Tag: USFK

I have been stared at and my wife called names in Korea, but I knew getting in any altercation would only lead to me being the loser legally which is what this sergeant is about to find out:

A U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) sergeant in his 30s is under investigation for allegedly assaulting an 18-year-old male student in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, leaving the teenager with severe injuries.

According to the police, the sergeant, identified as A, is accused of punching the teenager, B, in the face near Pyeongtaek Station around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 17. The attack caused significant injuries, and A has been charged with assault. The Pyeongtaek Police Station booked Sergeant A on charges of assault.

The victim’s father described the severity of the injuries during an interview with JTBC on Nov. 19. “The doctor said it was hard to believe this injury was caused by a person’s fist,” he said. “In all his years as a plastic surgeon, he had never seen bones damaged to this extent from a punch.”

He added that B would need to wear oral prosthetics and keep his jaw stabilized for at least eight weeks. “The injuries are so severe that he might suffer lifelong complications,” the father said.

The sergeant claimed that he was also assaulted by B, prompting police to charge the teenager with assault. However, CCTV footage from the scene does not show B physically reacting to the sergeant’s actions.

The altercation reportedly began when A confronted B, asking, “Why are you staring at me?” Witnesses mentioned that A had been arguing loudly with a Korean woman at the time, which attracted the attention of passersby.

The father added, “The Korean woman with the sergeant cursed at my son, asking why he was staring. My son responded that he wasn’t looking, but she kept pointing at him and approaching. As she continued swearing and pushing his chest, the sergeant punched my son when he was unprepared.”

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can red more at the link, but the sergeant be ready to pay a large compensation payment to the man he punched.

This incident does remind of an incident 20 years ago when a Korean female that worked at Gyeongbokgung Palace started screaming at me and falsely claiming I was laughing at her.

I was leading a group of Soldiers with one of my KATUSAs to visit Gyeongbokgung Palace. When we arrived we were excited to see that a changing of the palace guards was taking place. The guards wore armor and carried medieval weapons and marched around with flags.

I asked my KATUSA what the flags represented and he didn’t know. So he told me he would ask one of the people who worked at Gyeongbokgung if they knew. He walked over to a young lady in a traditional hanbok who obviously worked at the palace and asked her if she knew what the flags meant. She didn’t know and my KATUSA asked the other palace people if they knew. None of them knew.  My KATUSA walked back over and told me that none of them knew. I then checked a tourist brochure of Gyeongbokgung and I started laughing because all the definitions for all the flags was in the brochure the whole time while we were trying to find out what they meant.

Right after this the young female worker came over and started screaming at me in Korean and then in English she said that this is an anti-American area that we cannot go here and we should leave. I told her if she is anti-American that is her problem, not mine because I get along with Koreans just fine.  She then began screaming at my KATUSA in Korean saying that we were laughing at her because she didn’t know what the flags meant and wanted me to apologize. My KATUSA told her we were not laughing at her and she misunderstood what we were laughing at. We were laughing at having the brochure with us the whole time and not knowing what the flags meant. She kept going on in Korean screaming at us trying to get me to apologize.

By this time everyone was now staring at me getting screamed at by this Korean woman in hanbok. We just walked away and left, but fortunately no one punched me in the face like this sergeant did to the Korean man for supposedly staring at his wife. Like what happened to me, it was probably just a misunderstanding that the sergeant overreacted to.

This makes me wonder how people without legal immigration status were able to access Camp Humphreys every day to go to work?:

Ten people at retail businesses at this base were cited or deported earlier this month on suspicion of working illegally in South Korea, according to a South Korea immigration investigator Friday.

Army Criminal Investigation Division agents and South Korean investigators apprehended the 10 during a sting operation Nov. 5, an investigator in the Suwon Immigration Office told Stars and Stripes by phone. The group, including people from Turkey and the Philippines, were allegedly working for a restaurant and jewelry store at Humphreys without work visas, according to the investigator with the Justice Ministry branch in Suwon city.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This should lead to fresher produce for customers:

Produce at U.S. bases in South Korea was temporarily in short supply as the Defense Commissary Agency began replacing U.S. imports of certain fruits and vegetables with their locally grown counterparts.

Commissaries plan this month to start stocking “the highest quality” local fruits and vegetables that are “consistent with what is available in commercial grocery stores,” U.S. Army Garrison Daegu announced in a Facebook post Oct. 29.

These include apples, potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, radishes, pumpkins, kale, leeks, green onions, tomatoes, pomegranates, persimmons, citrus and grapes from the United States, along with squash from Mexico, DeCA spokesman Keith Desbois said by email Friday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The U.S. and the ROK demonstrating the future of warfare to the North Koreans:

Unmanned aerial vehicles from the United States and South Korea recently teamed up to improve their combat effectiveness via first-of-their-kind live-fire drills, according to the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul. The training took place Friday, a day after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile off its eastern coast, although the timing is unrelated, according to email Monday from 7th Air Force spokeswoman Master Sgt. Rachelle Coleman. A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper dropped an inert, 558-pound GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, using reconnaissance data from a South Korean air force RQ-4B Global Hawk, according to Coleman and a ministry news release three days earlier.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This demonstrates how concerned the ROK was of Trump winning the election that they have prioritized getting this cost sharing agreement signed before the election:

South Korea and the United States formally signed a defense cost-sharing agreement Monday, as Seoul seeks to speed up its domestic ratification procedure to ensure the stable stationing of American troops here ahead of the U.S. elections.

