As "the person that was whining that they changed it from the Korean drinking age of 18 to 21", I see no need to "go become a Korean then".

What a statement.

"I’m an American and the drinking age is 21 by federal law."

No. You are a stupid cow, Rick.

This is not America… and there is no federal drinking age. Drinking age laws in the United States are all STATE laws… and Korea certainly isn't a state.

Federal law specifically states that American military installations can adopt the drinking age of the host country.

Therefore, the drinking age for American military members in Korea is 18 or 19, depending on birth date, by FEDERAL LAW… not the nonsense you (and leadership) dreams up and tries to force down our throats.

A drinking age of 21 for American servicemembers in Korea is a decision by an appointed commander, not a law passed by elected officials.

It is the confusion of the two which is slowly undermining our constitution, destroying our country and diluting the rule of law which guides it.

"I'm an American servicemember and the drinking age is 21 by order of my commander," is a statement I can respect.

Telling Americans in Korea they have to follow non-existent American laws "or become a Korean" is irritating and offensive.

As for solutions, many good ones have been proposed. The only problem is they require leadership instead of management.

J!

You are missing my point. If the rise in ARI's are because of an increase in underage drinkers than why is there no policy to crack down on underage drinkers? Why a policy that cracksdown on everyone and then disguise it as "force protection" reasons?

As far as rational working plans I have already provided a rational working plan to crackdown on underage drinkers and it doesn't even require a mass punishment policy that is killing morale in 2ID:

http://rokdrop.com/2007/02/08/the-new-2id-alcohol…

There are 30-40 blotter incidents every week that get reported up the chain of command. Of those about 80-90% are alchohol related and about 20-25% of those are underaged drinkers. Now you complain that there is no policy letter directed at underage drinkers. There is. Policy letter #8 specifically states NO underage drinking…it doesn't get any stronger then that. And for the person that was whining that they changed it from the Korean drinking age of 18 to 21 well go become a Korean then…me I'm an American and the drinking age is 21 by federal law.

So to understand why there are so many blotter reports being sent up we have to look at the average troop in Korea. He is a young soldier, just out of AIT and he thinks that he can do whatever he wants and no one has the right to tell him no. He hasn't learned responsiblity and there is no one to teach it to him because of the war in Iraq, Korea is chronically shorthanded of NCO's and Officers. You all serve or have served in Korea so you know exactly what I am talking about.

So you have all these troops "acting the fool", causing international incidents and violating all sorts of laws from thievery to rape to willful destruction of property. So what can they do? They put in some restrictive laws that hopefully would stop as many of these incidents as they can. Now you complain about "mass punishment" and of course it is but how else did you expect them to stop it? Those who are caught DO get punished but do you see that stopping anyone? It's only a one year tour so "examples" aren't around long enough to do any good. And besides that the idea is to PREVENT an incident before it happens. So if you can pull a "Minority Report" and gaze into your crystal ball and tell us all who is going to rape who then shut up about it. If you can't come up with a RATIONAL WORKING PLAN that is better then the one they have then quit grousing.

Back when I was in Korea, granted I was in the Navy, but I remember a lot of partying going on and I don't remember a whole lot of people getting picked up by the MP's, SP's whatever about it. Why you ask? Well, a number of reasons, most notably that the culture in Korea for military people back then was far more lax than it is today, but that not withstanding, the reason we didn't have many people "on the blotter" was that we watched out for each other like a family. It wasn't something that was forced on us, like the "battle buddy" or "wingman" programs I've seen touted around. It was just an understanding that if you saw one of your buddies getting a little too drunk and rowdy, you gently steered them away from drinking and quietly escorted them back to the barracks where they could sleep it off in peace. Granted sometimes this didn't work and for those times you just kept an eye on whoever it was and kept them out of trouble.

Now given the atmosphere and culture of today, I'm not sure anything short of total lockdown is going to solve the problems we are seeing but I do agree with GIKorea in that the senior leadership is getting way too disconnected from those they are supposed to be leading. It's not 100% their fault either. It comes from an individual that who you could put through 100 years of training on how to conduct themselves while on pass, liberty, whatever you call it, and they would still do whatever the hell they pleased because it's the "ME FIRST" generation.

We're seeing the hard crackdown in Korea because:

1. The culture in the USA is so lax and there's too much emphasis put on individual rights rather than the good of whole.

2. There is no responsibility taken at any level of any part of our culture anymore. Just a growing need to "blame the other guy" and exact revenge.

3. The senior leadership as a whole is part of my (the Baby Boom) generation, and does not know how to deal with the youth of today because so many of their customs, cultures and mannerisms are foreign to us.

Allow me to get a bit radical here, most all of the problems in Korea started when "touchy-feely" liberalism snuck in the back door. Individual rights are now more important than the mission. To defend a nation you need to expect the restriction of a few personal liberties that you would enjoy on the outside for the term of your service. If you don't like that, do you your time and get out and go back to your "touchy-feely" world and leave the military alone. The way things are today, I'm surprised that every command is not assigned its own ACLU lawyer to make sure commanders aren't violating anyone's rights!!!

Time to stop, I'm getting worked up about something that I cannot do anything about. Sufficed to say that I'm glad and proud that I was able to serve my country by serving in the ROK. I'm just glad I didn't have to put up with the BS that is forced upon the USA, USN, USAF and USMC today in the name of individual liberties and rights.

To GIKorea… Good job! Keep up the good work!!!

Tim Miller (aka Exkorling)

Served in Korea (83-85, 88-92, 95-00)