facts that were simply ignored. The anti-US groups also demanded that the USFK mortician be tried in a Korean court even though under the SOFA he was legally not eligible to fall under Korean jurisdiction since his alleged crime happened on duty. According to the US-ROK SOFA, all crimes committed on post or while on duty anywhere in the peninsula fall under USFK jurisdiction. Any crimes committed off a US military facility while the servicemember was off duty falls under Korean jurisdiction. The case of the mortician did not meet either criteria. Despite this the mortician was tried in absentee in a Korean court and fined. USFK actually paid the fine, but the anti-US groups were not happy with the fine and demanded a re-trial. Thus the Korean courts re-tried the case even though they had already reached a verdict. In the re-trial the mortician was sentenced to six months in jail, which was a longer sentence than what a child molester in Korea would receive[viii]. This was all because of the Korean court’s attempt to appease public sentiment instead of holding a fair trial to render justice.

This issue gave the anti-US groups a platform to bash the US-ROK SOFA, but if anything this issue only demonstrated to the United States why the nation needs a SOFA with Korea in the first place, to protect US servicemembers from politically charged trials. Even more telling is that Korean logging companies that were caught dumping 271 tons of lethal chemicals directly into the Han River without passing through any water treatment plant were simply fined with no one receiving jail time yet the USFK mortician is sentenced to jail[ix]. Such hypocrisy in the Korean courts and subsequent bashing of the US-ROK SOFA is not uncommon in Korea and the greatest example of this is the aftermath of the 2002 armoured vehicle accident.

2002 Armoured Vehicle Accident

On June 13, 2002 a USFK armoured vehicle struck and killed two thirteen-year-old Korean schoolgirls walking to a friend’s birthday party. The incident was clearly a tragic accident that led to apologies from every commanding general in USFK, the US Ambassador to Korea, and even President George Bush himself. In accordance with Korean law USFK payed over $150,000 to each of the effected families in compensation for their loss. Additionally $22,000 was raised for the two families through a candle light vigil fundraiser held by US soldiers after the accident and another $30,000 was eventually raised by US soldiers to fund a memorial for the two girls.[x]

Despite all of this, the anti-US groups were able to very successfully portray this accident as an act intentionally committed by US soldiers and that they were exempt from Korean justice because of an unfair SOFA. This perception only grew when the two soldiers were acquitted of negligent homicide charge after the conclusion of a military court martial. The USFK Commanding General Leon LaPorte felt that a military court martial could be used to disclose all the facts in an open setting to show the Korean public that this was simply a tragic accident. General LaPorte however unintentionally fed the frenzy because the perception of a court trial in Korea is very different from what Americans perceive trials to be in the US.

In the US defendants are presumed innocent and trials are held to have an open debate about the facts of the case with a verdict rendered by either an impartial judge or jury. In Korea when someone goes to trial, they are already presumed guilty; the only question to be found out during the trial is how guilty that person is. So when the two soldiers were acquitted, the Korean public took it to mean a cover up by the US military because if they were not guilty to begin with than why put them on trial? This belief of a cover up by USFK validated many people’s feelings of why the SOFA with the US must be changed so Korean courts can try soldiers who commit crimes while on duty.

After the not guilty verdict, anti-US groups and their media allies were able to feed this perception of a cover up and injustice by making claims that US soldiers regularly avoid Korean courts by claiming on duty status. Others even claimed US soldiers were never tried in Korean courts at all because of the unfair SOFA. However, US soldiers have actually been regularly tried in Korea courts since the 1960’s with some even receiving the death penalty[xi]. With such information easily available to those willing to look for it, it was incredible to see how the Korean media would simply avoid such inconvenient facts in their reporting.

Legal Status of ROK Military Servicemembers

The most hypocritical aspects of the anti-US groups and the Korean media’s claims of an unfair SOFA is that servicemembers in the Korean military are not subject to civilian courts whether they commit a crime on or off duty. For example, four young Korean males attacked and stole two K2 assault rifles from two on duty Korean soldiers. The gang was not able to get any ammunition for the rifles until one member of the gang stole ammunition from his ROK Army unit while conducting his annual reserve training. The gang used the weapons to execute a bank robbery in 2002 where they stole over $11,000[xii]. When the gang was apprehended by authorities, all four of the gang not just the reserve soldier who committed a crime while on duty were tried in a ROK Army court martial.