The signing came a month after the allies reached a new five-year deal on determining Seoul’s share of its cost for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg signed the deal, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), at the foreign ministry in Seoul, officials said.

Under the 12th SMA, which will last until 2030, South Korea will pay 1.52 trillion won (US$1.19 billion) in 2026, up 8.3 percent from 1.4 trillion won in 2025.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully no one was injured in this fire:

A fire broke out at a US Forces Korea (USFK) storage facility in the southeastern port city of Busan on Thursday, officials said, with no casualties reported so far.

The blaze occurred at 6:31 p.m. at the USFK’s Busan Storage Center in Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, according to officials.

More than 160 personnel and 51 pieces of fire equipment have been mobilized to extinguish the fire, which is believed to have started during plumbing work.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

The issues around Rodriguez Range is very similar to noise complaints by people who build homes around airports. The range had been there long before the population began increasing around the area. It looks like the ROK government will now invest enough money in the area to keep the locals quiet for the time being:

U.S. troops may now employ attack helicopters in live-fire drills at a range 16 miles from North Korea, according to the South’s Ministry of National Defense. For the past six years, the Army could fly AH-64 Apaches in exercises at the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, but not fire their weapons. Representatives from the ministry, South Korean army and a citizens’ group investigating noise complaints from the range, signed a memorandum Monday to “normalize” training by U.S. forces, according to a ministry news release that day.

Concerns over noise generated by the Apaches prompted a U.S. noise study earlier this year, Kang Tae Il, chairman of the citizens’ group — Pocheon Live Fire Range Countermeasure Committee — told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday. “We, local residents, originally wanted to get this range moved and closed,” he said. “However, in the situation in our country that is a standoff with North Korea, soldiers need to train somewhere.”

The change near the border came as tensions continue to tick higher on the peninsula. On Tuesday, North Korea destroyed parts of inter-Korean roads on its side of the border, after claiming that South Korean drones flew over Pyongyang. To compensate Pocheon residents for the noise, the ministry agreed to construct a gymnasium, golf course and other sports facilities around the range at an undetermined date, Kang said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Trump has brought back up the issue that South Korea should pay more for defense from U.S. troops however with the cost sharing deal recently concluded that extends to 2030, this seems like campaign rhetoric at this point. Trump is once again using a lot of hyperbole to make his greater point that allies should pay more for international security provided by U.S. troops:

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that America “cannot be taken advantage of any longer in trade and in the military,” reinforcing speculation that he could demand renegotiation of a recent defense cost-sharing deal with Seoul if he returns to office.

The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks during a televised town hall event hosted by Fox News, falsely claiming that South Korea does not pay for the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

“40,000 soldiers and we never get paid. South Korea, they don’t pay,” Trump said, apparently referring to 28,500 USFK service members.

“I made them pay. Everyone raised hell, and Biden took the deal, and he said they don’t pay anymore, and they’re a rich country. No … we have to start. We cannot be taken advantage of any longer in trade, in the military,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The equipment for the next rotational unit in support of the 2nd Infantry Division, the 1-2 Stryker Brigade out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord has arrived to Korea:

The first batch of equipment for a new American rotational force employing the Stryker fighting vehicle arrived at a southern port over the weekend, the U.S. Army in South Korea said Wednesday.

Stryker vehicles and other pieces of equipment belonging to the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team were unloaded in Gwangyang, 291 kilometers south of Seoul, on Sunday to replace the current 3rd Cavalry Regiment as part of a regular rotation, according to the Eighth Army.

“We welcome the Ghost Brigade to the Republic of Korea to enhance the interoperability of the Combined Division and strengthen our alliance with our ROK partners,” Maj. Gen. Charles Lombardo, commander of the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division, said in a release.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Usually I do not have much sympathy with taxi drivers in Korea when they try and rip off Soldiers. But in this case a $50 fair for a ride from Seoul to Dongducheon is actually a pretty fair price:

Police plan to recommend assault charges against a U.S. soldier accused of throwing a 73-year-old taxi driver to the ground after complaining his fare was too high. On Sept. 1, a 21-year-old enlisted soldier from Camp Casey hailed a taxi with three other people in Seoul’s Map district, a Dongducheon police officer told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday.

South Korean officials customarily speak to the media on condition of anonymity and typically do not identify individuals suspected of crimes until they are formally charged. The taxi driver dropped the soldier’s companions off before heading to the final destination near Casey in Dongducheon, the officer said.

The soldier slept during the ride and was woken up by the driver upon arrival. After being asked for the $50 fare, the soldier complained it was too high and threw the driver to the ground by his neck, the officer said. The driver immediately reported the incident to police and said he suffered an orbital fracture and scratches to his face.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.