U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) issued a 30-day advance notice of a potential furlough to its Korean employees, apparently to further pressure Seoul in defense cost-sharing negotiations.
Korea and the United States have been engaged in talks over how much Seoul should pay for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong USFK under their cost-sharing deal, the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), but have yet to reach a deal. “Their loss will have an impact on readiness,” USFK commander Gen. Robert Abrams said. “Unfortunately, without an agreed upon SMA, we must continue to prepare for a potential furlough.”
Absent an agreement, the furlough will begin on April 1, it said.
The U.S. Department of Defense earlier said it will fund the salaries of key Korean workers who provide life, health, safety and other readiness services, but USFK sent the notice, as required by U.S. law, to all its nearly 9,000 Korean employees as it is still unclear who will be subject to the potential furlough, it said.“We’ve explored all options that remain within my authority to delay a potential furlough due to the SMA lapse, and we will continue to explore funding alternatives up to and even during a required furlough,” Abrams said.
Via the Stars & Stripes comes word that a U.S. military dependent has contracted the coronavirus:
Pvt. Hector Mercado, 23, of the 25th Transportation Battalion, checks temperatures before allowing people to enter Camp Walker in the coronavirus-hit city of Daegu, South Korea, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020.
A U.S. military dependent who visited base facilities on a southeastern base tested positive for the new coronavirus in South Korea, officials said Monday, as they raised the risk level for the military community to high.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “informed us today a [U.S. Forces Korea] dependent in Daegu tested positive for COVID-19, making this the first time a USFK individual has tested positive,” a USFK statement said.
“USFK has raised the risk level to ‘high’ for USFK peninsula-wide as a prudent measure to protect the force,” it added.
No active-duty service members have tested positive for the coronavirus that has rapidly spread in the country over the past week, Camp Humphreys garrison commander Col. Michael Tremblay said separately at a town hall-style meeting Monday.
He said the woman who tested positive was a 61-year-old widowed dependent.
USFK said the woman had visited the post exchange on Feb. 12 and 15 at Camp Walker in the southeastern city of Daegu, which has been the epicenter of a recent outbreak.
The next rotational brigade to support the 2nd Infantry Division has begun arriving in Korea:
Tanks and other equipment are off-loaded at a port in South Korea ahead of the arrival of the Fort Riley, Kansas-based 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
Tanks and other armored vehicles rolled off a ship onto the Korean Peninsula this week in preparation for the arrival of the new rotational brigade.
The Fort Riley, Kansas-based 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, known as the Dagger Brigade, will be the eighth rotational brigade to serve in South Korea since the system began in 2015.
It is replacing the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, which will return to Fort Hood, Texas, after its nine-month rotation.
The transition comes as the U.S. and South Korean militaries are expected to begin joint exercises next month. The allies have reduced the scale of the drills in a bid to avoid antagonizing North Korea amid stalled diplomatic efforts to persuade it to give up nuclear weapons.
This is all pretty much common sense advice from the USFK commander that everyone should be following whether there is a coronavirus or not:
Masked commuters travel through Seojeong-ri Station, north of Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020.
USFK commander Gen. Robert Abrams said good hygiene practices and minimum contact with anybody who has returned from mainland China in the past two weeks or is exhibiting cold or flu-like symptoms are the best prevention measures.
Anybody who detects symptoms themselves should go to the doctor and stay home, he said in a statement on the website.
“More importantly, do not go to work or school. Stay at your home or in the barracks while you are recovery,” he said. “We must do our best to prevent the spread or it will have a significant impact on our ‘Fight Tonight’ readiness!”
He also promised the situation was being monitored “very closely, around the clock.”
“We currently assess a low threat or risk to our USFK formations and installations,” he said. “We will keep you informed as the situation develops and if our assessment changes.”
I think everyone saw this one coming and this is not the first time this has happened:
Camp Humphreys, the Army’s sprawling garrison south of Seoul, as seen in 20
The U.S. military has warned of likely service delays at Camp Humphreys and possible furloughs for thousands of South Korean employees as Washington and Seoul remain deadlocked over cost-sharing.
Nearly a month after the expiration of the previous Special Measures Agreement, under which South Korea shares the costs of stationing some 28,500 U.S. forces in the country, the garrison told residents to brace for delays to services.
“Due to the Special Measures Agreement lapse and implementation of USFK austerity measures, including cessation of overtime pay for Korean National employees, USAG Humphreys will experience some delays to certain installation services,” such as the post office and after-hours maintenance work, according to a message posted on its Facebook page.
Some bus routes operating after 1 a.m. also have been cut back due to the lack of overtime pay.
This is not a surprise considering the North Koreans have been so far this year behaving:
This file photo taken Nov. 17, 2019, shows Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo.
South Korea and the United States will modify their springtime combined exercises in order to support diplomatic efforts to denuclearize North Korea, the defense ministry said Tuesday.
Since the nuclear negotiating process began in 2018, the South and the U.S. have either scaled back or made other modifications to joint military drills in an effort to avoid provoking Pyongyang that has long denounced such maneuvers as a rehearsal for invasion.
“We’ve been smoothly preparing for planned combined drills,” a senior ministry official said. “If diplomatic efforts are under way, we will conduct (the drills) within the bounds to be agreed upon between the South and the U.S.”
The stance was part of the ministry’s comprehensive policy plan for the new year, which Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo reported to President Moon Jae-in at the Gyeryongdae military headquarters in the South Chungcheong Province in the day.
