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USFK commander takes war cue from Iraq By Franklin Fisher, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Sunday, June 29, 2007 CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — The top U.S. military commander in South Korea plans steps to ensure U.S. forces are ready to counter any Iraq-style insurgency tactics that North Korea might try to use in a conflict on the peninsula. In a brief interview with Stars and Stripes on Friday, U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Walter Sharp said he thinks it’s likely North Korea has been keeping close watch on the tactics used by insurgents in Iraq and would no doubt...

PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — Although he retired last week after hitting the 30-year mark, a father has passed a legacy of Air Force service to his son at Kunsan Air Base. Chief Master Sgt. Owen Powell retired during a Wednesday ceremony at Kunsan’s Loring Club. During the same occasion, his son, Staff Sgt. Jon Powell, re-enlisted. “I tried to think of doing something to make my father’s last year in the Air Force a memorable one,” Jon Powell was quoted as saying in a wing news release. Service at Kunsan isn’t the only connection the two have to South Korea:...

American troop levels to be constant for ‘foreseeable future’ SEOUL — The United States will pause the drawdown of its troops in South Korea, military officials from both countries said Monday. President Bush and new South Korean president Lee Myung-bak agreed to the pause during their Camp David visit Friday and Saturday. It was the first meeting between the two leaders, and several political experts in Seoul see the agreement as a signal of improved relations between the two countries under Lee’s leadership. Under the pause, the U.S. will maintain its current level of about 28,000 troops “for the foreseeable...

SEOUL — As they chatted over pricey cups of coffee on the top floor of Seoul’s ritzy Shinsagae department store, Kim Eun-jun and her girlfriends were barely two miles from the largest U.S. military base in South Korea, but they were a world away. All in their mid- to late-30s, the women said they rarely think about the thousands of U.S. troops stationed at the base in the heart of the city. “We aren’t the generation that went through the war,” said Kim, a 35-year-old translator. “That may be the reason we don’t care or worry about national defense issues.”...

SEOUL — On a recent weekday evening, Pfc. David King was one of just a trickle of U.S. soldiers strolling through Itaewon, the bar and restaurant district outside the Army’s Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. And that’s a shame, the 22-year-old said. Whenever he goes off post — especially outside of Itaewon — he gets a warm welcome from South Koreans, who he believes support the U.S. military presence here. U.S. troops sometimes get a less-than-friendly greeting in Itaewon, he said, because South Koreans there see the troops at their worst — looking for women and cheap drinks. But for the...

SEOUL — South Korean defense officials will ask the United States on Tuesday for a pause in the drawdown of U.S. troops stationed here, according to numerous South Korean media reports. The reports, which cited anonymous South Korean defense officials, come less than a month after U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. B.B. Bell told a congressional committee that he expects South Korea’s new president to ask for the pause so the countries can study the future of the drawdown. Bell testified March 12 that President Lee Myung-bak could make the request as early as April, when Lee is scheduled to...

(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING MORE INFO) The United States and South Korea agreed Friday that Washington will return wartime operational command of South Korean armed forces to Seoul in April 2012, the U.S. Defense Department said. The agreement was reached during a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and South Korean Defense Minister Kim Jang Soo, the department said. The deal came after the United States, which has proposed returning wartime operational control in 2009, accepted South Korea's request for the transfer in 2012. Seoul has cited the need for more time to become defensively self-reliant. The current half-century-old...

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. Today's Regional Briefing focuses on Korea, courtesy of Robert Koehler in Seoul. Top Topics WOC's very own Robin Burk did a bang-up job analyzing Nick Eberstadt's The Persistence of North Korea as presented in Policy Review. The Flying Yangban contributes his thoughts on Eberstadt's piece as well. Manchurian Incident: Part II? The Republic of Korea may or may not have placed a (qualified, perhaps) territorial claim on a large chunk of the Chinese Northeast. The Chinese have or may not have reciprocated with plans to annex...

Kerry Might Reconsider USFK Reductions: Sandy Berger WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sandy Berger, former White House National Security Advisor and key foreign policy and security advisor to Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry, hinted Wednesday that should Kerry win the U.S. presidential election in November, it was possible that the decision to reduce U.S. troops in Korea would be reconsidered. In a keynote address for an international symposium entitled "Regionalism in Northeast Asia: Opportunities and Challenges," hosted by Johns Hopkins University and the Maeil Business Newspaper, Berger said USFK reductions were inappropriate, claiming that pulling 12,000 troops out of Korea at...

/begin my translationRumsfeld, "God damn it! Get them out!" U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Upon watching a bleeding American soldier from TV last year, Professor Moon Jung-in revealed the behind-story of sped-up U.S. pullout Cho Hyung-rae date: 08/27/2004 18:40 26' Moon Jung-in(professor of Yonsei Univ), the Chairman of Presidential Advisory Committee for N.E. Asian Age, told today (Aug. 27), "The scaling-back of U.S. troops in S. Korea is basically the result of changing U.S. global strategy since 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, 'small' mistakes(such as anti-American protests) sped up the process." Chairman Moon said at the monthly breakfast meeting sponsored by International...

The U.S. Pulls Key Military Equipment out of Korea to Iraq It has been confirmed that in connection to the redeployment of the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division from Korea to Iraq, the U.S military has been shipping key combat equipment that doesn’t belong to the 2nd Brigade to Iraq. The equipment includes M-1A1 Abrams tanks, M-109A6 self-propelled Paladin howitzers and other equipment belonging to the 8th Army and artillery brigades under the 2nd Infantry Division. Since the U.S. had notified Korea that only the 2nd Brigade would be sent to Iraq, it is expected that...

Kim's Great Game The U.S. can't seem to stop him. Asia doesn't know if it loves or hates him. So the position of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il looks stronger than everBy Anthony Spaeth Posted Monday, June 14, 2004; 20:00 HKT Lee Myong Sok grew up in the town of Dongducheon, just 20 km south of Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the grotesquely fortified no-man's-land rimmed with razor wire, heavy military hardware and tens of thousands of soldiers. When he was a boy, Lee lived on "army-base stew": leftover meals from U.S. military canteens, which he would throw into...

The United States plans to withdraw 12,500 troops from South Korea by the end of next year as part of a global troop realignment, a senior South Korean official announced. "The United states informed us of its plan to pull out 12,500 troops by the end of December 2005. That figure includes 3,600 to be sent to Iraq," said Kim Sook, the head of the foreign ministry's North American affairs bureau. Washington currently stations 37,000 troops in South Korea under a five-decade-old mutual defense pact. "US troops will eventually be reduced to 25,000," Kim added at a televised press conference...

Title: "US Soldier Brings Heart to Korean Children" By Byun Duk-kun Staff Reporter (KOREA TIMES, SEOUL, KOREA)Michael Schardinger, 28, 2nd Lt., U.S. Army 168 Medical Battalion stationed in Taegu, S. Korea, has an interesting resume. Two years ago when he left Korea after a four-year tour, he was a noncommissioned officer and military nurse. In April, he came back for his second Korean tour as an Army officer. This time, he is not a nurse, but a hospital manager at the same unit he served on his previous stint here. But what’s unique about him is that he is...

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — More than 400 South Koreans gathered outside this American air base Wednesday to support the U.S. military and call for an end to North Korea’s nuclear-arms development. The rally was an oddity following a month with tens of thousands of anti-American protesters filling the capital’s streets demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops and a revision of the legal guidelines governing servicemembers in South Korea’s legal system. The catalyst was the acquittal of two U.S. soldiers who were manning an Armored Vehicle Launched Mine Clearing Line Charge that crushed to death two 13-year-old South Korean...