Another more recent example is when in 2007 a South Korean man struck two patrolling South Korean Marines with his truck and then assaulted them with a knife, killing one of them and then fleeing with their weapons and grenades. A manhunt ensured for the killer and he was eventually apprehended a week later. However, even though he was a civilian he was handed over to the Korean military to be tried by a military court martial[xiii]. The fact that ROK military personnel never stand trial in Korean courts and the fact that civilians can be forced to stand trial in a military court martial is an inconvenient fact that many Koreans would rather not acknowledge. A USFK servicemember on the other hand is subject to Korean civilian court for any crime committed while off duty. With the differences in jurisdiction between the Korean and American militaries, it makes you wonder if the Korean civilian judicial system is not good enough for the Korean military than why should it be good enough to try American soldiers in? This is an inconvenient fact that is left unaddressed by the anti-US groups and their media allies

Korean Media Disinformation

This avoidance of inconvenient facts would continue long after the 2002 accident. A year after the tragic 2002 accident, a USFK servicemember was involved in a DUI hit and run that killed a Korean woman. The servicemember was handed over to Korean authorities and put on trial in Korean court. A Korea Times headline about the trial of the USFK servicemember read, “First US Soldier to be Tried in Korean Court”[xiv]. What is quite ironic about this article is that the first GIs tried in Korean court was in 1967 when an airman was tried for arson and assault [xv]. In the article covering the rape convictions the newspaper said, “This is the first case which the Republic of Korea has exercised criminal jurisdiction over an American serviceman”.  Nearly 40 years later and the media is making the same claims.

Later on other incidents that happened between GIs and Koreans that were ultimately handled by Korean courts would be covered in the Korean media with passages that would say, “However, many U.S. soldiers have evaded the South Korean jurisdiction by citing their exemption from the SOFA clause by claiming on-duty status.”[xvi] This claim in the years after the 2002 accident was made repeatedly in Korean newspapers in regards to incidents with GIs. I e-mailed the newspapers that made these proclamations to substantiate their claim by providing one example of when a soldier was off duty and claimed to be on duty to avoid prosecution in Korean court, I did not receive one reply back.

Probably the most stunning hypocrisy of the SOFA criticism is the fact that the Korean military has status of forces agreements with every nation that is host to South Korean military personnel. In every one of these SOFAs, the ROK Army has primary jurisdiction of crimes committed by their soldiers both on and off duty. A couple of recent examples of when the ROK military’s SOFA was activated were both in Iraq and involved the deployment of the ROK Army’s Zaytun Division outside the Kurdish capitol city of Irbil. In the first case a South Korean soldier was playing with his rifle when an accidental discharge killed a nearby Kurdish soldier[xvii].

The SOFA was activated and the Korean soldier was handled by a ROK military court martial. In 2006 a Korean soldier driving a military truck was involved in a traffic accident where he caused the death of a 53 year old Kurdish politician. Once again the South Korean military activated their SOFA. This is what Colonel Ha Du-cheol told reporters after the accident, “The traffic accident occurred in the line of duty, so we are seeking ways to compensate the victim’s family.”[xviii] Sound familiar? It should because it is the same thing the US military did after the 2002 armored vehicle accident, which everyone demanded SOFA revisions for, however when a nearly identical situation happens with a Korean soldier it receives a small passage in the newspaper and no righteous indignation from anyone complaining about an unequal SOFA between Korea and Iraq.

The Korean military has never allowed one of their soldiers to be tried in a foreign host nation’s civilian courts, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that Korean soldiers do not even stand trial in civilian courts in their own country. Despite all of these inconvenient facts the anti-US groups and their media allies have the nerve to condemn USFK for an unfair status of forces agreement. The hypocrisy is really quite stunning.

US Camp Pollution Claims

In recent years the claims of GIs getting away with crimes in Korea because of the SOFA have become more muted probably because of the sheer hypocrisy of it has become too evident as I noted. Instead the anti-US groups and their media allies have decided to shift their focus back on to so called USFK environmental crimes. This logic is a recycle of the anti-US tactic used in 2000 in regards to the Yongsan Water Dumping Scandal. However, this time the anti-US groups were not making claims that USFK is poisoning the Seoul water supply, but rather that the bases USFK was closing down and handing back to the Korean government were grossly polluted and a threat to their surrounding communities. USFK was handing back the bases as part of a USFK transformation plan made between the United States and the Republic of Korea that would see all 2nd Infantry Division bases in the north of the country and Yongsan Garrison in Seoul closed down and consolidated on an expanded Camp Humphreys base south of Seoul.

