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The rumor mill about the Osan Security Squadron patrols at Osan Airbase have been swirling. You may remember the accusations made against the security personnel three weeks ago, that they were extorting bar owners for money and sexual favors during their patrols of the ville. I’ve suspected something fishy about this whole story and I may be right after hearing this latest rumor.
Apparently the Air Force lieutenant in charge of the patrols who is currently in pretrial confinement was dating a Korean girl who’s dad was extremely wealthy and owned a bunch of the bars outside of Osan. He is rumored to even have bought the lieutenant a brand new car due to him being so close to his daughter. This is the car that he is accused of extorting from a bar owner. Things were going great until he got a Russian girlfriend on the side and even secretly flew to Russia while on leave to see this girl when she left Korea. However, the Korean girlfriend found out about it some how and got pissed off and was able to get the bar owners to all accuse the lieutenant of extorting them for money and sexual favors. So you have these bar owners all telling the same story to a known anti-American civic group who goes out and protests in front of Osan Airbase and you add in the media publicity and suddenly you have a huge conspiracy at Osan Airbase.
This is a situation where the SOFA is valid because the Korean authorities cannot try him because the alledged offenses were committed while he was on duty. It is also important to remember this guy is innoccent until proven guilty.
Keep in mind this is just second hand rumor information that is just being passed around but who knows? Feel free to comment if you have anything to add because I could be completely out in left field, but I think there is more to the story then what people read in the newspaper. Either way expect more publicity on this and none of it can be good for the Air Force. This is yet another example of why I tell guys not to fool around with those girls in ville because crazy things like this happen.
2:20 pm on January 6th, 2007 1
Times havent changed. They’ve done it before and will do it again. Korean bar owners will always bend the rules, to fit the situation. Lock the post down for 30 days and see how many Koreans will complain. They use to do it. Hell, just pack up and leave Korea, who needs them? Over 30k American soldiers died defending their freedom and what do they do for us in Iraq?? Build toilets. Now they suck up to the North Koreans perpetuating that situation. Time for a wake up call South Korea!
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2:20 pm on January 6th, 2007 2
An amazing and incredible story as you have related it. Another invaluable service of your blog, GI Korea, thanks! (I fully recognize the hearsay nature of your story and that much of it as you relate is unconfirmed rumor).
Still we won’t get this kind of detail from USFK press releases, will we? Most of us won’t have the time and energy to wait a long while and then laboriously find and plow through actual transcripts of court martial offenses (assuming it goes that far; if any of this is true this LT will be lucky to avoid jail time, assuming there are the elements of proof in any potential UCMJ violations he may have committed. If there aren’t, of course his career is still over, as the USAF promotion board for CPTs will be reading about this story on his next OER).
If the story is true I hope his rater writes in on the OER in a brief paragraph summary just as you have done. A member of US military flying to Russia secretly to see his girlfriend, while assigned to ROK! The thought of such a thing is just astonishing, astonishing to one of my age. One has a horrid fascination to think about being present when various USFK colonels and generals had their first talk with this USAF LT. Analogous to one’s being present at the scene of a horrific car wreck, without being able to close one’s eyes and turn away.
What are the current specific restrictions on where USFK members can travel on leave while assigned to ROK, anyway? Can you now fly to Russia and the PRC for a tour while on leave, for example?
Maybe European Russia is ok, though I think the Russian Far East might remain off-limits for such travel due to the possibility of activity by NorK agents there. Just curious.
Back during the Cold war, US military members with a “secret” clearance, newly assigned to Europe, had to receive a very specific briefing from local intelligence staff during inprocessing, as to forbidden destinations for travel while assigned to EUCOM. Basically, every Warsaw Pact member was “off-limits”, even though civilian US citizens could be free to travel to such places as Czechoslovakia.
Amen to the US getting out of Korea. Have said this before of course, but if USAF LTs who are supposed to be focused on security patrols in what is still a war zone (armistice only with DPRK, no peace treaty was ever signed) have the time to carry on a life like this — then that’s another indicator to me that we don’t need to be there. Let the ROK military decide how much it wants to indulge itself with wealthy local and/or Russian girlfriends, bring our guys home.
That way, any US military members inclined to “a life of sin” (and possibly getting themselves court-martialed for it) can at least do so domestically. We can “do our own dirty laundry” where it won’t have national security ramifications for the future of the US and its foreign allies.
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2:20 pm on January 6th, 2007 3
Paul,
The way leave works now is that the country you are going to requires a certain rank on the signature block approving you to go there. So if you are going to the states your company commander can sign that. But if you are going to China your battalion commander would need to sign it and actually going to China from here is actually very common and the USO runs trips to the country. There are areas in Russia that require a general officers signature to go to which makes it near impossible to go to Russia. This is what that lieutenant is going to get slammed on for sure that he probably lied about where he was going on leave if that is the case because I don’t know I can just speculate. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens once the military court process gets moving. Military courts are really good at getting to the truth of the matter.
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2:21 pm on January 6th, 2007 4
“Life of sin”? In the US with US women? No chance paddles.
I see this as breaking into 3 questions that need to be resolved:
1) What did he do on duty?
2) Did he lie about where he went on leave?
3) Was he really trying to extort money from anyone? I’ll bet the Russian was trying to extort money from him.
I know here in Japan, folks have gone on leave to both Russia and Ukraine. So long as the CO knows about it and they have an intinerary and FP plan on file its no big deal.
