By It looks like there are problems once again with 2ID gate guards:
A former Camp Casey unit policeman says some South Korean security guards at the installation slept and drank on the job, routinely left an entrance barrier open, and on one occasion, let a drunken soldier with a knife leave the installation.
U.S. Army Spc. Sung Jun Kim, a tenant unit soldier provided to the garrison to assist at the gates, said he observed “gross infractions” by South Korean security guards.
“The quality of the work they’re putting out — it really threatens the safety of the soldiers who are stationed there,” said Kim, who served at Camp Casey from August 2006 to August 2007. “They are more of a danger than a safety to the base.”
Kim said he contacted Stars and Stripes because post leadership did not respond to his complaints. He said he had waited more than six weeks and had never been asked for a statement. [Ashley Rowland, Stars & Stripes]
When I last left Korea in 2005 I was not impressed with the overall quality of the gate guards who were well known for taking bribes to allow people on post to gamble until they got busted. Also the guards on the smaller camps were definitely less than adequate. There was times I would drive to Camp Castle North and the guards would be asleep in the guard shack or not even bother to check IDs and just wave us through.
When I went back to visit Korea this past June I noticed a new company had been hired to take over the security job for the 2ID camps. I found the guards to be better than the last security company in my limited dealings with them, but apparently at least with the night shift over at Camp Casey, there are still some issues.
2:47 am on October 2nd, 2007 1
Sure you can get out base without the guards noticing, but just try to steal one karaoke chip…
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6:05 am on October 2nd, 2007 2
What sort of pay do base guards receive relative to the usual “sleeping man in a box”? If more is expected over the usual TV watching, card playing, drinking, and sleeping, then the pay ought to be higher. Better yet – hire women – more work for less pay! While working at a university in Korea, I always wondered why the hard and dirty work of cleaning and lawn care was left to women while the cushy job of “sleeping man in a box” was reserved for men, who probably got paid more for doing virtually nothing or even worse. Twice, all of the motorcycles and scooters disappeared from in front of the dorms, racks included. The only possibility was that somebody got the guards to open the gate and let a large truck through.
The US army needs to fire the sleeping men and hire an all-ajumma brigade. Ajosshis are paper tigers, but ajummas are fearful lionnesses.
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7:11 am on October 2nd, 2007 3
Sonagi,
There is actually quite a number of women that work as gate guards now. More now than when I was last stationed in Korea in 2005. I don’t know if hiring a certain amount of women was part of the security contract or not but many more women are working now and like I said from my limited dealings with them back in June I found the security better but the fact some problems still remain involving sleeping and drunk ajushis does not surprise me.
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7:46 am on October 2nd, 2007 4
I was an MP many years ago and found a gate guard sleaping in the AAFES laundry building on Camp Coiner. He had his shotgun on the ground under the bench and he was out. This was when they had roaming guards, I think they did away with them.
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9:03 am on October 2nd, 2007 5
as prevalent as sleeping on the job is in korea this is not a surprise espeically up at smaller camps with no traffic
i have never seen any sleeping guards but would not disagree that it happens
and yes around yongsan there are quite a few female guards some of which are very easy on the eyes!
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3:44 pm on October 2nd, 2007 6
Anyone here ever have to do the AHA checks on Casey at night. When I was on Casey it was a running joke that when you did the check they new guy always had the closest tower to H221. When he saw your vehicle he would get on his radio and you would see the lights in every guard tower light up. Like we didn’t know what they were doing. I was caught a tower guard asleep on Hovey though. Down by 1-15 FA HQ I was able to sneak up to his tower and make him fall out of his chair. Right on about the female guards also. Casey got flooded by them. I also noticed that the new security firm actually has a PT test that the guards have to take once a year. If you sit by Casey lodge around 10 you will see them running around their building.
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4:42 pm on October 2nd, 2007 7
Back in 2002 when I was on Casey we had a company level alert at 2AM in the morning and I had to go the AHAs to pull ammo to bring to the unit. To get into the AHA you had to have the ajushi in the guard tower open the gate.
We drove up honked the horn of the LMTV and nobody came out. I ended up having to climb up to the tower and bang on it to get the two guys in there to wake up to open the gate. I can only imagine how much sleep the guys in the remote guard towers must get each night.
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10:36 pm on October 2nd, 2007 8
A UP with an axe to grind on the SGs. What DID the UPs do, anyway? I am sure that if we had 100% soldiers on the gates we would have a good amount of sleepers as well.
It isn’t an excuse, but the utter boredom of the job can’t be denied.
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6:54 am on October 3rd, 2007 9
The difference is that when soldiers sleep at the gates or drink at the gates they can be held accountable. I caught a soldier sleeping on CQ before and he received a summarized article 15.