This agreement was made in compliance with the SOFA, and the ROK government stated that the Korean government would receive all the USFK land “as is”.[xix] This is because in the SOFA it states that USFK is “not obliged … to restore the facilities and areas to the condition they were at the time they became available to the U.S. armed forces, or to compensate the government of the ROK in lieu of such restoration.”[xx] The reason for this is because the ROK government is receiving 33,000 acres of prime real estate with many modern buildings and amenities already constructed on them. For example when Yongsan Garrison in the heart of Seoul is closed out, the Korean government will be receiving 615 acres of land, nearly the size of New York City’s Central Park, right in the middle of a city with some of the world’s highest real estate prices. Plus the Korean government will be receiving at no costs modern facilities on the camps such as the brand newly refurbished hospital on Yongsan Garrison[xxi]. Any costs in regards to cleaning any pollution on handed over USFK camps can easily be covered with the profits the Korean government is sure to make from the sale of the acquired USFK land.

hump4
Korean activists protest the expansion of Camp Humphreys.

Once again the claims that the environmental clauses in the US-ROK SOFA are unequal compared to SOFAs the US has with Japan and Germany are totally unfounded as well. For example when the US closed camps in Germany the US was responsible for cleaning any environmental damage on the closed camps. This is a fact that the anti-US groups like to trumpet to claim that the US-ROK SOFA is unfair, however what they don’t tell people is that the German government was responsible for buying back all the facilities built on the camps. The money the US government received from the German government to buy back the facilities was more than enough to cover the environmental clean up associated with closing the camps[xxii]. In the US-ROK SOFA the Korean government receives all the facilities on the camp free of charge. For example the renovation and added wing to the Yongsan 121 General Hospital that the Korean government will receive free of charge cost USFK $39 million dollars. The cost savings the Korean government will receive from conducting an environmental clean up compared to paying to receive all the USFK facilities will be enormous.

Likewise the anti-US groups will also not mention the environmental provision in the US-Japan SOFA. In this SOFA the US has no responsibility to clean any environmental damage when handing over closed out bases. The Japanese government bears all the costs in cleaning the returned land[xxiii].

Unequal SOFA Claims

Finally another common claim is that Korea has an unequal SOFA with the United States compared to the one the US currently has with Japan or Germany. As I have already shown in regards to environmental regulations, this claim is totally bogus, however the rhetoric does have a grain of truth to it, but the vast majority of the people making the claims have no idea what they are talking about[xxiv]. Both SOFAs with Japan and Germany are reciprocal meaning that German and Japanese servicemembers have the same rights granted to them while in the United States as American servicemembers have while stationed in their respective countries.

The US-ROK SOFA however is not reciprocal and this is because Korea does not have permanently stationed troops in the United States while Japan and Germany do. The Germans and the Japanese have air defense soldiers stationed on Ft. Bliss, Texas for example. The Germans even have their Luftwaffe flight-training center located just outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico. South Korea on the other hand does not have permanently stationed units in the US and ROK military soldiers that do travel to the United States are usually soldiers there to attend training. International soldiers who attend US military training schools fall under a separate status of forces agreement.

This is the only reason how the SOFAs between these nations are unequal, but the common people who make the unequal SOFA claims think that Japan and Germany have greater rights over American servicemembers than Korea does when in fact the opposite is true. The latest SOFA revision in 2001, before the armored vehicle accident, gave Korean authorities the right to hold US servicemembers before their trials. In comparison to the US-Japan SOFA there is nothing written that says that the US has to hand over servicemembers to Japanese authorities before being indicted. However, the perception in Korea exists that the agreement does allow Japan to take custody of US servicemembers before a trial because the US military often hands over servicemembers suspected of serious crimes to the Japanese authorities as part of a gentleman’s agreement. When one views the US-ROK SOFA without an agenda, it is quite clear that it is not unfair compared to the over 80 other SOFAs the US has signed with other nations that host US troops[xxv].