In line with the policy, the two countries are expected to replace their usual large-scale springtime exercise, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle maneuvers, with a computer-simulated command post exercise (CPX), called Dong Maeng, just as they did last year.
You can read more at the link, but Dong Maeng means “alliance” in English and it is what they replaced the UFL exercise with last summer. It looks like Key Resolve is going to use the same name. Even with the downsized exercise and name change the North Koreans still complained about it last year.
For some reason I bet there is far more than one person involved in black-marketing, it appears this guy just made it super obvious:
Shoppers entering the commissary no longer need to show identification on Camp Humphreys, South Korea, on Friday, Sept. 13, 2019.
A U.S. military retiree has been banned from bases in South Korea over allegations of buying excessive duty-free goods and black marketing, officials said Friday.
The move came nearly four months after U.S. Forces Korea, the main command on the peninsula, lifted monthly commissary purchase limits and eased other shopping restrictions intended to prevent such infractions.
The retiree, who lives in South Korea but was not otherwise identified, was banned Dec. 10 “from all U.S. military installations and facilities in (South Korea) for 10 years, for excessive purchasing of duty free goods and black marketing,” according to a post on the Camp Humphreys Facebook page.
In recent months I made my way up to Uijeongbu to visit friends and we ate dinner at a budaechigae restaurant near where the old USFK military bases Camp Kyle and Camp Sears were located. For people that have never seen Camp Kyle before, here is what it looked like before it closed in 2005:
Camp Kyle 2005
From the restaurant I could look right into where Camp Kyle was once located. Currently there are no buildings standings and essentially the land is slowly being reclaimed by nature:
Long time ROK Heads may remember that Camp Kyle was at the center of environmental pollution claims made by the anti-US groups and the ROK media at the time. For example the ROK media was claiming that Camp Kyle was so polluted that people had to walk around in “anti-contamination suits” to protect themselves. I knew this was bogus and did something no one in the Korea media decided to do and actually visited Camp Kyle. Of course I saw no one wearing anti-contamination suits.
Google Earth image showing what Camp Kyle looks like today.
Regardless Camp Kyle remained one of the frontlines in the USFK pollution debate with the ROK government demanding that U.S. pay to decontaminate the soil at the camp. ROK Heads may remember that the pollution clean up costs have come up during the ongoing US-ROK alliance cost sharing negotiations this month.
After eating dinner we then took a walk around the Geumo-dong neighborhood towards where Camp Sears used to be located.
Walking through Komo-dong neighborhood towards where Camps Sears used to be located.
For those that have never been to Camp Sears here is how it looked back in 2005:
Camp Sears 2005
This is what Camp Sears looks like today:
Google Earth image showing what Camp Sears looks like today.
Besides the typical commercial buildings that have gone up around the old camp, a couple of major government buildings have been constructed right on where Camp Sears was once located. The first is a Uijeongbu government service building:
Uijeongbu government services building
The other is the Northern Gyeongi-do Provisional Police headquarters:
Around these buildings a number of parks have been constructed on the old Camp Sears property, however they are not being maintained:
You would think that with all the money spent on these new government buildings there would be enough money left over to pay a gardener:
Around the government buildings there is now a road that has been constructed, Cheongbo-ro which is named after the mountain behind the old camp, Cheonbosan:
A walk completely around the old camp and could find no sign of the existence of the former camp anywhere. Adjacent to Camp Sears there used to be an area that housed ROK Army fuel storage tanks. This property now has a major construction project underway on it:
After walking around Camp Sears we then walked over to the major Geumo-dong shopping district that has not changed much since 2005 when Camp Kyle and Sears closed.
The Home Plus remains the major shopping attraction in the Geumo-dong neighborhood:
It may be hard to believe, but prior to 2000 this shopping area was actually home to various farms. The closing of Camp Kyle and Camp Sears is just a continuation of South Korea’s incredible development. The camp’s are mostly a long forgotten memory for people that live there, just like the farms the shopping district now sits on top of.
Ambassador Harris says that USFK will not be withdrawn as a result of the ongoing cost sharing negotiations or any deal with North Korea:
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris speaks with The Korea Times at the U.S. Embassy in downtown Seoul, Dec. 23. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris, like his predecessors, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the bilateral alliance and the presence of American troops in the South irrespective of the situation.
His reaffirmation, however, seems more meaningful now because it comes amid concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump is using a half-century-old alliance as a bargaining chip and that the alliance is unraveling.
“American forces are here to stay … It’s not an American decision, not a Korean decision — it’s an alliance decision like many of the decisions we have taken in the past years and decades,” Harris said in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times at the U.S. Embassy in downtown Seoul last week. (………..)
Against this backdrop, Harris said, “There is no contemplation of U.S. forces leaving the Korean Peninsula, either as an outcome of Special Measures Agreement discussions or as an outcome of relationships with North Korea.”
It looks like the U.S. might sending a message back to the North Koreans about what could happen in response to their “Christmas Present”:
This photo uploaded at the Defense visual Information Distribution Service (www.dvidshub.net) on Dec. 16, 2019, shows South Korean and the U.S. special forces conduct close quarters battle training as part of their regular training at Kunsan Air Force Base, South Korea on Nov. 11, 2019.
Special forces of South Korea and the United States carried out regular combined drills last month at a South Korean air force base under the scenario of raiding an enemy camp and capturing an agent, apparently targeting North Korea.
According to photos released by the U.S. military, the U.S.’ Special Operations Command Korea and South Korea’s Special Warfare Command conducted “close quarters battle training” at Kunsan Air Base located in South Korea’s western city of Gunsan in November as part of their regular training program.
