Tag: USFK

A temporary deal has been reached to get Korean employees back to work on U.S. bases:

 The United States and South Korea agreed to a $200 million stopgap measure allowing more than 4,000 local base employees to return to work after months of unpaid leave, despite the allies’ failure to reach a broader defense cost-sharing deal.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that it has accepted Seoul’s proposal to fund the labor costs for all South Korean employees of U.S. Forces Korea through the end of this year amid stalled talks on reaching a new contract known as the Special Measures Agreement.

“This decision effectively ends the partial furlough,” USFK commander Gen. Robert Abrams said in a separate statement. “We expect our entire workforce to return back to USFK within the next few weeks.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it appears there is still no long term cost sharing deal that is going to happen any time soon.

USFK continues to identify newly arriving personnel with the coronavirus:

Two newly assigned American soldiers tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in South Korea on a government-chartered flight from the United States, the military said Saturday.

The confirmation raised to 30 the number of coronavirus cases linked to U.S. Forces Korea, including six active-duty service members, but the command said all other patients have recovered.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Good news for USFK servicemembers:

The U.S. military said Monday it will lower its health risk level to moderate and lift most anti-coronavirus restrictions for bases except those in the Seoul area beginning Wednesday, citing “favorable” conditions in South Korea.

However, U.S. Forces Korea said bars, clubs and other adults-only establishments will remain off-limits on the peninsula following a recent outbreak in the popular Itaewon district.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Stars & Stripes has an article about the military police patrolling outside of Camp Humphreys trying to enforce USFK’s COVID restrictions:

Routine U.S. military police patrols into the entertainment district outside Camp Humphreys took on new meaning when coronavirus cases, seemingly curbed in South Korea, resurfaced with the loosening of social-distancing measures.

Just a week ago, new cases were being reported in the single digits. Now, that number has grown nearly eight-fold following an outbreak in Seoul’s popular nightlife district in Itaewon. Anyone who visited clubs and bars in the area between April 30 and May 6 is likely to have been exposed to the virus, according to the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

Courtesy patrols by military police have been standard practice for years. Police routinely visit drinking establishments outside the gates of nearly every U.S. military installation in the country to ensure service members are behaving.

Now, because of the declaration of a public health emergency by U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams, military police are also peering inside restaurants and barbershops to ensure U.S. personnel are complying with health protection condition restrictions.

USFK personnel must avoid gatherings of more than 15 people. Off-base activities such as dining at restaurants and visiting barbershops, bars, movie theaters and amusement parks remain prohibited.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but every time I hear of courtesy patrols in South Korea I can’t help, but think of the Osan Shakedown Scandal.

I am not sure what else anyone would expect him to say, if you don’t train together for an extended amount of time of course it will impact readiness:

Scaling down combined military exercises between South Korea and the United States does have an impact on readiness, a former commander of U.S. Forces Korea said Tuesday.

Ret. Gen. Walter Sharp was referring to the major allied exercises that have been reduced in scope to facilitate denuclearization negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.

“I think that scaling down, and doing exercises in other ways, does have an effect on readiness,” he said during a virtual seminar hosted by the Korea Economic Institute of America.

He said he would encourage the continuation of the Combined Forces Command exercise program as a deterrent and as a readiness issue.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interview in the Stars and Stripes with the first U.S. soldier in South Korea to be infected with the coronavirus:

Army Spc. Deontae Chappel, the first U.S. service member to test positive for the coronavirus, was “shocked” but not overly worried when he found out he had the respiratory disease in late February.

But then the 23-year-old network systems clerk learned his wife and toddler also had been infected and would be joining him in a hospital isolation unit on Camp Humphreys, the main U.S. military base in South Korea.

“The saddest thing throughout the entire process was knowing that my wife and daughter caught it. If it was just me, I would say, ‘OK I’m going to prevail,’” Chappel said Tuesday in his first interview since being discharged from medical care.

Stars & Stripes

Her is the most interesting part of the interview:

“The tests were fluctuating between positive and negative the entire time,” he said, sitting in a conference room in which everyone present was placed a socially distant 6 feet away from each other.

These fluctuations in test results is likely what explains the supposed “reinfections” of South Koreans that has been making media news.

You can read more at the link, but is good to hear that SPC Chappel and his family are doing well after this ordeal.