Conclusions

If people in Korea want to complain about unfair status of forces agreements they can start with the agreements their own military has signed with foreign nations. As I have clearly demonstrated the US-ROK status of forces agreement is much more fair than agreements Korea has with other nations that host Korean troops. I have also demonstrated that the US-ROK SOFA is just as, if not more fair to the Republic of Korea than similar agreements signed between the US and with Japan and Germany.

The fact of the matter is that the anti-US groups and their media allies could care less about how fair the US-ROK SOFA really is. The anti-US groups find an issue that will appeal to the wider Korean public and then the groups demagogue the issue by only presenting facts that support their side of the story while ignoring all the other evidence that says otherwise. Their media allies than spread this disinformation around the country without challenging the veracity of the claims. These anti-US groups manipulate issues such as the US-ROK SOFA in order to create increased anti-US sentiment in the country as well as drive a wedge in the US-ROK alliance.

Past political leaders in Korea would not show any leadership in exposing the untruthfulness these groups’ claims and often time were complicit in their activities. With all this misinformation being passed to the public is it any wonder why the average Korean has such a skewed view of the US-ROK SOFA when all they are fed by the Korean media is one-sided propaganda?

 Endnotes

[i] Ambassador Thomas C. Hubbard’s KBS-TV “Sunday Analysis”, http://seoul.usembassy.gov/19_jan_03.html, accessed 07 February 2008

[ii] US-Japan Status of Force Agreement, http://www.niraikanai.wwma.net/pages/archive/sofa.html, accessed 07 February 2008

[iii] Manabu Kimura and Yuichiro Nakamura, “Interrogation Methods Questioned”, Daily Yomiuri, 26 January 2008, http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080126TDY03304.htm

[iv] David T. Johnson, The Japanese Way of Justice, (Oxford University Press – 2002), pg 83

95% of lawyers in Japan never bothered to attend their client’s interrogation , 2/3rd of lawyers in Japan never recommended that their clients remain silent, and 3/4th of Japanese lawyers never asked a judge to have the prosecutors release evidence. The book’s list of Japanese defense lawyers colluding with the prosecution is extensive.

[v] US-ROK Status of Forces Agreement, http://www.shaps.hawaii.edu/security/us/sofa1966_1991.html, accessed 07 February 2008

[vi] United States Force Korea Website, http://www.usfk.mil/usfk/welcome/sofa.html, accessed 07 February 2008

[vii] David Scofield, “The Mortician’s Tale”, Asia Times, 28 January 2004, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FA28Dg02.html

[viii] David Scofield, “The Mortician’s Tale”, Asia Times, 28 January 2004, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FA28Dg02.html

[ix] “Dumping of Toxic Chemicals into Streams”, Korea Times, 03 November 2003, http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?term=han+timber++&path=hankooki3/times/lpage/opinion/200311/kt2003110317083811300.htm&media=kt

[x] US Embassy Seoul, http://seoul.usembassy.gov/june13acc.html, accessed 07 February 2008

[xi] “South Korea, Sentences to US Soldiers to Death”, New York Times, 04 December 1970, http://usinkorea.org/crimes/5_dec_1970_1.JPG

[xii] Robert Neff, “Gun Toting Robbers Set Sights on Korean Banks”, Oh My News, 17 November 2006, http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=327489&rel_no=1

[xiii] T.D. Flack & Hwang Hae-rym, “South Korean Indicted in Murder of Marine”, Stars & Stripes, 12 January 2008, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59037&archive=true

[xiv] Byun Duk-kun, “First US Soldier to be Tried in Korean Court”, Korea Times, 15 December 2003

[xv] USinKorea Site, http://usinkorea.org/crimes/12_22_1967.JPG, accessed 07 February 2008

[xvi] Korea Herald, http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/07/18/200507180024.asp, accessed 07 February 2008-02-07

[xvii] “Korean Soldier Accidentally Killed Iraqi”, Chosun Ilbo, 13 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504130032.html

[xviii] Jung Sung-ki, “Kurd Official Killed in Traffic in Erbil”, The Korea Times, 02 February 2006, http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2006/2/kurdlocal98.htm

[xix] Teri Weaver, “97 Percent of Yongsan Garrison will be Turned Over to South Korea As Is”, Stars & Stripes, 21 December 2004, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=25240&archive=true

