There has been another incident involving a USFK soldier, which is really one of the oddest incidents I can remember seeing in recent years:

Police said Friday they have detained two U.S. Army soldiers for attempted rape of a policewoman.

The soldiers, identified only as a 23-year-old sergeant and a 21-year-old private first class from a U.S. base north of Seoul, tried to sexually assault the plainclothes officer in an office bathroom in downtown Seoul around 9:20 p.m. Thursday, a police spokesman said.

More from the Stars and Stripes here. What makes this story even weirder is that these two guys were picked up just hours before by the Seoul police for sexually harassing another woman in the same area. Reading through the newspaper reports, if true, which is often not the case in the Korean media it appears these two are sexual predators because this appears to me more than just some guy getting drunk and assaulting a female as we have seen happen recently before.

This latest incident has of course caused commenters on various K-blog sites to blame everything from recruiters, 2ID, the Iraq War, PTSD, gangs, to General Bell for recent incidents. Unfortunately none of this has anything to with what is going on. First of all, 2ID is not solely to blame for indiscipline in Korea. For every 2ID incident I can name another incident caused by another USFK unit. It just so happens that 2ID has the most memorable incidents especially of the taxi cab related kind.

Here is run down of incidents involving a USFK member and off post incidents over the past two years and I broke them down by Area 1 soldiers and soldiers stationed in Seoul or further south:

Area 1

Incident, Date, and Number of Soldiers Involved

Police woman sexual assault / APR07 – 2 soldiers

Grandma Rape Case / JAN07 – 1 soldier

MP Sexual Assault / OCT06 – 1 soldier

Bus Theft / OCT06 – 1 soldier

Beat Down Case / SEP06 – 1 soldier (Soldier convicted for assault though beaten by a mob of 10 Koreans. Best example that self defense laws do not apply in Korea)

Acosta Case / APR06 – 3 soldiers (Koreans later convicted for role in fight and another example that self defense laws do not apply in Korea)

False Marriage Proposal Case / JAN06 – 1 soldier

Stuff em in the Trunk Gang / DEC05 – 5 soldiers

Taxi Cab Assault / OCT05 – 1 soldier

Taxi Cab Assault / JUL05 – 3 soldiers

Beer Bottle Assault / JUL05 – 3 soldiers

LMTV Accident / JUN05 – 1 soldier (Soldier was later acquitted for the accident)

Other Areas

Incident and Number of Soldiers Involved

Taxi Cab Knifing / APR07 – 2 USFK dependents

MP Taxi Cab Assault / MAR07 – 1 soldier

Itaewon Brawl / NOV06 – 3 soldiers

Assaulted Cab Driver / NOV06 – 2 soldiers

Tip Jar Theft / APR06 – 2 soldiers

Driver Kills Korean Civilian in Road / APR06 – 1 soldier

Kangnam Taxi Cab Assault / MAY06 – 1 soldier

Gwangju Gochu-gate / FEB06 – 3 soldiers

Beer Bottle Attack on 18 Year Old Girl / FEB06 – 1 soldier

Inchon Bar Fight / JUL05 – 1 soldier

Mapo-gu Assault / JUL05 – 1 soldier

Beer Bottles Thrown at Bus / JUL05 – 3 USFK dependents

Drunk Driving E7 Hits Civilian / APR05 – 1 soldier

Osan Shake Down / MAR05 – 1 soldier

As can be seen above there is plenty of responsibility for off base incidents that can spread all around USFK and lets not forget the Shinchon Stabbing Incident involving 6 Camp Humphrey soldiers and a KATUSA in 2004. So if anyone wants to play the blame game there is plenty of blame to go around. So if someone wants to play this game, then who or what is to blame? From my experience leading a company in 2ID, soldiers with low GT scores were not the primary troublemakers for off post incidents. What this group of soldiers tended to get in trouble for was credit card and BAH fraud and theft types of crimes. These petty types of crimes is what I mostly seen this group get in trouble for. Additionally, I don’t see recruiters to blame for off post incidents in Korea either. I have a more in depth posting on this issue here.

So then is the on going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to blame. From my experience I never even had a soldier with a prior OIF/OEF deployment even get an Article 15 much less commit an off post incident. The guys that served in OIF/OEF actually tended to be the more mature guys in the unit. Some of them even had PTSD, but they received care from 2ID mental health which is quite vigorous in wanting soldiers to attend their counseling sessions. I’d rather have a whole unit of OIF/OEF vets than one with none. Take a look at the guys that commit crimes they are usually young junior enlisted soldiers which means Korea was probably their first assignment and they have not done a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan.

So then are gangs to blame for incidents in Korea? Gangs at least in Korea are more a social network than for running criminal enterprises. Military gangs in the US are mainly formed because of the drug trade. In Korea there is no way they can organize a drug trade due to the tough ROK enforcement of drug laws. However, even if a GI is a member of gang, what does that have to do with if he gets drunk and assaults a cab driver or not? Absolutely nothing.

Robert at the Marmot’s Hole asks the questions if the change in command from General LaPorte to General Bell has caused an increase in off post incidents. General Bell took over in February of 2006 and if you compare the incidents above you can see there is no increase in off post incidents, just a steady trend of incidents continued on from the LaPorte years. In the overall alcohol related statistics there has been an increase in incidents, but you also have to take in account the change in drinking age from 20 to 21 that has increased the pool of underage drinkers that get in trouble. Additionally the vast majority of alcohol related incidents happen in the ville or on post and not in the general Korean public. This increase in alcohol related incidents was the main reason why the BAC regulation was implemented.