The problem with this whole incident is the PR it gets and the ripple effects it has for elsewhere in Asia. There are boneheads already complaining about port visits to Pattaya based on the whole stupid Army “anti-prostitution” stance in Korea. If they start banning travel to Thailand, its time to head for the exit ramp. The whole point about being in Asia, is the night life…….
Makes you wonder how a bunch of smoking and drinking and girl loving guys won the Cold War!!!!
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2:22 pm on January 6th, 2007 5
Air Force Police (or Military Police for that matter) taking bribes, having relations with foreign women, breaking the law….
Shocked, I am shocked I tell you.
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2:23 pm on January 6th, 2007 6
I can assure you that Lt. Davis has done all he is accused of and much, much more.
The “juicy” clubs in Songtan pay off Osan Air Base leadership to “not notice” open prostitution and human trafficking which continues no matter what fake crackdown is being voiced. They consider payoffs to Osan leadership as a small cost in a profitable business.
Lt. Davis started leaning on the non-juicy clubs. Unlike the juicy bars, they are not doing anything illegal and had no fear in involving the Korean police (which hadn’t been done for a while due to Osan’s inaction and the feeling that the KNP were in on it — they, too, do not notice the prostitution and human trafficking).
Osan leadership is trying to say this is the work of one bad apple (Lt. Davis) but he does not have the power to put clubs off-limits and clubs know this. This can only be done by the Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board (AFDCB).
If you look at the off-limits history of Songtan clubs, you will find that the AFDCB is either corrupt or so stupid as to allow a simple town patrol Lt. to manipulate its actions.
If you are interested in more information, contact me and I will send you what I have written as this has unfolded. I have followed it very closely and have spoken with some of the key players.
J!
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2:23 pm on January 6th, 2007 7
Why not post a link or tell GI Korea about it so he can decide to post it here (or allow you to fill up a comment).
Or put the information in the hands of the Army or DoD Inspector General’s office. Any IG anywhere in the world will take your report and investigate it. Of course they may want to talk to the primary sources of your info.
If higher-ranking officers other than a LT are involved (you imply Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board and Osan AFB “leadership” may be on the take) better get the IG going on it and/or get it out in the open. If the military chain of command is only focused mistakenly on prosecuting one of the “pawns”, you’ll be doing USFK and US a service.
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2:38 pm on January 6th, 2007 8
The roots of this problem are deeper. What gives guys like the accused power to exploit is the growing “Taliban” mentality of senior leadership and the “disciplinary” control boards.
Soldier shave been having sex for thousands of years. Suddenly, because of some FOX news distortions and a few religious fundamentalist in congress, military leadership has taken it upon themselves to coerce troops into a more Christian life.
This human trafficking thing is a lame excuse. First, it assumes prostitutes are mostly human trafficking victims; not true. Second, only a small percentage of prostitution in Korea is related to USFK. There is a far bigger segment of the sex industry servicing Korean men than servicing GIs.
Under the current guidelines a service member who is five minutes late getting back to the gate has not only violated the ridiculous curfew rules, but is guilty of a “prostitution related offence” according to USFK.
The real problem is not one, or a few, bad apples. It is a system that does not acknowledge the realities of life.
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2:42 pm on January 6th, 2007 9
GI Korea – How would you solve the juicy girl problem if you were given the power? What would you do?
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2:43 pm on January 6th, 2007 10
The easiest solution is to just move everyone out of here but since that is probably IMHO 10 years down the road. The second best option is to not allow GI’s to go to clubs in the ville where third country nationals work in. If there are Russians and Phillipinos in the bar I can guarantee they are not there to mop floors so put it off limits. That simple. Then put political pressure on the Koreans to arrest bar owners that smuggle these women into the country. That would cause bar owners to adjust their business model to become more of an American club atmosphere instead of relying on the drinky girl business model that requires you only to have a run down building with Phillipino women in it to make money. The bar owners would have to actually spend money to fix up their establishments to entice customers because they would then have to compete with the on post clubs to attract customers. This would eliminate the seedy red light district atmosphere after a while and hopefully turn the ville into a more normal area. Imagine if the ville got reconstructed into more an American style town with American atmosphere, restaurants, clubs, and shopping. This would entice Koreans to want to visit the area also. Korean friends of mine have told me how much they like going inside of Yongsan because of the laid back American atmosphere. As long as the bar owners can make easy money off of Phillipino/Russian drinky girls there is no incentive for them to change.
Something else that needs to be done is to make it easier for soldiers to go to other places in Korea with a better shuttle bus service and then bring back the old warrior pass system where 10% of the soldiers could get a Warrior Pass to stay out past curfew. This caused massive competition for the Warrior Passes back in the day because they really had value. This would get soldiers out of the ville and doing other things instead of hanging out in the ville spending their money on drinky girl because they have no where else to go and if they did the curfew wouldn’t allow them to do much anyway.
Then the people who still get in trouble because there will always be those who want to buck the system, just absolutely slam them with a UCMJ action and then lock them down on post for 6 months. This would greatly discourage bad behavior in the ville. I have plenty of other ideas to get soldiers out of the ville but these are just a few of them for you.
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2:54 pm on January 6th, 2007 11
thanks for the info.
someone should promote you to do this job!!!!
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3:05 pm on January 6th, 2007 12
Oh you have to love all of the rumors in this case. Has anyone heard about the actual facts? What about the evidence for and against the Lt? Anyone that close to it? Just thought I might ask.
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12:40 pm on March 25th, 2007 13
zithromax…
news…