There is a double standard with the civilian gate guards where they are not held accountable for sleeping and even drinking on duty.
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11:43 am on October 3rd, 2007 10
I’m not in the military so, can someone please explain to me why security firms are hired to provide ’security’ at U.S. military installations? Why not U.S. soldiers or even KATUSA’s?
GI..thanks for the info on battle field tours. Much appreciated.
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5:19 pm on October 3rd, 2007 11
Soldiers and KATUSAs do work with the gate guards but the various guard posts are manned by private guards. All of this is not filled with US soldiers because we would rather have our guys training all day than having them pull guard duty all day.
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8:28 pm on October 3rd, 2007 12
Then the question is, why weren’t any of these incidents immediately reported to the contract supervisor to record a contract violation? Complaints about guards or even soldiers sleeping are meaningless if nobody takes corrective action or the wrong people were informed. Stars and Stripes is definitely not the proper authority for holding the gate guards accountable to their contract. And doing so after you PCS is a little bit shady as well.
If somebody caught a guard sleeping, playing cards, etc, it begs the questions, what did you do, and who did you talk to about it?
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8:33 pm on October 3rd, 2007 13
The soldier claims that he brought it up with his chain of command and nothing happened so that is why he brought it to the Stars & Stripes attention. Which goes back to accountability why didn’t anyone discipline the guards? Like I said before I caught a soldier sleeping on CQ and he was held accountable, the civilian guards should be held accountable as well. If it takes an S&S article to do this then so be it.
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7:27 am on October 4th, 2007 14
Nothing happened because he didn’t report beyond his unit chain of command. Sounds like the unit leadership dropped the ball.
Just because a soldier says he let the chain of command know doesn’t mean the information he provided was credible, or reported to the proper authority. S&S has been known to not always verify accuracy before publishing.
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9:12 am on November 28th, 2007 15
This brought back some nostalgia. I was on the Gate Guard detail at Casey for two months back in 2001. I started it right before 9/11 and before that date the job was sweet, 2 days on 2 days off 8 hours a day. Once 9/11 hit it was 12 hours a day 7 days a week. One of the worst times in my life.
But beyond that the article rings partly true for the time I spent there. The real reason we had the Korean civilians there was for translation purposes. Quite frankly without them we wouldn’t have been able to do our job. I loved those guys. Always eating Ramen noodles and joking around with us.
I don’t remember too much sleeping going on, and the only time we did it was when another person was on watch. We always had at least two people at the gate. They actually were more professional than most the soldiers I worked with on the detail.
My most fond memory was the little puppy they raised at gate two. We had a little house for him and we would play with him during the night shift. He was great, they named him Sammy. But one day I came in and Sammy was gone. I found out that all the Korean Guards had got together and eat him!!! That is still one of my favorite stories.
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9:04 pm on November 28th, 2007 16
Adam, they have hotties on guard now, and the contractor has changed from Group 4 Falck to Joeun. Those are about the only differences.
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10:57 pm on May 30th, 2008 17
I worked the Gate as an NCOIC of the entire Enclave. When I first started it was stated by the Civilian in charge an estimated 5 million a year was stolen from the bases through the gates. How you ask? Does anyone monitor the garbage collection points? NO! So what is to keep an on base worker from putting stuff in there and the trash men barrying it? NOTHING. Random check were done and many of the DFAC workers stole food from the morning and we would catch them at 1800. It was stated to me they would resell it on the street to soldiers at 100% profit. Who monitors the fuel trucks that drop off the fuel? A soldier/NCO someone is suppose to take reading twice a week and report them…to who? what does that person do with it? Does he have the person who took the reading monitor and record what is being put in? NO…if so prove it to me with records just 1 month back. So I would assume the Koreans are stealing a few thousand Gallons a month from each installation. I know alot more…but to top it off. AND GET THIS…All the Soldiers have been taken off the GATES…so who is really monitoring now? And you people write about what did the Chain of Command do? Hello Idiots, who do you think was in charge of the detail? The 2ID Command Sergeant Major. So yes the Chain of Command is aware there are not Soldiers. They know stuff is being stolen. They know all this. But somewhere in the politics of it all we the (US GOVT) promised so many jobs to the Koreans. And that is the bottom line. Why don’t you check into how much an AAFES worker is allowed to steal and how often before he is fired? How much of the inventory actually makes it to the destination? What is the allowable amount lost? Why is the seal always broken? Think this email is gonna fix anything? Do you think the Korean Supervisors care? Rumor has it you have to pay one of them to get a position. If you don’t believe me ask some of them? Of course the ones who are working there won’t say yes or they will get fired. Ask the ones who wouldn’t pay. May take some worth. But do you want the REAL sotry or just want you want to print?
