Tag: USFK

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.

I sure hope the US negotiators are using a possible Trump presidency as leverage during these negotiations:

A U.S. delegation for defense cost sharing talks with South Korea arrives at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul to hold a three-day fourth round of negotiations on June 25, 2024. (Yonhap)

Seoul and Washington launched the negotiations in April to renew the cost-sharing deal, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), amid the view that South Korea is seeking an early deal to avoid tough bargaining in case former U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House. 

Under Trump’s presidency, Washington had demanded more than a fivefold increase in Seoul’s payment to US$5 billion. 

The current six-year SMA, due to expire at the end of next year, committed South Korea to paying $1.03 billion for 2021, a 13.9 percent increase from 2019, and increasing the payment every year for the subsequent four years in line with the rise in Seoul’s defense spending. 

South Korea has said it seeks to have negotiations based on the position that its share should come at a “reasonable level,” to create an environment for the stable stationing of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and to strengthen the allies’ combined defense posture.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The last time she visited Camp Humphreys was in 2007. It is too bad she did not get a chance to come back and see how much larger the installation is now compared to back then:

Betty Nance Humphreys, of Fayetteville, N.C., the widow of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Benjamin Humphreys, for whom the largest overseas U.S. military base is named, died June 10 at age 93. “It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Betty Nance Humphreys, a remarkable woman whose legacy is deeply intertwined with the very fabric of our garrison,” U.S. Army Col. Ryan K. Workman, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, told Stars and Stripes by email Friday. On her last visit to Camp Humphreys, South Korea, in March 2007, she planted a tree in memory of her late husband at the base of Beacon Hill at Memorial Park, according to a post Friday on the base’s official Facebook page. “That tree stands as a living testament to their enduring love and commitment to our military family,” Workman said.

Benjamin Humphreys was assigned to the 6th Transportation Company (Light Helicopter) at what was then called Sub-post K-6. Humphreys died Oct. 13, 1961, when his H-21 Shawnee helicopter developed mechanical trouble and crashed into a rice paddy near Osan, killing him and the seven soldiers he was transporting, according to the Facebook post. The Army renamed the airfield Camp Humphreys in 1962. Today the base dubbed “the Army’s Home in Korea” is home to the U.S. Eighth Army, 2nd Infantry Division, U.S. Forces Korea, the Combined Command and the United Nations Command. The 2nd Aviation Combat Brigade is also stationed at Humphreys. The major headquarters relocated over several years from Yongsan Barracks in the heart of Seoul.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

By the way the picture of above of COL Taliento the former Camp Humphreys garrison commander in 2007 brought back memories. His dispute with the business owners outside the gate had them put up banners asking him to seek psychiatric treatment.