Tag: USFK

Basically what this ruling is telling everyone is that if you are a service member in USFK and are charged with child porn, just defect to North Korea and the charges will be dropped if you make it back:

Pvt. Travis King on Friday was sentenced to one year in prison after pleading guilty to deserting to North Korea. But he walked out of the courtroom a free man. “With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis is now free and will return home,” said Frank Rosenblatt, an attorney for the soldier. Military Judge Lt. Col. Rick Mathew also sentenced King to reduction in rank to E-1 and a dishonorable discharge in a court-martial that lasted most of the day.

During the trial, King, 24, sat in his dress uniform between his attorneys and said it was his decision on July 18, 2023, to join a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea and then bolt into North Korea. The soldier did so because he was “dissatisfied with work,” he told the judge. King also pleaded guilty to three counts of disobeying an officer on Oct. 7, 2023, and another charge of assaulting a noncommissioned officer the following day.

He pleaded not guilty to additional charges related to child sexual abuse material and making false statements. The judge dismissed the remaining charges.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but King played the predictable race card saying everyone in the Army is racist. I have seen people in the Army get more jail time for doing far less than what King did and yet prosecutors agreed to a plea deal that let King walk free after less than a year in jail.

The USFK commander nominee has just stated the obvious:

 The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) commander nominee on Tuesday described North Korea’s “rapid” advancement of its nuclear and missile capabilities as the “single greatest” challenge facing the Korea-based command, vowing to maintain a “constant” state of readiness if confirmed.

During a confirmation hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lieut. Gen. Xavier Brunson, currently the commander of First Corps, also voiced concerns over growing military exchanges between Pyongyang and Moscow, noting his commitment to mitigating risks associated with their military alignment.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Three medal of honor recipients from the Korean War were recognized with three housing towers named after them:

Keeble, Kyle and Vera, the three new housing towers that opened at this Army installation last week after five years of construction, bear the names of Medal of Honor recipients from the Korean War. The 12-story towers near Humphreys East Elementary School hold semi-furnished apartments for up to 216 noncommissioned and commissioned officers and their families, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Combined, the towers contain 144 three-bedroom, 54 four-bedroom and 18 five-bedroom units, according to a Corps of Engineers Far East District fact sheet.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This looks like some good training:

 South Korea and the United States will begin their large-scale amphibious landing exercise in the southeastern city of Pohang and the eastern coast this week to build up the allies’ combat readiness posture and interoperability, the South’s Navy and Marine Corps said Sunday.

This year’s Ssangyong (double dragon) exercise, which runs from Monday through Sept. 7, will mobilize division-level landing forces and some 40 vessels, including two amphibious assault ships, the ROKS Dokdo and the ROKS Marado, as well as the USS Boxer, according to military officials.

The drills will also bring together some 40 aircraft, such as F-35B radar-evading jets, and around 40 amphibious assault vehicles, the Navy and Marine Corps said in a joint release.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is here again. Any bets on what provocations that North Koreans will launch in response?:

South Korea and the United States kicked off a major combined military exercise for its 11-day run Monday to bolster their joint defense readiness amid advancing North Korean military threats.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, which runs through Aug. 29, got under way in the face of growing concerns over Pyongyang’s continued weapons development, highlighted by its launches of 37 ballistic missiles this year alone and heightened cross-border tensions from the North’s recent trash balloon campaign.

Based on an all-out war scenario, the UFS features main computer simulation-based command post exercise, concurrent field training and civil defense drills, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

While the exercise will be similar in scale to the previous year, involving around 19,000 South Korean troops, it will include 48 field training events, such as amphibious landing and live-fire drills, up from 38 field events conducted last year. The number of brigade-level exercises will also increase to 17 this year, compared with four from the previous year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Some Army MOS’s will soon have longer tours in South Korea which makes sense considering how much quality of life has improved in recent years at Camp Humphreys. It is not like Soldiers in South Korea are living in quonset huts any more. Two year unaccompanied tours brings South Korea in line with other Army overseas locations:

The U.S. Army has doubled the tour length for single soldiers serving in certain roles on the Korean Peninsula. Unaccompanied soldiers, or those who serve without a spouse or dependents on location, are expected to serve in South Korea for two years starting Aug. 1, according to an Army Publishing Directorate memo that day.

The policy applies to soldiers within seven career fields: air traffic control operators, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter repairers, working military dog handlers, counterintelligence agents, signal intelligence analysts, and enlisted and warrant officer special agents in the Criminal Investigation Division.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Exercise time is about to begin for USFK:

The United States and South Korea will kick off their second large-scale military exercise of the year next week with specific North Korean threats in mind. The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise will begin Aug. 19 throughout the South and focus on “realistic threats” from North Korea, such as weapons of mass destruction, cyber-attacks and GPS jamming, the Joint Chiefs said in a news release Monday. Roughly 19,000 South Korean troops will participate in the training, according to the Joint Chiefs.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This is horrible for the airmen in this security force at Kunsan AB:

Members of the 8th Security Forces Squadron salute at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, in May 2022. (Jesenia Landaverde/U.S. Air Force)

An airman was discovered dead at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea on Monday, less than two weeks after the death of a fellow service member assigned to the same unit. Senior Airman Saniyya Smalls, 25, of the 8th Security Forces Squadron, was found at an unspecified location on Kunsan, roughly 115 miles south of Seoul, the 8th Fighter Wing said in a news release Tuesday. Smalls’ death is a “tragic loss” and “has deeply impacted our community,” wing commander Col. Peter Kasarskis said in the release.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but condolences to the friends and family of both airmen.

Here is another example of a U.S. Soldier being a drunken idiot in Seoul:

Police in South Korea arrested a U.S service member earlier this month on suspicion of brandishing a knife and scissors inside a pub in Seoul. The unidentified troop’s charges — intimidation and obstruction of business — were referred to prosecutors on Tuesday, a Mapo Police detective told Stars and Stripes by phone that day. The detective did not release the service member’s branch of service or his name.

South Korean law enforcement agencies typically do not identify suspects unless charged with a serious crime, and officials regularly speak to the media on a customary condition of anonymity. Police responded around 7:15 a.m. July 5 to a disturbance call saying a person had a deadly weapon inside a pub in Mapo District, the detective said. Mapo is a popular area of Seoul known for its numerous bars and nightclubs.

The service member, who is stationed at Camp Casey, a U.S. Army outpost 13 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone that separates North Korea from South Korea, entered the pub alone and went inside the kitchen, where he picked up a knife and scissors, according to the detective. He proceeded to the dining area and made a “stabbing motion with his hands, but did not stab himself,” the detective said.

The pub’s patrons fled outside but the service member did not explicitly threaten them, according to the detective. The service member was arrested without incident and taken to Mapo Police Station, where he was later picked up by U.S. military police, the detective said. No injuries were reported.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.