KATUSA Soldier’s were not allowed to be Unit Police.
As far as punishment goes. We would get 60 soldiers and 15 NCO’s for 90 days. They went through 1 week of training then 1 week OJT before they started. Do you think the units gave us top notch soldiers? Hell NO, we got problem children, people getting ready to PCS or ETS. We could not give them Article 15’s because we the Unit Police did not have the authority. We would have to counsel them, give them corrective training and turn the packet over to the Chain of Command. Then we had no more say. Sometimes the Chain of Command would NOT take the soldier back. Many times I would go to there barracks and wake them up if they were there. Sometimes I just had to wait for them to show back up. I had some of them sleep in the immediate area etc. The unit is more worried about mission and just wanting to let the soldier move on so they don’t have to deal with the headache or paperwork. And in today’s Army it is hard as hell to kick a soldier out. The top leadership is to worried about reenlistment rate. They (I) have been told to just continue to give them corrective training on my time i.e. after work, mornings and weekends. You don’t truly understand so much gets pawned off on NCO’s and when you take it higher sometimes it comes back to you. And thier highers are only looking for paperwork on you.
I personally witnessed the Civilian on the US side GS-12 take and ID card and fire a guy on the spot for sitting in his car. But he was in charge of alot and could not go out to each gate every hour and check each person. When he went to one Gate or when we did searches the Koreans immediatley got on their cell phones and called their buddies. We were not allowed to randomly search cars unless directed by higher or we would get an Article 15! Go figure huh…something wrong with that picture.
If I caught a soldier sleeping he would come to the main gate and pull another 8 to 12 hours outside saluting each car as it went by.
What is learnt here. Another contract to give money to the Koreans to help the country. You can get on base through the fence if you wanted. You could run the single pole with sturdy vehicle. It is a show of force only to an extent. You will not get on post without the proper ID if you come through a main entrance. I witnessed a Korean tell a military dependent on leave with her husband and she was Korean she could not come on post. I told him to refer to 190-7 and he was wrong.
Why is he allowed to work the gate if he doesn’t know the rules? Who you gonna tell?
All this will have to be in writing and enforced. If the COC doesn’t support this it won’t work.
PUT a 1LT(P) or CPT in charge with UCMJ authority
1 SFC NCOIC
3 SSG working shifts
15 SGT shifts at the gates
1. Put the UP’s back in place 60 Soldiers.
a) no switchin unless it’s and emergency
b) soldier will be immediatley replaced.
2. Let the NCO’s and soldiers report only to the OIC for checks. This will stop at least 50-75 percent of the stealing when the word gets out.
We were only allowed to check at night…???
There is a barrack right by Gate 1 that is perfect for the soldiers and NCO to sleep in. It will allow for accountability, if someone doesn’t show or is sick it’s only a 2 minute walk to get someone.
The NCOIC and OIC will each need a vehicle. One TMP and one HUMMV. The vehicle should not be an issue at all because of the nature of the mission. But believe me I can’t tell you the whole story. But it will be like pulling teeth.
Each shift will go through a roll call and inspection.
etc…it will work and save the Army money out the ASS.
there it is, like the 3rd time I have seen a problem and given a solution. This will be the 3rd time no action will be taken.
If that is not good enough bring in civilian from the US. EX Pres. Bush says it’s cheaper to contract…
Any rate we are giving money to the Koreans as part of a deal. Who’s making the money? ha ha you figure it out. If you think longer than 30 seconds…you haven’t got a clue.
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7:24 am on May 31st, 2008 18
What you bring up those of us with plenty of USFK experience know full well is going on, but in order to not rock the boat little to nothing is done about it though General Bell has for now stopped one of the big cash cows the illegal gambling operations.
General Bell has also worked on stopping the blackmarketing but as long as the AAFES employees are corrupt it will be difficult to stop. Especially when AAFES employees are only given less then a year jail terms if that for stealing millions of dollars and then are quietly rehired when everything blows over.
I knew a AAFES taxi cab driver that got fired for stealing fuel to use in his personal car and he told me everyone was doing it but it just so happen he got caught when a very infrequent random inspection happened. Little frauds like this are going on all the time on post.
Changes in the SOFA agreement to hire more military spouses on post could go a long ways to stopping the frauds but the Korean workers union would have a shit fit because they would lose jobs to American employees and the ability to continue many of the frauds going on.
This is another reason I am for Camp consolidation because with fewer camps it will be easier to monitor the frauds going on. With 2ID consolidated on Camp Humphreys this should in theory make it easier to monitor the fraud, but it will take a strong commander to make that happen.
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