By The wild and crazy summer for USFK continues. The Stars and Stripes is starting to read like a police blotter. First this incident down in Seoul:
A U.S. soldier was charged over the weekend with using a beer can to assault a Korean teacher, according to officials at the foreign affairs section of Seoul’s Mapo police station.
Police said the soldier, a 30-year-old sergeant first class, was drunk and confronted the Korean man at about 2 a.m. Saturday in Seoul’s Mapo district. The soldier took the Korean man’s can of beer and began hitting him on the head with it, the police said.
No taxi cabs or beer bottles involved so it must be a Yongsan soldier.
Then there is this from Camp Humphreys:
An Army sergeant based at Camp Humphreys pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges stemming from accusations he tried to abduct a South Korean woman as she walked home, picking her up, throwing her down and beating her when she resisted.
Read the rest of the article but this guy is obvious scum. Hopefully the Koreans throw the book at him.
Then finally a verdict on the Camp Red Cloud soldier arrested for a taxi cab related incident in Okinawa:
U.S. Army soldier found guilty of robbing a cab driver of about $55 in May was given a prison sentence Tuesday in Naha District Court.
Pvt. James Joiner Jr. 20, formerly of Camp Red Cloud, South Korea, had pleaded guilty to attacking Sakae Kuba, 56, in Okinawa City and was sentenced to 2? years in prison with forced labor. No part of the sentence was suspended.
Just think about this, this was a 20 year old kid on his way home after spending a year in Korea, gets layed over in Okinawa, then gets drunk and stupid, and now will spend 2 1/2 years in prison; life ruined. He says he never would of committed the crime if it wasn’t for alcohol.
I don’t know if acts of indiscipline are up overall this summer or just that USFK is under a bigger microscope than it normally is by the media, thus the appearance of more incidents. I do know the USFK leadership must be frustrated by this and I wouldn’t be surprised if some big policy changes come into effect to deal with this problem. Stay tuned.
2:28 pm on February 18th, 2007 1
Yeah, but that Japanese Okinawan taxi driver must’ve provoked the GI by trying to rip him off. So I think we can understand the GI, the way he felt.
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2:38 pm on February 18th, 2007 2
That jail sentence is actually unusual for a case of that type, I’ve seen similar folks get a year or 6 months. I think the guy had several strikes against him:
1) Timing, there were some high profile inicidents involving Marines there around the same time.
2) Okinawa wants the US to commit to reduced forces on the Island.
3)The guy obviously did not make the right words of remorse which usually helps get the sentence lowered.
4) He was from Korea…..which does not help.
Either way its game over for the guy. My bet is he will do a year then be released and banned from ever entering Japan again , discharged with a BCD and sent on his way, all because he could not just pay a cab driver and go along his way.
It also higlights the types of incidents these days. This was not just a guy getting drunk and stupid, this was a criminal act.
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2:40 pm on February 18th, 2007 3
Hey, thanks for your flattery and deliberate misrepresentations.
But I thought E-stripes which reported the naughtieness was a US army publication. Maybe you should write to them for over reporting GI misbehaviors. Or do you only get upset if when Korean publications report them?
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2:41 pm on February 18th, 2007 4
Just a side note on “double punishment”:
The soldiers in these incidents, if convicted by host country courts and incarcerated, will almost certainly not be retained by the Army after they serve their sentences but instead administratively discharged, probably with a “general” or “other-than-honorable” discharge (not sure about “bad conduct” or “dishonorable” discharges, I think these are reserved as “punishment” measures for the results of a US military court-martial).
Such an “administrative” discharge is not considered to be “punishment”, as strictly defined by the UCMJ and by military regulations (though the soldier may refer colloquially to such a discharge as “punishment”).
If he was in a US civilian prison the military might proceed with such a discharge immediately, but for a military member incarcerated overseas I think Uncle Sam would wait until he is released before proceeding with administrative dismissal, so that he retains his SOFA protection until then.
The idea that tough (but basically good-hearted) old soldiers can get into trouble, be thrown in the “guardhouse”, lose their stripes, and then come back and re-earn them by “soldiering” on is at least 40-50 years out of date (I suppose this stereotype survives due to its prevalence in many old movies).
But in fact there’s no “second chances” anymore. If a young guy gets drunk, takes a swing at a taxi driver, and it gets reported officially (and he goes to jail), he’s almost certainly ruined any chance at a career in the military. From a long distance I sense that it’s likely that host country nationals (such as the taxi drivers) sense this and that may be why some of them are provocative in their conduct toward US military (like the so-called sun visor “damage” to the taxi incident, as reported by the GI in an earlier entry).
If the offender is considered “redeemable” by his immediate chain of command and they can keep it out of the courts, this may not be true. But the problem with such incidents getting big play in host country press is that it inevitably heightens the visibility, and higher chain of command may take the final dispositon of the incident out of the hands of the immediate c of c.
Only the guys on the spot, in particular the chain of command can be the judge of this. If you are a young guy and happen to be involved in such an incident at a time when such things are receiving intensive scrutiny — too bad for you.
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2:41 pm on February 18th, 2007 5
But does collective punishment work? at least long term?
When was the curfew started?
Your question was good. In the US, when the media covers one story, they seem to notice more of them popping up here and there I guess because they start noticing it. But Korea is a lot smaller in size and in other ways. And they have been focused on GI crimes for a long time. So, my guess is that for some reason you have more GIs doing criminal things or getting caught in a bad situation.