The truth is there is no one reason to blame for these incidents. GI incidents are a product of simple statistics, the environment in Korea, and leadership. Statistics show that the trouble makers are immature young, male, junior enlisted soldiers. Guess what USFK is primarily filled with, young, male, junior enlisted soldiers so this shouldn’t be no surprise. Trouble from this group has always happened regardless of if the global war on terror is going on or not. In fact the behavior of USFK soldiers overall has increased (see here and here) over the past few years that the war has been going on.

People also need to take a historical perspective on incidents in Korea. Just a decade ago the ville was a much more violent place than what it is now. Take a look at the The Myth of GI Crimes website USinKorea maintains of incidents of GI crimes in Korea. The first documented rape that was handled by Korean courts was in 1967 and the first murder handled by Korean courts was in 1968. The first reported taxi cab related incident was in 1969. The rapes and murders continue through the years and this list is just what he was able to dig up on his own. Imagine how many more incidents happened in between the articles he was able to find.

Now let’s take a look at murders in the past 10 years before General LaPorte and General Bell have been running USFK. There was the infamous 1993 Kenneth Markle murder of a Korean prostitute in Dongducheon, followed by another murder in Dongducheon in 1996 of another prostitute by Steven Munique, then a 1998 murder by Jerome Henrix of another prostitute in Itaewon, and then the 2000 murder of another Itaewon prostitute by Christopher McCarthy. Let’s also not forget the 1997 Itaewon Burger King murder by a USFK dependent as well. This was the peace time. There was no war, recruiters, GT scores, PTSD, etc to blame. So why are all these GIs during this time in both Area 1 and Seoul going around killing people?

Now compare this with the last seven years of General LaPorte’s and General Bell’s time in command of USFK, which just so happens to coincide with the war on terror, where not one murder has occurred. In fact a USFK servicemember was more recently murdered by a Korean than vice versa. So why is there a perception out there of “Surging GI Crime” in Korea? In the 90′s the internet was not nearly as prevalent as it is today. So when incidents involving GIs happened most Korean never heard about it unless it was a major incident like the Markle case. Compare that to today where every single incident involving GIs hits the Korean media and people can discuss these incidents on the various blogs and chat rooms. This Naeil Shinmun piece for the most part provides a pretty good run down of the perception problem.

This perception problem has caused a command environment where they are trying to prevent all incidents when preventing all incidents is statistically impossible. There is approximately 50,000 USFK servicemembers, contractors, and family members in Korea. Is there a town of 50,000 people in either the US or Korea with no crime? That is what the USFK leaders are trying to create which is statistically impossible. In order to create a crime free environment, that is why a curfew is implemented, the battle buddy policy exist, the loss of driving privileges for most USFK service members, BAC regulations in 2ID, certain areas are put off limits, along with a host of other regulations. From the get go all these regulations cause a negative perception of Korea in soldiers minds once they reach the country.

Now combine all these regulations with the ville culture that promotes alcohol and sex. The ville is one of the first things these new young, male soldier experience when arriving in Korea. The ville is something that you would find in a third world country, which Korea is not, but that is what most soldiers initial experience in Korea is. These soldiers are surrounded with alcohol and juicy girls so is it any wonder that these guys take this ville mentality to the rest of Korea? Than to top it off, the few people within this population that are married are serving in Korea without their families which may moderate their behavior otherwise.

Now the primary supervisors of these young guys just happens to be the E5 sergeant rank which guess what, is filled with these young guys as well. The rank of sergeant does not carry the respect it once had because many of the people today getting promoted to E5 don’t act like an NCO. Many of them act like higher paid E4s. They would rather be buddies with their soldiers instead of leading and supervising them. The soldiers today are more coddled than in the past and this coddling is being reflected in the E5 rank. To many people are not willing to hammer a young soldier for indiscipline compared to the past. Article 15s are a great way to get a soldier’s attention, but unfortunately I don’t think they are used enough.

To make things more challenging is that the NCOs in charge of the E5s, the E6 staff sergeants, get tasked out more than any other rank. If they aren’t pulling staff duty, they are on CQ, if they aren’t on CQ they have bus monitor, if they aren’t doing that they are on a simcenter tasking, and the taskings go on and on. This leaves the platoon sergeants to really do a lot of the E5 mentoring. The platoon sergeant position in Korea is probably one of the hardest working jobs in USFK. A good platoon sergeant can compensate for the unusual USFK environment and mentor these E5s and discipline the younger soldiers. Unfortunately not every platoon sergeant is a good one which leaves these E5s to lead soldiers that they aren’t ready to lead. If the platoon sergeant isn’t up to speed than the first sergeant really has his work cut out for him keeping the unit in line. It is the same story on the officer side, commanders need to empower lieutenants to act like leaders of their soldiers. If a platoon has a poor platoon sergeant, a pro-active platoon leader may be able to compensate for this. I have seen it done before.

Now you combine all this with the one year tours where you do not have the unit cohesion you would have in a state side unit because of all the constantly rotating personnel. All of this adds up to an environment where soldiers have a negative perception of Korea once they arrive in country, do not like serving in Korea while here, and are happy to leave when PCS time comes. It is amazing that the crime rate is as low as it is. Most importantly before anyone should make claims about “Surging GI Crime” it is important to look at statistics and take a historical perspective to determine if these perceptions are true, which obviously in this case they are not.

Additionally, you can see there is no one simple answer to why incidents happen and similarly these is no one simple answer to address it. A change in policies and regulations, combined with changes in the ville culture, and improvement in unit leadership would go a long way to further reducing incidents, but there is only one way to end all incidents and that would be with the removal of USFK.