[xx] T.D. Flack, “USFK: Total of 33,000 Acres to be Returned to South Korea”, Stars & Stripes, 16 July 2006, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=37742&archive=true

[xxi] Teri Weaver, “USFK Opens New Wing at Yongsan’s 121 General Hospital”, Stars & Stripes, 23 January 2005, http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=25790&archive=true

[xxii] LTC Park Kwang-ok, “Misunderstandings and Truths on Return of US Bases”, Defense Daily, 21 July 2006, http://www.usfk.mil/org/fkpa/News/newsArchive.asp?id=120

[xxiii] LTC Park Kwang-ok, “Misunderstandings and Truths on Return of US Bases”, Defense Daily, 21 July 2006, http://www.usfk.mil/org/fkpa/News/newsArchive.asp?id=120

[xxiv] David Steinberg, Korean Attitudes Toward the United States (M.E. Sharpe, 2005), pg 201

[xxv] US Embassy Korea Webpage, http://seoul.usembassy.gov/june13acc.html, accessed 07 February 2008

US Military Meets 2007 Recruiting Goals, What’s Ahead in 2008?

| October 5, 2007

Has anyone else noticed that the fact that the US military met their 2007 recruiting goals is hardly mentioned in the media? Back in August I called the media’s attempts to politicize the fact that the active duty Army did not meet their June and July recruiting goals a “False Recruiting Crisis” and the final statistics prove me right.

Could you imagine what the headlines would be if the military did not meet their recruiting goals? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Now here is my prediction for headlines next year. In 2008 the military is going to have a hard time making the recruiting mission because of the plan to expand the force. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates shares my concerns:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that he is “inclined to approve” an Army request to cut a year off of the five-year plan to expand the active-duty force.

“I’m probably going to recommend that they go ahead and give it a try,” he told reporters during a Pentagon press conference.

However, Gates said, “my questions are focused principally on whether they can do it, in terms of recruitment, and whether they can do so without lowering standards.” [Stars & Stripes]

To increase the Army by 74,000 soldiers over five years means that the Army would have to recruit at most an additional 14,500 soldiers a year. This number can be off set by the number of re-enlistments which I think will continue to be strong. However, recruiting next year is going to be tough because of the January announcement to further expand the military. If the military does not meet the recruiting goals expect sensationalized media reports with little no context about the expanding of the military. Additionally it’s an election year and the final recruiting stats will be released a month before the presidential election.

So I fully expect the Democrats to jump on this as an example of a “broken military” as they have in the past. Remember next year that you heard it here first; to expect the politicization of US military recruiting numbers in 2008.

Pat Tillman Murdered?

| August 3, 2007

The Pat Tillman case has taken another twist:

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman‘s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. […]

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman’s body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army’s Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

The M-16 fires a three round burst and three wounds located close to each other would likely come from a closer source than the story that was claimed that he was shot from friendly fire by soldiers shooting from a distance.  I doubt it was criminal because anyone that wanted to kill Pat Tillman would know killing him would lead to huge headlines.

This is all speculation on my part, but I think the most likely possibility is an accidental discharge by someone that was with him.  Accidental discharges do happen and have killed people before.  An accidental discharge is a definite possibility, but such a thing happening to Pat Tillman would be highly embarrassing to the Rangers who pride themselves on being an elite unit.  If an accidental discharge killed Tillman that would not explain the wounds on his arms and legs.  I have to wonder if his unit to cover up the accidental discharge shot him a few more times in the arms and legs to give further credence to their story?

This would explain why the overall Special Forces commander at the time, the now retired Three Star General Philip Kensinger would lie to Pentagon investigator and try to cover up the case.  The embarrassment of an accidental discharge killing Tillman would be bad enough, but I don’t think it would cause a three star general to cover up what happened.  However, the unit shooting him after he was already dead in order to cover up an accidental discharge would be such an embarrassing set of circumstances, that maybe even a three star general would cover it up.

No matter what happened the Tillman case has been handled very poorly and people involved in the botched handling of this case need to be held accountable.  So far only General Kensinger has been censured for his actions, but surely more people are some how involved.  The Tillman family is owed a full investigation and all those responsible need to be held accountable.

Korean Politicians Complain of Pollution on US Camps

| June 16, 2007

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

Seoul to Foot Bill for Imaginary Clean Up Costs

| April 16, 2007

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.