The thing that gets me about people like Tom and Korean society overall is that —-
in the end of the day, nearly all, if not every one, of these GIs in the incidents will be punished. I believe most will be punished twice. 1st, they will either plead guilty or be found guilty in a Korean court. And a Korean judge will give them a sentence, and from what I’ve watched over the years since 1995, the sentences are most usually in line with what I’ve seen a Korean get for a similar conviction. Then, the soldier will probably be punished by the US military. The punishment on that side probably starts soon after the accusation — with detention and loss of priveledges.
People like Tom and Koreans react with outrage at the very face a US soldier would commit a crime, and they claim Korea or the outside world is “powerless” to do anything, and the military just shrugs its shoulders.
But, the US military has authority over the civil liberties of a soldier civilian police and courts in the US would love to have, but the ACLU would die of a heartattack if they did.
So, you have a handful of the 32,000 soldiers left in Korea who get into street fights with one or more Koreans.
And the soldiers are charged with a crime and punished by Korean law and the US military.
But this is such a moral outrage, people just can’t stand it????
The only way this makes sense to me is if Tom-like claims are true — that the few acts reported are “just the tip of the iceberg” and many more similar and worse actions go unreported but Korean society has to suffer them — then perhaps the sense of moral outrage fit.
But it is hard to believe watching this for years that the Korean media knows about many more such incidents but sits on them.
And let’s look at a flip-side angle.
In my opinion, Korean society is wrongheaded for how much attention it pays to bad behavior by some Koreans abroad.
You see articles like it every few months. A Korean-Korean will be in a foreign country and do something bad, and the Korean press will cover it. Or a Korean born in another land or having immigrated to another land will do something very bad, and the Korean media will cover it.
Or even with something like the big organized crime and prostitution bust in the US this year. Korean society reports it like some sense of national shame.
If these bad acts were a sign of a much, much bigger problem, or say if the Korean mafia was causing huge problems in the United States, maybe I could understand why the Korean media feels the need to lament such events.
But it makes little sense to me….
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2:41 pm on February 18th, 2007 6
Commands need to crack down and let soldiers know that ANY incidents will NOT be tolerated. Plain and simple. If it means soldiers don’t get to go out on pass, then that’s what it means. If it means clubs and bars are off limits, you reap what you sow.
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2:52 pm on February 18th, 2007 7
The Stars and Stripes is not run by the military. It is an DOD approved newspaper that primarily covers the military. But they are free to publish whatever they want. There is often many editorials critical of Army policy in the Stars and Stripes including one this week critical of USFK not doing enough to stop incidents from happening here in Korea. It is definitely not an Army mouthpiece. Here is this from the Stars and Stripes website:
Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community. Editorially independent of interference from outside its editorial chain of command, it provides commercially available U.S.and world news and objective staff-produced stories relevant to the military community in a balanced, fair, and accurate manner. By keeping its audience informed, Stars and Stripes enhances military readiness and better enables U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship.
— Revised DoD Directive 5122.11
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2:52 pm on February 18th, 2007 8
Notice the phrase tom-”like” attitude.
The kind of attitude that just pops out one sentence like this — “Yeah, but that Japanese Okinawan taxi driver must’ve provoked the GI by trying to rip him off. So I think we can understand the GI, the way he felt.”
So the Stars and Stripes reported them.
Are you thus claiming I misrepresented how the Korean media works?
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2:55 pm on February 18th, 2007 9
I agree that the KNPs do not target Americans. My last comment shouldn’t be interpreted as meaning such. In my time in Korea, I also encountered a number of drunk checkpoints, and I was almost universally waved through because of my USFK license plate. Something that has always irked me is the horrible driving habits that Americans suddenly adopt as soon as they start driving in Korea. Some of these guys have caused serious accidents, bringing a lot of hurt to Korean citizens. Consider the case that really pushed LaPorte and Campbell over the edge: when the drunk E-6 plowed into a bunch of Koreans while driving drunk from Songtan to Suwon. This guy lived on-post, but he had a car? Why did he have a car? Taking POVs away from E-5s and E-6s was a good call.
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5:17 pm on January 28th, 2008 10
I am the soldier who was convicted of robbing the taxie cab in Okinawa Japan on the early morning of May 10 2005. I spent 2.5 years in yokosuka prison. I spent my entire sentence. No parole. For a crime that I dont even know if I commited. I have read read some of these blogs “and i am going to read the rest” and I am going to tell you how it happened. Or what I know of the night.
On my way home, my plane was delayed, so I went out drinking. I took a cab to the bars from base. I was drinking taquilia and beer. Last thing I remember was watching a stripper. Next thing I know I wake up in the police station. They told me they convicted me because my finger prints were on the cab. Well, I know i took a cab to get to the bars but I do not know if I robbed the cab.
Now, i am not saying i did not rob the cab. But every one who knows me knows I am not the type of person to robb someone else. But again, I am not saying I did not do it. I just wish I knew for certain. 2.5 years is a long time to be incarcerated for something i am not even sure i did.
If someone wants to ask me about the incident, please contact me at the contcts below. Just ask for Private Joiner or Jaybo.
email- UncleBubba1985@aol.com
Phone- 318-535-8441
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12:34 pm on January 29th, 2008 11
It sucks to see someone so young go to jail like that. Hopefully others will learn from your experiences. Good luck to you.
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